Taking away a narcotics based cough medicine really did the trick. He came back to us yesterday at noon. He was much better already on Saturday morning, but Katie said while they were talking it was like a switch flipped and he was back to normal. Even in mid sentence! Weird, how your brain works. I am just slightly stressed by the class load and timing of this whole booster for Brad. Let’s just say in the next four weeks we will be extremely READY for a summer break. Thanks for praying, visiting, calling. We love you guys back just as much!!! Tami
May 31st, 2009 at 07:30am
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First I have to apologize. Last night’s post sounded way too cheery for the real situation that we find ourselves in today. Brad’s mental state has declined severly. I know…you are probably chuckling because that is what I would think too. But it isn’t funny. It is very scary to me and to Katie. This is the worst we have seen Brad ever. Maybe he has been like this immediately after a surgery when he was still loopy, but this loopy isn’t wearing off. His personality has changed too. He is very angry and is speaking to Katie and I in a manner that he has NEVER used. Tonight he thought Katie was a nurse for almost 2 hours. Now…to go back to my normal writing…. IF we were sitting around a big roaring campfire next to a rushing stream of water with all of our friends and had a ton of liquor-(yes, we are Baptist and don’t usually drink-but go with me on this story)and Brad was telling these same stories he has been telling all of us there tonight, then we would be rolling off the logs and camp chairs and even peeing a little in our pants we were laughing so hard. BUT….no liquor has been consumed. Drs. know, nurses know. They did an MRI at 9:30 tonight and we will hear about that tomorrow. They also took away some meds to see if that helps.
Here is where I need help. I am going back in to the Gifted and Talented classroom next year. I have seemed to avoid taking the four grad classes-yes ON TOP of my Masters-to get the certificate. Well…..not anymore. They caught on to my plan!!!! Anyway. I signed up for my first class since it was a great set up and I only had to be “in” class 5 times in one month and then do online work to get the first 3 hours marked off the list. Today was the first of the classes. So after the last Friday of the school year-no not last day-that is next Thursday,I left school immediately to drive and sit until 9 in my first class session. I also have to go Saturday morning from 8-12:30, so I won’t be able to be with Brad in the morning. Yes. I am writing this at 12:37 because Katie and I just left the hospital. I feel guilty because I am putting this class before being with Brad but we’ve already paid the $800 for this class and I can’t drop it now without it being an F! I have a 4.0 on my Masters and I am not failing now!
So for the prayer warriors among the readers and even for those who do something other than pray. We need help now. Brad is always so strong and positive. Please pray that this Brad comes back to us and this loopy version is just from something funky in the meds. We are not ready to lose this fight and not in this way. Please pray that if this is the end presented to us in some weird way that Katie and I are strong enough to handle it. We aren’t ready.
Thank you so much for being great friends. Help us through this time by praying and sending good thoughts. Tami
May 29th, 2009 at 11:44pm
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No…Brad didn’t do something to land himself in jail…just back in the hospital prison once again. Crazy fever this time. All of his fevers have sounded like Top 40’s radio station call numbers….104.3, 106.1, 103.7. I would like for him to get to the numbers in the 98.5 range that sound more like public talk radio call numbers. He is really messed up on time. This morning he texted me during the early morning of the school day asking what in the world I was doing. I replied…ummm…teaching. After another hour or so and some of the nurses doing some investigation work we found out that believed that it was 9:30 pm and that I hadn’t even bothered to come see him that day. Whatever. Of course, he has to pick one of the busiest weeks in a teacher’s life to pull this hospital stay. I have not seen home hardly at all this week. For those of you in the area, he could use some company. He is in room 684 at Baylor Irving. If you go you have to robe up, glove up and mask up but the “prep” room you go in before you go into Brad’s has all that stuff. Just don’t try to go in with a whole 12 pack of Dr. P. Mean male nurse hijacked that delivery today. He also tried to hijack the Ifratelli’s pizza going in but at least it was being delivered by my “mean” friend at school who doesn’t take crap from anyone. She told him…look…I can give it to him now or you can wait an hour for his wife to come up with the same exact pizza so what is the difference really? You go, Kristi!!
May 28th, 2009 at 10:05pm
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I’ve had this cough now for over four weeks. They can’t seem to figure out what it is but it keeps me up, which more importantly keeps Tami up and just makes for a long and very sore rib kind of day each day. I have a halls in my mouth 24/7 and drink NyQuil/Dayquil straight from the bottle. I think it is getting better but it is just taking a very long time.
I have my tests set up for June 11th and 12th in Houston and if they are clear, Cheryl will go down the following week to donate more stem cells around Wednesday and I’ll get them Thursday or Friday. It’s only a day or two stay after that and then I’ll return to Irving to begin the maintenance phase of the treatment. That will entail three week cycles where once I get an infusion of Rituxin and 4 days I’ll get a shot of Velcade. Neither of these meds usually causes any reaction so I should be plenty well to get back to work by August. The only thing we are trying to get figured out is if I can do the Rituxin in Irving or if (strictly due to scheduling problems) I have to go down to Houston once every three weeks to get it on a Sat. That is looking most likely at the moment.
This week is just recovery. Recovery from last week’s chemo, recovery from this persistent cough and recovery from any damage I may do from being given a motorcycle to use for the summer. (Can’t wait for those comments)
Bradley
May 24th, 2009 at 03:42pm
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When I was discharged from the hospital on Friday, my blood work was not particularly good. I was informed the odds of beginning round 2 on Monday weren’t that great. My platelets were down to 65 and had to be 100 by Monday morning. My hemoglobin was low and so were my white cells. The doctors at Baylor Irving even mentioned it appeared my bone marrow may have stopped producing cells and we could be in for a problem.
