PRAYER FOR BILLY -- Monday, September 29, 2008

Billy is doing a lot better with improving appetite. He has lost approximately 20 lb in the last few weeks. He still cannot get up because of dropping blood pressure. The information they are getting is the stroke was caused from a drop in blood pressure. He is in a facility located only a few miles from his home. Please continue to pray for his improvement.

ChemoSabe is still going in for weekly labs and getting very, very good reports. He is full speed ahead at work and will be traveling each day this week. He is not home as I write. He began his steroids again for four days on Saturday so for that I am thankful with his busy week. I just hope he takes the time to eat and keep his strength up while on the road.

We have heard from Roger (Oklahoma) and he went home on the 24th with no meds except for his heart meds. He will be coming back around Nov. 30 for his second stem cell transplant. They think he will be done by Christmas. He had a rough few weeks with a rash, high fever and chills. I have heard that from a few patients and after the rash their skin peels like a sunburn. ChemoSabe did that on his wrist surgery and it was the Keflex and Oxycodone. Which takes us back to --- if the illness doesn't kill you, the medication will.

We had a wonderful weekend as we traveled on the bikes to Fayetteville for the Bikes, Blues and BBQ festival. We stayed at my older brother's in Ft. Smith which is about 65 miles away from Fayetteville (home of the Razorback losing team). He was so happy we stayed he even made parking signs for the bikes -- "Kemosabe" and "Kat". He made us breakfast each morning and his brother-in-law fixed burgers on Saturday night. They gave up their bedroom and bath to us and it was better than staying in a high dollar suite.

Saturday we met Rainman and Stretch along with eight other bikes and we took off into the Ozark mountains and headed up to the Missouri border. The weather could not have been better. On our trip home on Sunday, ChemoSabe and I came through the back way around the Ouachita National Forest and around to Hot Springs, then home.

ChemoSabe made the trip like old times as he had good energy, good color and felt good the whole trip. I was with Poppy all weekend.

The dogs were furious with us when we returned. Sissy was our sitter and she did a heck of a job, but they love mommy and daddy. I gave the three little ones a shower yesterday and they crashed the rest of the evening. Parker is having a sick spell today with his sugar levels. What use to be once a couple of months, now has turned into once every two weeks. I believe he ate a half gallon of grass this morning so I had to leave him out with Maxie during the day.

We have been so discouraged with hearing about Billy's problems that we are considering asking the doc about not doing a second stem cell. ChemoSabe feels his body is just not ready. Will they refuse us future treatment if we dictate our preference? Well, what can they do? We don't have insurance so most physicians would not want to treat you anyway. That will be a Paul Harvey ending. We have a MRI and bone marrow set for October 10 with a follow up visit with the Big Dog on October 14. That tells me if all the reports are okay they would want to do the transplant the following week. He would have to be off the Thalidomide for seven days before the transplant. His body and mind is just not ready for another massive dose of the Melphanin chemo.

Well, need to do some house work I put off so we could play over the weekend. I will try to do better about writing.

Good night and Love -- Pepper