Ready to Go Home

Today, Wednesday, October 25, 2017 marks what will be our last full day living in Mountain View. The bins and boxes are out. Suitcases are packed. Cupboards are emptied. We are finally headed home tomorrow. As much as I would like to stay a little longer just to avoid the poor air quality in Vallejo from the fires, not to mention try more of the different foods here in the south bay, there's nothing Becky and I would rather do than to go back home, living in our house, sleeping in our bed, seeing our family and friends, and trying to return to a life of normalcy. So there will be no more all day clomping from the rude neighbor upstairs, no more construction sounds from the street, no more El Camino traffic, no more trying to find a parking spot in the hospital garage.

Over the past week since I hit Day 90, we've eaten French dip sandwiches, Rubios tacos and burritos, deep dish pizza, and Indian food. No Whoppers, no Big Macs, no burrito trucks...for now. And I'm still at -30 lbs from the day I first checked into the hospital. My goal is to continue building on that when we go home.

Healthwise, last Monday I had my bone marrow biopsy, which went very well. This was biopsy number 5 for me this past year, but the first time they used a drill. Despite the unsettling sound of an electric drill whittling away at your hip, this was actually the quickest and least painful of all the bone marrow biopsies that I have received. The following Thursday, I had my last ITA (Infusion Treatment Area) visit in the Cancer Center, where they would check my vitals, draw my blood for labs, and speak with me about my lab results and overall health. They also removed the PICC line I've had in my left arm for the past few months. I'm so thankful for all the wonderful care I received from the Stanford nurses, doctors, and physician assistants over the past 3-4 months while both in the hospital and Cancer Center. While the nurses differed from visit to visit, I had a BMT doctor, Dr. Lori Muffly, and a physician's assistant, Brooke Smith (my WNBA PA), that really got to know me and oversaw my care most of the time that I was there. This is my plug for Stanford Healthcare and PPOs vs HMOs, where you can actually choose to go to Stanford for world class care if you don't live nearby.

This past Monday was also my last doctors visit while living in the area, as I transitioned out of the ITA to the clinic downstairs with my BMT doctor, Dr. Shizuru. My bone marrow biopsy results were great. No blast cells, no Leukemia. They will conduct biopsies every 6 months to keep an eye on how things are progressing. My labs were also great. In fact, my hemoglobin (14.3; std range 13.5-17.7) and white blood cells (5.8; std range 4-11) were the highest they have ever been during this process. The WBC level could be misleading, however, because the prednisone I'm taking can elevate counts. My platelets (134; std range 150-400) also continue to increase ever so slowly. Absolute neutrophil count (ANC) is also good (4.55; std range 1.7-6.7).

While I get to home this week, my doctor recommended that I not return to work (even working from home) at least until December. While I may feel like I have the energy to return to a sense of normalcy, I need to take the time to rest and get used to being back home, where I don't get medical care twice a week, where I'm not 30 minutes away from Stanford. Doctor's orders!

As I look back at this journey that God has allowed both me and Becky to go through, one can easily wonder, why God? Why have us go through these specific trials, such suffering? I guess if it were up to us, we would all choose the path of least resistance. But we know that God uses both times of prosperity and times of trial to build up our faith and draw us ever closer to Him. Every step of the way, He has been our shield and our provider, our great physician and comforter, never leaving us to ourselves, always interceding for us, both in the minutiae and the big picture. These are but the major highlights:

• God's Sovereignty: He allowed me to tear my Achilles last April so that I could see a doctor that would order the blood tests to detect the cancer in my blood.
• God's Provision: He allowed me to work from home 1-2 days a week from September 2016 until July 2017 around all my blood transfusions and doctors visits in order to save up all of the sick and vacation time needed to go on disability following the transplant.
• God's Sovereignty and Provision: He allowed me to switch to from a HMO to PPO during my company's open enrollment in November 2016, not too long after the discovery of my blood cancer, so that I could have the flexibility to go to Stanford should a transplant be needed. Imagine if I needed a transplant earlier in 2016 and was still stuck with Sutter under an HMO?
• God's Sovereignty and Provision: He provided me with a bone marrow donor in my sister who would be a perfect 10/10 match when Asian bone marrow donors are so hard to find.
• God's Provision: He provided us with a great modern apartment with an in-unit washer and dryer after we were hoping to get into the older (non-air conditioned) apartments near the hospital.
• God's Provision: He provided a deeply discounted apartment rate through Stanford which apparently not all patients receive, based on my conversations with other patients in my apartment complex.
• God's Sovereignty and Provision: He approved medical insurance reimbursement of our south bay housing by allowing us to use a longer travel route from home. He did this by also giving us an insurance nurse who happened to be a Christian who was sympathetic to our mileage situation.
• God's Provision: He provided approval of my Aflac critical illness insurance payout, even though my condition was technically pre-existing before I signed up for the coverage at the end of last year.  
• God's Protection: He protected my health during the whole transplant process, with only minor setbacks from the mouth sores, fevers, CMV, and nausea. I look at some of these other transplant patients and see how bad things could have gone.
• God's Purposes: Prior to my transplant, He allowed us to meet a Christian couple through some friends. The husband had gone through an autologous transplant 2 years ago and we were greatly encouraged by their experience. And on our way out of here, He allowed us to meet another Christian couple through a different set of friends. The wife is receiving her BMT today, as I type--the same allogeneic transplant with same chemo regimen. Her sister was a 10/10 match, just as mine was.
• God's Provision: While we were away from the CBC Vallejo church family, we were still able to be plugged in by being able to listen to sermons via Skype (thanks to Julian) and soon after via the newly launched Facebook Live stream of the morning services.
• God's Love: Despite being 1.5 hours away from Vallejo, we were overwhelmed by the love from friends, coworkers, and family who frequently texted and called with words of encouragement, and came to visit us while in the hospital and apartment, toting food, snacks, and gifts. Never did we feel alone during this time. John 13:35 says, "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Isaiah 55:8-9
⁸“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.
⁹ “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts.