I went in to my docs office Monday morning have tried to encourage my body to start working all weekend. When I got there, they informed me that the doctor was gone all week but left word that if my platelets had just gotten back to 80 we would start. When the numbers came back, my platelets were 107 and my white cells were higher than they’ve been in months. I think 5.7 Hemoglobin was back up to 10 and things were looking good. I rec’d my last really long treatment ( 8:30 am to 4 pm ) and now am on a 24 hour pump until Thursday morning. I feel better than I’ve felt in weeks as this chemo won’t probably start hitting me until Thursday or Friday.
We are still on for me to restage the second week of June and to get the booster stem cells from my sister the following week.
Thanks for all of your prayers and emails. I read each and every one.
Brad
May 19th, 2009 at 07:51am
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I was finally discharged tonight around 6pm (Friday). I thought I was getting out Thursday after we figured out that it was one of the antibiotics they were giving me that was causing my fever to spike to 103.8 and make my heart race so fast. After we got off of that med, I was much better. Thursday brought a new problem though. This time my hemoglobin had dropped from 12 to just over 7 without any reason. It required me to get two units of blood which is a big deal if you have had a stem cell transplant. They called down to MD Anderson and talked back and forth a few times to make sure they had it right and then I finally got the blood around 9 pm Thursday night. My numbers from this morning showed I was much improved and they finally let me go tonight.
I did find out that I am now A- where I was B- before my transplant.
I should begin round 2 Monday but at this point, my platelets have dropped too low so I may be delayed again. I have had to PROMISE that I will just rest between now and then. No yard work or anything else. I promise.
Until Monday
Brad
May 15th, 2009 at 08:53pm
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This is Tami back from the ER. Bradley is in the hospital for the night. He wanted me to write and tell what had happened. He has been running this fever off and on for about 2 1/2 weeks now. If we had been in Houston, we would have already been to the ER down there back at the beginning of this. Anyway, around here the doc seems to think that you don’t need the ER until your fever is around 102 and you are in bed shivering, so like the compliant patient Brad is we have waited and waited. Each day he expected to really start feeling better and each day he didn’t. He was beginning to get really down which is totally not like himself. Yesterday, Katie and I had to do some running around and we left him unsupervised at home. Bad idea! While we were gone he decided that I shouldn’t have to mow on Mother’s Day so he would do it even though I had broken our riding mower earlier last week. Yes…he was out pushing the mower. BAD BOY! Anyway, our neighbor behind us saw him and also saw him about the time he keeled over from exhaustion. He jumped the fence and brought him in. Then while he was “recovering” the neighbor went out to finish up the mowing and then Brad somehow escaped again to the outside and did something else that caused him to go down again. AGAIN the neighbor was there to escort the prisoner back into his jail cell. I think his body just finally figured that it had to pull out all the stops so he would listen to it and it brought on a fever of 102.7 this afternoon. Of course, Brad says well lets watch it for an hour. Now remind yourself that if we had been in Houston a temp of this degree would have been handled like a crisis! Here…ummm…let’s just watch it. It didn’t really move too much so he finally allowed me to take him to the ER. Here is a bonus though….when you sign in and state that you are a recent stem cell transplant, you get to skip go and go straight to a private room. We were in a room in less than 5 minutes and on the first antibiotic in 10 minutes. We don’t know what is going on still but they cultured just about everything they could think of or poke in to. He had two bags of antibiotics which they have given him several times at MDAnderson so we felt comfortable with that. His temp slightly dropped by 8 o’clock and they were just about to let him go home to sleep when he sat up and then bam…went right back down. His heart rate has been high these last few weeks from something. It was 142 when he sat up and then within a minute it dropped to 69…when it was about 85 he started telling me to get help cause he was going down. Well…this event sealed his fate of staying overnight. He was not too happy but as for me I know he won’t escape and try to mow or weed the flower beds at the hospital. We will write more and let you know what the docs say tomorrow. He was supposed to start round #2 of chemo tomorrow. Maybe his body knew that and said…NOT! (Oh, and while he was in the ER I noticed all these little tiny hairs clinging to the pillow! We thought he might get to keep his hair this time. Not so!) Until we know more…tami
May 10th, 2009 at 11:25pm
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Fever keeps going up and cough getting worse. Fever now 102.2. Will post later.
May 10th, 2009 at 02:42pm
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This is supposed to be my recovery week from this round of chemo. I do feel better than I did last week but not as good as I expected to feel. I got out and walked both of the dogs today (well, Sadie walked me) and got worn out pretty quickly.
This Friday I’m going in to have the Picc line replaced in my arm. It’s been postponed twice for different reasons. This last time was because my platelets were a little too low.
Mavs update. Yes, even though I’m a Mavs fan, I did predict in this blog that Denver would win in 6. I’m sticking to that. It might be Denver in 5 but I’m thinking we’ll take two. I miss living up in the foothills outside of Denver. When I was there, the Avs (hockey) were doing good but the Nuggets, Rockies and Broncos were a mess. I’m glad for Denver….they deserve it. No, I’m not giving up on the Mavs…we still have a chance. But something tells me Denver is winning the West and will play Cleveland in the East. Sorry, Denver. Cavs and King James will take it all.
Until next week.
Bradley
May 6th, 2009 at 01:05pm
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