Not Much Is Going On Around Here

I am usually one of the first people in the chemo room on treatment days. We always scheduled treatments for as early as we could because it used to take all day and we just kept it that way. For the first couple of hours Warner and I both get to sit in recliners because the room takes a while to fill up, but eventually Warner has to move to a roll-y chair that the nurses move around and also use so he occasionally gets bumped from his chair temporarily. No big deal really. Well, there is one nurse who is kind of loud and she embarrassed the heck out of Warner yesterday by yelling to him from across the completely full room (she needed his chair),

Nurse: Mr. Bradley, I need your chair

Warner: Okay

Nurse: Sorry I would have called you by your first name, you're too young to be Mr. Bradley. What's your first name?

Warner: It's Warner

Nurse: Warren?

Warner: no, Warner

Nurse: Okay, Warner I need your chair.

EVERYONE was staring at him and he turned slightly red. Way to not draw attention to us! So now everyone knows who we are, although we already stand out in there because we are so young. I thought we had always done a good job of flying under the radar, but the first week I walked into chemo after Washington, I was amazed at all the people who commented and mentioned they had been praying for me and such.

So, in other news I have switched from daily Lovanox shots to taking Coumadin and my stomach is thankful. I'll have to post a picture of my stomach - it was dark dark purple and probably the worst bruise I have ever seen. I'm also getting my stomach tube out sometime soon - I'm waiting to hear when the appointment will be. I'll still have the feeding tube but that one is bearable - it's the drainage tube that gives me problems and I'm not using it any more so it just hurts all the time - so it is time for it to go. Well, that's all I've got for now.

Growing Back Muscles Is Hard Work

I have been a terrible blogger lately but the truth is, apart from telling you that everything is going great, I've got nothing to say! Or at least, I don't find most of it interesting, maybe you all would disagree, so here you go.

We have finally gotten a step ahead of all the nausea and dehydration (this past week at chemo I didn't even need extra fluids) and I have had really good weeks since getting back from Washington, granted, any week that I don't go to the hospital is a good week! I have gained a significant amount of weight in the past two weeks - I'm up from 115 to around 130, but I'm still wearing a size 4 or 6 in pants which means I have been shopping a few times! My plan is to get my weight around 140 and keep it there, so we will see how that goes. I have stopped using the stomach drainage tube (I still have it, it's just closed) and I guess as long as things keep going well with that I'll get it out eventually. I still use the feeding pump. but it now just runs through the night and in the morning, which means I get to unhook from it all afternoon. Since I started gaining weight so quickly after Washington, because I am eating more by mouth, we do less food by the feeding tube. We couldn't do this before when I had the drain tube open because everything I would eat and drink would just come out through there and basically I relied completely on the feeding pump. The IV pole can also be a pain to push around so it's really nice to have some freedom from it for a little while each day once my pump is done - it's much easier to go shopping without it.

So I have been eating about three meals a day by mouth - I still can't eat a whole lot at a time, but I do snack a lot in between meals. Hopefully I'll be completely independent of all my tubes here soon and they can come out! I've been cooking a good bit as well - something I've missed doing! I even bought a cute little apron from World Market the other day. I also bought a ton of new cake decorating supplies from Hobby Lobby yesterday and I can't wait to try them all out!

I always joke with Warner that growing back all my muscles is really hard work. Because I'm feeling so well, I'm usually super exhausted by the end of the day and since my muscles didn't get used for so long, they have been super sore lately! Especially my legs!! But I'm slowly getting more endurance and getting around better. Well, that's all the updating I have for now - I think I've rambled on long enough. I'll try to keep up with this thing more often now!

Oh! If you need Haley's address sent to you so you can send her your bracelet money, email me - sobradley@gmail.com , or leave your email address in the comment section so I know where to email it to.

Just A Quick Note

My awesome friend Haley has mailed out the bracelets that she has finished so be watching your mailboxes. If you have not sent her the money for them, they are ten dollars each and I can get you her mailing address or you can send me the money and I will get it to her. I will post an update about us at some point in the near future - maybe even with pictures!! I know you guys miss me terribly, right?

A Much Needed Break!

Here are a few pictures from where we've been lately! Now you'll understand why we've been MIA from the blog. I'll post more pictures and stories later on. Enjoy these for now.

The view on top of Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park - it was awesome!

On top of Hurricane Ridge

The Hoh Rainforest - they were experiencing a drought while we were there!

