First Round of Chemo - Day 1

Written Friday, May 4 @ 10:40 p.m.

Michelle had her first chemo drug Wed morning at the MV Oncology. She was a little tired as had to get up about 5:00 for training, which Birch Equipment does each Wed. morning at 6:00. She went to work then from 7:00 to 8:30 - did the chemo and went back to work about 11:00 (amazing how a 1 hour treatment always takes so long - no rush to get things going and done). Anyway, she was a bit tired and had a headache, but made it for the day.

Yesterday, Thursday, she had to be at Oncology at 8:00 to start another kind of drug drip for an hour or 2 - then they walked her across the street to the hospital to do the 24 hour drug drip. Again, there seems to be no rush and they didn't get her started until 2:30 (they didn't seem to know she was coming even though Oncology had called them last week and called again on Wednesday - there seems to be some lack of communication here - which isn't too comforting to patients, but I've heard from someone who works there that they are terribly short handed - like 20 positions) - which means she won't be done with that one till about 2:30 today and has to do one more 1 hour drip. Hopefully, she'll be done by 5:00 but we aren't holding our breath. She had lots of visitors all day and evening so had no time to get bored (or get a nap). Denny had a track meet so didn't get home till 7:30 at which time he, Nathan, and I went back – Michelle and a friend were watching a movie so we didn't stay long - just brought her some earplugs, her comforter and some mail. She brought her own pillows - amazing how different hospitals are now days – another friend visited several hours and brought her 8 month old with.

I'll be stopping in this morning to see how her sleep went - she had an air mattress that kept decompressing - (for bed sores) and wasn't very comfortable. And we know hospitals in general aren't very restful so she'll probably hit her bed early - has to work tomorrow so will be exhausted by Sunday. But she's determined to work as much as she can.

The next treatment is supposed to be May 23- here in MV Oncology again.

The Spaghetti Dinner fundraiser is May 14 - Monday 5-8 pm. Sara Rothenbuler, Birch Equipment’s owner, was to send out newsletters to 2000 customers with that info as well as info for the bank account set up at Skagit State for donations. We are hearing of more and more people who are forwarding the fundraiser info to all their friends and co-workers - so we hope it goes well.

Will try to keep you all updated - we thank the Lord for all the encouragement and care being given to her and to us - the Lord certainly gives what we need as we need it - in so many forms from so many people. Not that I would recommend going through any of this kind of thing just to be able to be given all this care, but it is so amazing! Have a great day and God bless you all.