The Best Holidays in Years

Greetings,

I hope that everyone reading had a great and safe Christmas and New Year. It's been several days since my last post and we have a lot of ground to cover but I have to say that the past week and a bit has been a wonderful time spent with friends and family.

As I mentioned in my last post I had treatment the 23rd. For the most part I felt great through Christmas Eve and Christmas Day which allowed me to fully enjoy the excitement and joy of having kids at Christmas and having so much family around. We celebrate Christmas Eve with my wife's family, and this year we had my brother-in-law with us from Arizona which was awesome. This began the present gauntlet for our son Gabe. I swear each year we don't spend that much and are overwhelmed by the shear volume of "stuff" he gets each year. Christmas Day was spent with my family and again it was just an amazing time and I felt good.

The next 2 days were about like last time. I was extremely tired, my mouth was sore but not like last time. I felt more nauseous than last time but I was never sick. I took a lot more of my medicine than round 1. After Christmas Day food really did not sound good until later in the day. Around noon or 1pm I would feel like I wanted to eat something. Plain baked potatoes and a Frosty to make my mouth feel better have become a staple in the bad days.

About Sunday the 27th I started to shed. My hair is slowly starting to fall out. It's not like I had a lot of bald patches starting, or if I shook my head hair would just start falling out. It was more like if I ran my hand through my hair I would get a fistful. Since it was starting to get all over the house I had my head "buzzed" on Tuesday the 29th (thanks Liz your the best). I think when the motivation strikes me I'll post some before and after pics. With it short you can tell it's thinning, and I leave a total mess in the shower, but still no bald spots.

On Monday I started to experience some pretty bad side effects from the shot they gave me the day after treatment. Because of my low WBC counts I received a shot of Neulasta, which stimulates the body to produce more White Blood Cells. The side effects are usually joint and muscle aches similar to flu-like symptoms. Starting Monday I was in A LOT of pain. Every joint hurt from my hips down, to the point where it was difficult to walk. To make matters worse the pain spread to my lower back and by that evening I was not able to sleep. Finally about 1am I came downstairs, took some Tylenol, and tried to go find a comfortable position to close my eyes for awhile. I must have fallen asleep at some point because about 4am I woke up with a crazy case of night sweats and the pain was gone. Weird, huh? Fortunately I managed the pain pretty well the next day with Tylenol every 4 hours, and by Wednesday it was mostly gone. Since then I've been back to normal.

We had our best friends visit from Texas before New Years and that was another amazing couple of days. The moved out of state a few months ago and it was so good to see them. Then my older brother and his family came into town for New Years. We spent New Years with my parents, my older brother's family (he and his wife have 3 kids), and my younger brother and his fiancee. Surprisingly we all made it to midnight (except Gabe and Ellie), even me!

So, Christmas and New Years were probably the best I've had in years. Being able to see everyone and be surrounded by their love and support. To be able to laugh a ton and watch the joy on our kids' faces for Christmas has been incredible. If there has been a downside at all is that it did make the time fly and I can't believe that treatment #3 is Wednesday already. I feel like I was just there! I am also visiting the urologist on Monday just to make sure there are no other complications, though it seems like the bathroom issues have finally gone away. I hope everyone had a chance to truly enjoy something about the holidays this year. Who knows what 2010 has in store for us all.

Peace,
Ben