Photos

I found these pictures that I meant to post from two weeks ago. I never got to it, so here they are now.

 

Wednesday we didn't get a room. We were out in the open area with a curtain drawn around Brian's chair. The kids were a bit wild and cranky. And, yes, I let Brian wear his PJ pants and white undershirt out in public!! I am going to blame that fashion choice on the fact that we were headed to chemo and I didn't care what he looked like or what anyone thought. That was the day that Fred had to drive to Orlando and back for a one hour and ten minute meeting. I think his day was worse than ours because he hated to miss Brian's chemo appointment.

 

 

 

We were ALL super tired and grumpy on Thursday. Here we are piled up on the bed watching Disney Jr. (Fred was sitting in the chair beside the bed.)  

 

Another Week Complete

 

 Another week of chemo is behind us. It was a rough one. Brian fought a lot on Monday when they had to access his port and today when the needle was taken out. Brian got sick on Tuesday, day two of chemo, and Fred had to drive to Orlando (and back) on Wednesday for a required one hour training. We've had a long week.

 

 We also learned on Monday that Brian's counts were at 720. They are suppose to be at 750 to receive chemo but the doctor said it was close enough, so we went ahead with treatment. However, we can expect Brian to be neutropenic in the coming days as the chemo starts to take it's toll. (Remember below 500 is neutropenic.) Because of this we will not be doing much outside of the home the next few weeks.

These things have become a part of our norm. I'm afraid that we have gotten "too good" at juggling all we have going on. Perhaps we don't let everyone see the pain and difficulty as often as we should. Or perhaps we don't even know how to answer questions like, "what do you need?"  

 

I had a whole long post typed up but just deleted it. All I will say is that God has been working mightily in our marriage and in our parenting as a result of all we have going on. For that we are thankful and we do see the good (Rom 8: 28). Just because we see the good, and we are blessed by God's work in our life, that doesn't mean that we don't struggle and have difficult days. This week has been difficult. 

 

Please keep praying for our family and for precious Brian Robert. He has a MRI on Wednesday of next week. Those are always done with sedation.

 

Here are some pictures of Brian from Tuesday when he got sick. We are thankful that it is just day two that completely knocks him out.  

 

At it again

We're at it again this week. Brian started chemo yesterday. His appointment wasn't until 1:30 PM, so we did some school work in the morning. (Typically we don't do too much during a chemo week.) While I was working with Ansley and William, Brian and Liv were drawing and coloring. I took a picture of Brian's art work because it made me super sad. He spent the entire morning consumed with thoughts of chemotherapy. The picture on the left is Brian sitting on the hospital bed playing with the iPad. The picture on the right is the pump on a pole. The huge thing coming out of the pole on the right side is the tubing that attaches to Brian. He drew it huge because, in his mind, lots of medicine goes into him.

 

 

But you can see, even though he was describing chemo and saying, "I'm scared", he has a huge smile on his face. He's such a sweet boy!

Yesterday was draining. Brian fought a bunch more than typical and he cried and screamed. We ended up having to physically restrain him. Brian has a look of terror and disappointment right after his port is accessed that just crushes us.

Please pray for Brian this week as he receives his chemo treatments. We pray every day that these treatments and this protocol would work.