It’s now Wednesday and I so want to go home. The problem is I keep spiking temps >101 in the afternoon or evening time. The teams knows something is going on but to date all the cultures have been negative. Dr Henry came by and said I can go home Friday if my temp stays < 100.5. Yahoo! I can do that! I haven’t had a temp > 99.5 in 18 hours Their rule is 24 hous then I can go home.
Praises to our Lord and Savior!- Steph

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

UPDATE: Darn it! I no more sent a couple of texts when a fever came from no where. I had full rigors. This fever scared me. It reminded me of the time I went into septic shock. I hit 101.9 and then 102.7 in a matter of minutes. Man oh man did I feel bad.
God’s time Steph, God’s time…

Monday I was running fever and had chills & bone pain. I went to the clinic and they decided to put me in the hospital (Baylor All Saints) for observation: give me fluids and antibiotics and most likely send me home on Tuesday. We know this will be a minor event and I will be home again soon. God is in control.

Grace & peace - Steph

What we know is in June the disease was spreading like wild fire. In Houston they had about 4 protocols they felt might be effective. They took the +/- of the whole picture and chose the drugs they felt offered us the greatest hope. The protocol slowed the disease and even brought my liver enzymes into a normal range. About a month ago, under extremely high surveillance, they began to see hints things were changing. They needed to wait about two months between PET/CT scans. The news is what we posted below. The disease is again progressing with involvement now being: liver, bone and lymphatic system. We managed five months on this protocol.

The goal of chemo with metastatic disease is to maximize the timeframe to progression of disease and increase overall survival. They leave the patient on the drugs until they no longer tolerate the drugs, they are no longer effective or the patient is in remission. It is recognized that as a whole the goal is to extend a patient’s life and every once in a while they are able to put the patient into remission. While we recognize this is all true, we anxiously hold out for the greatest outcome: the miracle of remission. We struggle when we fall short of remission. I would say those that love me struggle too.

Today we started a new protocol with the same hope and dream we have add for each treatment plan: extending my time with the ones I dearly love. We must always remember the blessings we have and to maximize today’s joy.