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.