"Another round for the house please"

I had another marker test done on Monday and received the results on Wed. which is when I had my follow-up appointment with my stem-cell doctor. The bHCG went from 7 to 23. This could just be what they call a "yo-yo" effect, or it could be growing, obviously. Hard to say, but either way its in the Lords hand.

So the options that I have is to do one more round or wait a month to six months to see what transpires. The doctors suggestion is to hit it while its down and kill anything that may be left. Whereas dealing with this for almost two years now, I agree. But accordingly, I will be praying for direction in this matter.

As most of you know, I hit this cancer hard naturally in the beginning before the first treatment, and even harder after the first but before the second to no avail. Then continued with about six more cycles of chemo over the past year, which towards the end seemed to feed the cancer rather then kill it. That's why I agree with the doctor. But as I said earlier, its in the Lords hand.

Their suppose to try to get me in in the next two weeks. While I feel pretty well Ill be trying to get our fall planting in. Our spring planting didn't do so well since I was so sick most of the summer.

The farm is slowly growing and coming together, so right now were farther than some, but not as far as others, as is life. Chickens should be laying in a week or so, and Lord willing the plan, (depending on health) is to get some sheep and a horse. Til next time,


JMHJ

Report on Numbers

I received a report of my marker numbers yesterday from my last dose of chemo, which you may or may not be aware was stem cell recovery. The AFP was right on at 2.8, while the bHCG was barely high at 7 with normal being between 3-5. I haven't seen numbers like this since July 2007 my very first round of chemo. You can imagine my surprise, especially since my bHCG was up to 7700 the first day I arrived at UMCC and was starting to cough up blood.

Now I am not so deceived as to think that this struggle is over by any means, but, at this time I would like to thank my God, the one true God, Creator of the heavens and the earth, for the brothers and fellow believers that have prayed their prayers regarding this affliction of mine. Even if this is but an intermission, I praise the Lord to be back on my feet. Til next time,


JMHJ

Back Home

I was finally released on Friday around 3:00. It was so good to be home I decided to take the weekend and just relax with my wife. Because of the transplant I pretty much cannot do anything but relax, but it was refreshing to observe the sabbath in my own house with my wife, Praise the Lord!

Well my numbers are slowly going up, their taking a little longer than they normally would have because of the extensive amounts of chemo that I had previosly gone through before the stemcell transplant, but none the less are creeping their way back up. The white blood cells are at 5.5, and the platelets are in the 20's. Not that these are the only two, but are the more important that the wbc keep the infections down, and the platelets keep you from bleeding out. I go in on Wed. for another cbc (complete blood count) to find out what my numbers are then. Today when they did the cbc they also took blood for my tumor markers. This has not been done since before I went in for the stemcell. I pray for increase from the Lord.

If the Lord wills I will post again on Wed. after I get my counts and give an update on how things are going. Talk soon,


JMHJ

Another sabbath day from the Lord

Well the Lord has seen it fit to deliver another sabbath to me. Of course I would have rather have celebrated it somewhere other than in a hospital bed, but am thankful to say the least. It's obvious that your not allowed to have open flames in the hospital, so for the candle we use a night light that plugs in the wall.

I actually had a few visitor's stop by, mom, dad, aunt and a friend of my cousin. The family all left around 6:30 and headed home. Of course my wife was here, but I think that goes without saying.

So the good news is that my mouth is finally starting to heal. There were blisters and abbesses in my cheeks which made it next to impossible to chew and swallow. My wbc(white blood cells) count is finally going up, it's up to 0.3, and the platelets made it to 25. The platelets were becoming a problem because my body was killing them as fast as they were putting them in my body. So they gave me a steroid to counteract this problem. All in all I feel well today, and should continue to do better as my counts go up. I'll keep everyone posted.


til' then
JMHJ