Usually this time of year we have arrived home from our Spring/Summer/Fall trip. This year we arrived home in July because Don was not feeling well. To say it’s been hot and humid in Alabama is an understatement and it’s still not cool enough for me.
When we arrived home, Don had some energy and so did I. We got Koko unpacked and did a little cleaning. We had our grandson, Bennett, come over and he climbed on top and put the cover on Koko. Young men (16) have so much more strength than men of a certain age.
Don’s energy level continued to drop. He had an upper and lower GI test and found out he has Crohn’s disease.
We went to our primary care doctor on September 16 and had blood work, etc. done. They called me that afternoon to let me know that everything was good with me. The next morning (7:30) they left a message on our phone to get Don to the emergency room, that his kidneys were failing. They called back around 9:30 to make sure we were going to the hospital and that they were expecting us. When we pulled up to the hospital, a young man was sitting down and looked awful. Don told him he looked as bad as he felt. He told Don he had a kidney stone.
Once in the emergency room, IV was started, of course. So we waited and waited and waited. Our daughter and oldest grandson came to visit. We finally got to a room and had doctor visits. The next morning they did a CT scan and found that one of his lungs was full of fluid and he also had a staph infection. Now we have more doctors and more medicine being pumped into him. He continued to go downhill and after his second night, I decided to just stay in the hospital with him. They had a loveseat that is a hide-a-bed. It has the worst bed I have ever endured. The owner of that company should be forced to spend a week on that bed!
One morning, Don was feeling better so I went home for a couple of hours. When I returned, he was doubled over in pain. He had kidney stones (remember the young man when we entered the hospital) and the urologist said he needed surgery. This is incidental to the reason he was in the hospital in the first place. So in just a few days, he had his lung drained, a bone marrow biopsy and surgery to remove the stones.
Don has been diagnosed with a form of leukemia, CMML. There is no cure but it is treatable. After being released we went to the oncologist office and discussed the treatment. For the next 10 - 12 months he will receive a drug called Dacogen. It’s administered for five days a month.
Friday, he had a port installed which makes it easier to administer the drug instead of IV. So far, he has had four blood transfusions. They bring his red blood cell count up enough so he feels almost normal. He’s still very weak and cannot drive. He’s lost 40 lbs. because food had no appeal for him. His appetite has returned, thank goodness.
Our days are filled with doctor visits but hopefully, after the next two weeks, things will settle down some.
What does this mean for us in the future? We don’t know. If the trip this year was our last, it was the best trip ever except for the first trip. We enjoyed being with our friends, we enjoyed Jeeping in Moab. Don does an excellent job of climbing the red rock and I am very confident in his and the Jeep’s ability and I’m not scared when I can only see sky out the front window.
