2/23/11 4:15 PM

It's 4 PM on Wednesday.  I couldn't get to the blog any sooner today.  Ed's Mom and sister Sandy and brother-in-law Mike came out to spend some time and Ed would rather I spend time with him while he's awake and not be on the computer.  Thanks for understanding that.  Ed had a good night - no real issues with the chemo last evening or during the night except a very metallic taste in his mouth and everything kind of smells strongly metallic.  The doctor says that's common.  He slept pretty good (they wake him up a lot to check on stuff, like whether he's sleeping well (crazy) etc.) and he felt good this morning.  A couple of little waves of nausea and feeling a little tired and slow, but overall, much better than what you hear about and imagine it could be and so much better in general than he felt yesterday even before they started.

The oncologist came back with the bone marrow results today.  Not what we hoped. The bone marrow has lymphoma cells in it, but Dr. Menco says it doesn't affect the treatment plan in the short term - we will still go on as planned - it will just mean we need to consult further with City of Hope to help tackle that piece of the puzzle.  With this type of cancer, it is relatively common for this involvement to be present at diagnosis and they are well experienced with treatments to approach it.  It certainly isn't the news we were hoping for, but we'll deal with it at the appropriate time. 

The surgery to put in the portacath is scheduled for Friday morning with the surgeon we like - Dr. Matrisciano - so Ed will be here for a few more days, probably through the weekend.  They are also starting daily injections of nupagen to support his white blood cell count.  That goes for 8 days, so they can do that while he's here.    Ed will have a 3 week rest from chemo now and so we're working to get him set up to spend most of that time at home.  Hopefully it won't be more than a couple of days after the surgery on Friday before we can arrange for the TPN to be set up at home and get him eating at least a little bit of something so he can go home.  He'd certainly like to go home, like YESTERDAY! 

Ed says hi and thank you for all the beautiful cards and flowers and balloons.  They are all gorgeous and brighten his room up so much.  He has a great private room with a view out the window that allows us to see the sunsets and flags at the front of the hospital.  We have walked down to the atrium a couple of times, but it's been pretty windy and cool to spend much time there.

I'm sure most of you know that we're getting married and we've been talking about the when and where.  In keeping with Ed's loving way of including everyone, (and using any excuse to have a great party) we're working on the plan to include everyone who'd like to be included.  We're thinking of our backyard as the venue, so Ed's working on getting bleachers helicoptered in. (He said to tell you all that - I think he's just kidding??)  As soon as we know when he can come home, we'll pick a date that will be very soon (Ed says we've probably waited long enough to sleep together).  We really appreciate the love and support and we're excited about getting married. 

I will log off now for a bit - we have a sacred hour in our home from 5 to 6 PM - Ed has a standing date with Bill O'Reilly.  And NOTHING..... not even chemo is going to derail that love affair. 

Later everyone.