This is "sunset" at Rialto Beach - it was quite foggy!

Rialto Beach

Dungeness Spit! It was pretty neat out there.

This is at the Lavender Farms - definitely one of our favorite parts of the trip.

There were so many flowers out there and the lavender smelled soooo good!

There were fields and fields of lavender!

This is at the Dockside Grill at the John Wayne Marina where we ate for our anniversary dinner. The food was okay but it lacked the cajun spices!

The made a really good seafood bisque though.

Crescent Lake - the water was absolutely gorgeous!

Crescent Lake

Crescent Lake

The sunset over Hurricane Ridge.

The view from Hurricane Ridge

The sun set at like 9:00 so it was a late night for us.

The Seattle skyline from the space needle where we ate lunch before our flight on Saturday

Yep we ate lunch at the top of that thing! It spins around while you eat so you get to see the entire view of the city.

The moon over Seattle

Sunset over Seattle - we were surprised by how nice of a city Seattle is.

A Bug In My Arm

Last week it took them nine IV sticks to get a vein that would work for my chemo. And the vein they got was really tiny so they had to pump everything slowly. This week, they stopped sticking me after 3 tries. So I caved in and finally agreed to get a port in my arm I had already tried to have a PICC line placed but that didn't work and I've had two central lines on separate occasions while in the hospital but both times they had to come out before I left because of the risk of infection since they were only temporary. So, apparently it's about the size of a quarter and it right under my skin in the inside of my upper left arm. They didn't put my under for it, just gave me Versed and Fentanyl, but they couldn't give me very much because my blood pressure was ridiculously low, like 80s/50s. After I got the port I went and got my chemo. It was much quicker, that's for sure - no more searching for veins or burning veins from some meds.

So, today is the day after chemo and I'm feeling good as usual. Tomorrow is usually when the fun kicks in. I'm just staying on top of my meds and all that for now and really hoping for a good week!

We leave for WASHINGTON STATE on MONDAY! Yay vacation. I'm really really excited! I'll write more later!

I'm Huggable Again!

Just a quick update that we are home (we have been for a few days now) and readjusting to non-hospital living. The boys are here with us and Edgar is so happy to see Warner. He goes nuts when Warner gets home from work and Warner just has to look at him and his tail wags. Any time that Warner says "Good Boy" to either dog, Edgar's tail wags uncontrollably. When I say it, I get nothing. This all goes back to when Edgar was a puppy and Ruekie made sure to let him know that I was his and Edgar had to stay away - so he clung to Warner.

So, I no longer have C-Diff, although I'm still dealing with some lingering symptoms, and my white blood cell count is getting higher - it wasn't 100% when I left the hospital but it was definitely higher than it was.

We've had a few visitors the past two days. Dawn brought the kiddos by yesterday for a few hours and we just hung out on my bed and the floor. The dogs definitely enjoyed all the attention from Micah hugging and petting them and Molly and Mason throwing toys for them. Anne and Andy and their two kiddos came by today for a little bit to say hi and to bring us some awesome gifts that I would show you on here but you'd be jealous and we don't want that. Seriously though, they are pretty awesome.

Anne asked me how much I weigh right now and I didn't know at the time so I decided to hop on the scale to see if I gained or lost in the hospital and I'm up to a whopping 125. Yeah, I'm getting there...slowly.

Chemo on Monday!

Can't Touch This

I am still hanging out in the hospital - getting pumped full of tons of stuff, potassium, antibiotics, iron, and I got blood over the past weekend among other things. I came in for dehydration and ended up with a million this wrong with me. While here, My stomach tubes started hurting really bad and draining really bad around around them so I have them mega-bandaged. On top of that I developed severe diarrhea, and I mean severe. And on top of ALL of that my white blood cell count bottomed out. So, they began running a million tests and running scans. They thought there might be an abscess in my stomach but a CT scan ruled that out and just showed some colitis and inflammation, which was possibly causing some of the tube pain. Then they found out I have Cdiff so I was put in contact isolation - no one can touch me without wearing gloves because I am super contagious. I think I freaked Warner out last night because when he came in I was asleep and he didn't know about the cdiff yet, so he tried to kiss me, and I woke up real fast and yelled " Don't Touch Me!" He jumped back and gave me a crazy look so I had to explain it all to him. I'm on antibiotics for everything as well, so hopefully I'll be better soon.

So, I have colitis, inflammation, CDiff, and I'm neutropenic...WOOHOO!