May 3, 2004

Main Page • John's Journal (2000-2003) • CLL Information • Contact John • Seattle Cancer Care Alliance • MD Anderson

Lying in bed last Friday night I found it very tough to sleep. It was to be my last night at home until August, since I needed to stay in an apartment in Seattle for the next three months. I am required to stay within five minutes of the clinic. I walked around the house several times, peeking in on my sleeping boys, and lying down again. Only to repeat this ritual over and over again. Looking over at Michelle, quietly sleeping next to me, my thoughts kept playing the 'What if?' game. What if I don't make it? What if this is the last night in my house with my wife and boys? What if? Finally, I decided to do some serious praying and give my worries up to the Lord, because to continue dwelling on my worries was doing much more harm than good. Soon after praying I drifted into sleep and slept soundly through the night. Saturday morning I woke up to a beautiful sunrise coming through my window. I saw the foothills of Mt. Rainier and as I got up I felt at peace. The Lord just placed a peace in my heart that everything was going to be OK. Michelle got up with me and helped me get my things together. We decided Michelle would stay home for the weekend and finish getting our home affairs in order and would send the boys up later in the day to spend the weekend with me in Seattle. I had to leave early because my first chemo appointment was at 8:00 am in Seattle and I live an hour away. Before leaving I walked the yard a few more times, thanked God for how he has blessed me with such a wonderful life, filled with a wonderful family and incredible friends. Michelle and I exchanged several long hugs. Holding Michelle I continued to thank God for how richly blessed I am. It was tough to drive away, but God's peace somehow just filled my heart and as I drove to Seattle I felt God was in complete control and that he would carry me through this difficult journey ahead.

 

Some of you may recall when I had my first autogolous transplant back in February of 2000. I got up at 2:30am and rode my bike the fifty miles to Seattle. Well, this time up the journey went a little faster as I had the unique opportunity to drive my friends car to Seattle. Needless to say, driving the Porsche was an excellent distraction from my worries. My Honda had to go into the shop so my friends Gary and Amanda graciously lent me their car for the weekend. Pretty awesome.

 

 

 

Even though I have been through numerous rounds of chemotherapy in the past ten years, I was nervous about walking into the infusion room at SCCA. I knew that this was it. I was doing my final stages of conditioning before transplant. All kinds of fears were raced through my head. As I walked down the hall towards the nurses desk my fears began to fade as sounds of laughter filled the room. I was one of the first patients to arrive at the clinic Saturday morning and was comforted by the happy atmosphere created by the smiling faces and joyful laughs of all the nurses. Their joy made the whole experience of receiving my chemotherapy over the next three days much easier. The staff here reminded me of going down to Pike Place market and where all the employees at the fish market are having such a good time at their job that people just stand around to watch and laugh along with them. It's awesome to see people working at a cancer clinic being full of joy. Their joy is contagious to their patients. As they say, laughter is the best medicine. My pre-transplant chemotherapy over the next three days would consist of the drug Fludarabine. The purpose of this drug is to clean my body of as much CLL (Chronic Lymphocitic Leukemia) as possible prior to transplant. My treatment was complete by 10am. My blood counts are good and my immune system will be strong for a few more days, so after treatment I was off to enjoy the rest of the day.



Doctor's orders were to stay in the Seattle area in case I had any complications that needed immediate treatment. Well, I would follow orders and not go home, but I wasn't going to sit around the apartment all day. It was too beautiful of a day. My friend Jamie came up with his kids and my son Tanner and we headed out for a day on the boat. Every year in Seattle they start off boating season with a parade of boats. The parade starts in Lake Union, passes through the Montlake Cut (a short canal) and into Lake Washington. Boating is huge in the Seattle area, so there are hundreds of boats in the parade and thousands of people who turn out to watch. Jamie's in-laws have a beautiful boat and it was one of the lead boats in the parade. The boat was so big it carried the University of Washington band on it and the boat played as our boat traveled through the parade. It was an incredible day for Tanner and me. We had so much fun. It made my first day of treatment and being away from home much easier. Thank you to Jamie's family and his in-laws for inviting Tanner and me along on the boat. What a great memory.



A special thanks to Daryl and Gladys for bringing my other boys, CJ and Kyler, up to Seattle on Saturday night. The boys and I had a blast. Knowing that this would be my last weekend with good blood counts and a strong immune system I wanted to have fun with my boys. So that is exactly what we did. I had treatment again early Sunday morning, but after that we went to REI and they climbed Pinnacle, a huge rock climbing wall. It's a landmark in Seattle visible from the freeway. They all did awesome. CJ chose a realyl hard route and I thought his brothers would choose something easier, but they couldn't be outdone by one another so they all climbed the same route successfully. I had so much fun watching them. After climbing we went over to Ballard Locks to watch the boats pass through. It was so cool. We just had a great time together this weekend. It was exactly what we needed. Saying good-bye to them was on Sunday night was hard. I am sure going to miss them during the week. Thanks to my friend Ben for coming up to take them home.

My friend Brad came up on Sunday night to spend the night and keep me company. It was great that he came because I was really missing my family and it was good to have a friend around.

On Monday I finished my last chemotherapy treatment. I had a little trouble with one of my pre-transplant drugs called Cyclosporin. It makes me feel warm and tingly all over (in a bad way) and for some reason I was a little light headed for about an hour. I drank plenty of water and getting re-hydrated seemed to get me back to normal.

 

On Monday night my friend Tim came up to spend the night and we had had a great time together. Thanks Tim for helping me get all my AV and computer networking issues figured out. You're awesome.



Today I have a day of rest from treatments. Michelle is coming up today.
We have been apart for the past three days, so I can't wait to be with her. Tomorrow is a big day. I will get radiation in the morning and later in the evening I will check into the UW hospital to receive my new donor marrow cells. They are not sure of the exact time of my transplant, it just depends on when the donor cells arrive. The cells are traveling half way around the world to get to me. If all goes smoothly I will only need to spend one night in the hospital. A lot will be happening on Wednesday so I will need a lot of prayer.

I want to close with the words from a song that brings me comfort:

Words from the Song 'I'm Alright'
By FFH (Album: I want to be like you)

Some say life is hard,
Like swimming upstream.
Or going against the grain,
But I say life ain't that hard,
'Cause I've seen how,
The joy outweighs the pain.

So you can sit and whine
About the time you've been having
Oh, but as for me. I choose to be
As happy as I can be.

Because I'm alright
Trouble may find me
But it's not gonna keep me down.
'Cause I'll hold on tight
To the Father who loves me
He likes having me around
Yeah, He loves me and He cares for me
And so I'll Be alright

I know the Lord is in control and like the song says, "I'll be Alright!"

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