James 1:12

¹² Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.

Romans 8:28-39

²⁸ And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to  His purpose. ²⁹ For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; ³⁰ and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.
³¹ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? ³² He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? ³³ Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; ³⁴ who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. ³⁵ Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶ Just as it is written,

“For Your sake we are being put to death all day long;
We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

³⁷ But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Day Plus 65-90-The Home Stretch

I know it's been a while since I last blogged on September 22. Call me lazy. A lot has gone on during this past month so I'll just try to provide you with the highlights:

Oct 3: I celebrated my 42nd birthday by going for a walk around the Google campus with Becky. It was nice just to get out to somewhere new and enjoy the fresh air. Outside of going to the hospital twice a week, that was a very first for me, to go outside and just walk. Thankfully the weather was nice and there weren't lots of people roaming around. Becky made me lasagna and yellow cake with chocolate frosting for dinner.

Oct 5: I had an endoscopy and flexible sigmoidoscopy to get some biopsy samples to determine potential causes for the ongoing nausea. Results came back negative outside of some inflammation, so they treated me for potential graph versus host disease with a steroid (Prednisone). They started me at 80 mg and are tapering me down by 10 mg every 3 days.

October 8-14: The Napa and Santa Rosa fires broke so I could not stop watching the news since they were so close to home. I kept watching to make sure that it did not spread into Vallejo near our home. Hearing of some friends losing their homes, many others nearly losing their homes was heartbreaking. Let's just say that week my sisters and I had some long text discussions about disaster preparedness. Bug out bag contents may be the new gift exchange theme this year. We could smell the smoke all the way to the south bay where we were living in Mountain View. That first Monday we thought there was a fire here until we saw the news on Facebook. That day my eyes were very watery and I was congested with a runny nose. I thought I was getting sick but thankfully it cleared up the next day.

Oct 12-14: Becky's family from Nashville came to visit while they did college tours for the eldest kids at Cal, Stanford, UCSC, and Santa Clara. They conveniently ended up at the hotel right across from our apartment complex. It was good to catch up with them since we don't see them that often. The rest of the local family came to visit all of us while they were here as well. I was probably torturing myself watching everyone eat, but I did get to see and smell a lot of great local restaurant food (Korean, French Dip, Mexican) that I could not yet eat until Day 90. Mental food checklist!

Oct 15: We were able to spend time with a young Christian family from Santa Rosa who was going through the same procedure I had just gone through. It was a crazy week for them as they had nearly lost their home in the fires and then to now go through this. They had moved into our same complex and were previously introduced to us by some common friends living in Santa Rosa. The husband is a police officer from the Santa Rosa PD and the wife had already gone through numerous rounds of chemotherapy to get her Leukemia into remission in preparation for the bone marrow transplant that she is to receive in the coming weeks at Stanford. It's amazing how God connected us to them to be a source of comfort and encouragement the same way we were able to be comforted and encouraged by another Christian couple living in San Jose, connected through some other friends, where the husband had gone through a bone marrow transplant several years ago. One of the reasons God allows us to go through trials is so that we can sympathize with those who go through the same trials. Please pray for this couple, John and Angela, and their 2 little girls as they are just starting this transplant process. FYI Angela's donating sister was a 10/10 match just as mine was.

2 Cor 1:3-7 "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. ⁵ For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. ⁶ If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. ⁷ And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort."

October 17: Day 90 Post-Transplant. This is the day I've been waiting for. For me it marks the day when I can start eating restaurant food for the first time. For lunch we had sirloin French dip sandwiches with grilled onions and mushrooms, au jus, and horseradish sauce. While I have this freedom, I still need to be careful with my food intake, especially while I'm still on Prednisone. While this is a wonder drug in many ways, it unfortunately acts as an immunosuppressant, i.e., if I get sick from any improperly prepared food, it will be difficult for my body to fight back. I'll be avoiding fast food places where food is made ahead of time, rather than made-to-order. Day 90 also marks the removal of certain pills from my daily regimen. We look forward to finally being able to go home, perhaps in the coming weeks, barring any setbacks with my biopsy results and nausea.