Our one year appointment!

Howdy all!

We are busy bees around the house tonight getting ready for Josh's appointment at MD Anderson in the morning.  We are going for his official one year bone marrow aspiration as well as meetings with the doctor and the trial nurse.   So Josh is showering since he won't be able to for a couple of days, filling out chemo logs, and gathering up empty pill boxes.

Of course we know now not to take his meds in the morning (even though they tell us to) so I'm pretty certain I won't have to have a smack down with anybody.  Although I will prepare myself just in case!  ;) 

I know we're only gonna see the doc for a few minutes so it's not anything major, but I'm still excited to hear what he has to say about how Josh is doing.  Our very first appointment with Dr. Quintas was VERY long when he went into detail about survival rates based upon the one year test results.  Of course we won't have the one year results for another couple of weeks, but I still want to hear what he thinks about Josh's numbers.  AND Josh has lost all the weight he had gained (plus more!  Yay Josh!!), so this time Dr. Quintas will not pat him on the belly while making remarks about his size!  :) 

At this point this is all routine,  but we would still appreciate your prayers! 

One Year Cancerversary!!

Can you guys believe it has been one year already?  We really can't!  It honestly seems just like yesterday.  I asked Josh tonight if he could remember last April 1st and he said he remembered every detail.  Me too!  I had thought that emotions and feelings would have faded by now, but they definitely have not. 

Josh has had one more bone marrow test and another blood work appointment since I blogged last, both with good results.  Although I was a bit disappointed with the bone marrow results, hence my lack of blogging.  It can be hard to stay positive when you have your hopes up for something and I guess I just didn't want to be a downer!  :)  If you remember the main number we are looking at is his PCR score:

• April 2011 -       91.43 %
•  July 2011 -          5.19 %
• October 2011 -     .09 %
• January 2012 -      .08%

Do you see why I was kind of disappointed?  I had really expected it to be not detectable this time around.  Obviously we are thrilled that it is staying low, but I just had this great dream that he was going to be this perfectly responding patient like they had never seen before.  He goes in for another bone marrow at the end of this month. 

We did have great results just this week with his bloodwork though.  For the first time in an entire year there were no abnormal components in his blood!!  Even the nurse was pretty pumped about it on Wednesday.  At MD Anderson they give you these lab results that have all abnormal things printed in bold, so when she printed it out and there was nothing in boldface we were pretty pumped!!!!  Just one short month ago his platelets and neutrophils were still off, so this was actually unexpected.  We are praying that he can maintain these levels.


We are would appreciate prayer for us now that we are entering a new phase in Josh's treatment.  We have been at MD Anderson every 4 weeks for the last 10 months or so, but now we are only going to visit every 12 weeks.  It is truly scary for us to not have the reassurance that things are still OK.  Even now whenever Josh feels off or sick  we immediately let our brains start wandering to the thought that he has stopped responding to the chemo.  The thought of not going for three months is terrifying! 

We want to thank everyone for continuing to do their Amazon shopping through our link!  As we started the new year all of our deductibles started over and each month we owe more than the month before, so those checks have really helped us with those bills.  It really adds up very quickly and we appreciate people taking the time to think of us before making purchases!

This year we were really blown away by the generosity of our friends and family.  And it still hasn't ended.  Just this week one of Josh's friends from work GAVE us a car.  Yes, GAVE us a car.  It's not as if they just passed over the keys either - they bought parts and fixed it up for us.  I still don't even believe it.  We have been a one car family since Josh's car was totaled over a year ago.  And that has meant lots of missing out on stuff cause it isn't logistically possible.  This is such a tremendous blessing to us.  It is moments like this when I am overwhelmed with God's love for me, providing in ways that I wouldn't even imagine. 

I'll post again last this month when we go back to MD Anderson!