First Dr. Visit Post Medication

Everyone-

I'm posting a little late this week, we wanted to get the doctor visit out of the way in hopes of providing you all with some detailed info regarding Ret's progress, but more on that later.

Here I go again! As with my last posts I've mentioned some of the great things that you've done for us that truly give us hope but more importantly let's us know how blessed we are to have each of you as family and friends. Well again this is one I should have mentioned right from the get-go. I've had a number of comments regarding what a great idea it was to create this blog enabling all of you to keep track of Ret's progress. Well guess what.............it really wasn't me! I know, I know you're shocked, me too I usually come up with all the great ideas. But really it was Kim Christianson and her daughter Andrea, they had the idea, created the layout then passed it on to me. How easy was that huh? What I really should do is put them in the witness protection program because giving me another avenue to blab, JUST AIN'T RIGHT, and may put their lives in danger!! Let me give you a little hint just skip the first paragraph or two go right to where I talk about Ret and you'll be spared. Another cool thing is we received a Prayer Shawl from Jim and Sue Gronhovd, TJ's in-laws, that a lady in their church the Pilgrim Lutheran Church in Puyallup made, it is truly a beautiful piece of work and craftsmanship. It also came with two wonderful prayers one which was said during the entire time she worked on the shawl....incredible. There are certain things that Ret wants to take with her while she stays at the Fred Hutch for the transplant and treatment and I've been told this shawl is definitely one of them. I know I've said this before and I know I will say it again you people are amazing!

Our first post medical treatment doctor appointment was today, unfortunately we didn't get the blood labs back so while we didn't get any real factual information, outside of the normal, the doctor was happy with Ret's progress to date. We discussed the side effects Ret has been experiencing along with other tidbits and again the doctor said all seemed to be normal. One troubling bit of info was that because Ret's form of this particular cancer is a very aggressive, was that she was to be on two drugs to manage the disease not just the Thalidomide, the other being Dexamethasone, well she wasn't. While this is not particularly large problem it's certainly not what we wanted to hear. Lesson here ask ask ask! The weird thing was in all the literature we read the Dexa drug was mentioned but we also knew and discussed with the doc that in many cases the Thalidomide was the appropriate drug therapy. Again not a huge problem but hey you want it right from the start, well we're now on the right path so things are looking up. As I mentioned before our first visit to the Fred Hutch will be on March 30th, while we approach that visit with a certain sense of trepidation, which may sound weird to some of you, it will set us on a course to recovery.

I can only say, words large or small, cleverly crafted or just written in plain language, can't express how we feel about each of you.

Love,
Ret and Jack