Tuesday,

For those of you who have followed this blog regularly, know that we have attempted to update the status on a nightly basis. Today’s update is serving for both Monday and Tuesday due primarily to Steve dealing with the lingering effects of the anesthesia Monday evening after port being implanted (which was successful).

Today, Bonnie had her port surgically implanted, although her port is a dual port compared to my (Steve) single. Bonnie’s three bone marrow biopsies compared to my two, now a dual port compared to a single port. From a competition standpoint, Bonnie has the upper hand, except she didn’t get four miniscule tattoos and radiation therapy like me (Steve), but I suppose that doesn’t come close to enduring a hospital room for 58 days and all the amenities that come with it.

On a more serious note, we are praising God for the positive news of Bonnie’s recent bone marrow biopsy, which showed that she is in complete remission. As a leukemia patient, even though she is in remission, she will still need a bone marrow transplant and that process will start next Wednesday when we meet with our new team of doctors from Karmanos Cancer Center in Detroit. They will handle the bone marrow typing of Bonnie’s siblings and begin the matching process. Please pray that God will bring the donor matching Bonnie’s type as soon as possible so she can avoid having to do follow up consolidation chemo treatment, which will be possibly a couple of months from now. The consolidation treatment is to keep Bonnie in remission.

My radiation treatments were suspended after yesterday’s (Monday) as I now have one full week of treatments completed. My chemotherapy starts Thursday and will run its course over 9 weeks followed by the balance of the radiation therapy remaining (3 weeks – 5 times per week).

The pain I (Steve) had in my side that sent me to the emergency room a couple of weeks ago has finally subsided. I have gone four days without taking Torodol, which is the strong medicine that my oncologist wanted me to stop as soon as possible. Thank you for your specific prayers on this issue.

Assuming everything goes well this evening (Tuesday) for Bonnie, she will be discharged tomorrow! All of Bonnie’s IV hoses have been disconnected so she has been free of the IV tower she has had to cart around with her for the past 8 weeks. I suspect when she is back home that in the middle of the night she will grab my arm and try to drag me to the bathroom as if she were taking the IV tower for a walk. Today she walked stairs and laps around the floor and sat outside for 45 minutes this afternoon. So she is getting stronger by the minute.

It’s amazing what we have learned about blood since we have been here. Once Bonnie’s white blood cell count came up with a high percent being neutrophils, it is amazing the healing that naturally started to occur within her body. For example, the biopsy of the colon revealed that she had a certain type of infection and some of the reason for the problems with diarrhea. Once her WBC counts started coming up, one of the areas in the body that continually renews WBC is the colon and these WBC attacked the infection and it is virtually gone. Overall the blood cleanses the body of it impurities, if the blood is in the right order.

I can’t help but think of the parallel between how our blood cleanses our bodies from impurities and how God used blood to cleanse our souls from the impurities of sin, through the shed blood of His Son, Jesus. Thank you again for all your prayers, cards and notes of encouragement. Psalm 28:6-7 says:

Blessed be the LORD!
For He has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy.
The LORD is my strength and my shield;
in Him my heart trusts, and I am helped;
my heart exults,
and with my song I give thanks to Him.

We never could have made it through this segment of our long journey without the prayers of so many.

Thank you.