As Peggy, the kids and I sit down in our Residence Inn residence, we are happy.


Today (Saturday), we were able to get in and get out of treatment in a mere 3 hours. To some that might seem like a long time, but in the Oncology world, that is a quick trip. The reason things went so quickly is because I didn't need many "suppliments", only the Invanz antibiotic.


My labs today showed that my platelets held steady - that's 2 days in a row. I was 20 yesterday & 20 today. The WBC was 1.8 and all my red values went up, so again today was so good.


Now, let me describe a long day. A long day is where you arrive at 10:30am, sit in the lobby for 2 hours waiting to be called back, and then once you get back in the treatment areas, you don't leave until 7:30pm at night. That's long day! Actually, that was yesterday.


Friday we reported for duty in the Chemo Room. This is where I get the antibiotics. While we waited, we had the good fortune of bumping into a couple that we have developed really good friendship with over the summer and keep up with Susan & Mike from Houston, TX. It was a joy seeing them, but it was unfortunate that we had to see them here again so soon. We've also been visiting with other patient friends here from Collierville that we keep up with . So, life in the waiting room isn't all bad. About the time we finished catching up with them, I got called back for the anitbiotics and we raced to get the bag hung so we would not be late for the MRI.


Mission accomplished, because we walked in for our MRI appointment on time. I was ready, Peggy was ready, but the MRI wasn't ready. We had another 1 hour wait on the MRI, which was our good fortune again because Karen Green and her friend Lisa dropped in on us for a surprise visit. Karen is our friend from Memphis we go to church with and a "fighter" like me. We've been praying for each other and it was really good to see her. It meant a lot to us that she would take time to come see us at the hosp on her fun weekend away from all that.


While Karen, Peggy, and Lisa caught up, I got inside the MRI 'tube' and went to sleep. Yes, after 6 years, I've learned to sleep in an MRI. I guess I've been in them so many times that the noise doesn't bother me anymore.


I woke up thinking I was done, but not so fast. The chemo room had called while I was asleep and asked us to come back for 2 bags of red blood. That doesn't sound like a lot, but as you already know we didn't get home until 7:30 last night.


No one had any trouble getting to sleep Friday night, that's for sure. We ate out and then Chandler and Peggy met Heather at her shop and got their hair done. How very gracious of Heather to be so flexible with them.

But all that was last night.... I was only there 3 hours today remember?


I don't get out much because sitting up is so uncomfortable. I decided to try a movie today for the first time. We hit a matinee and I did better than I thought I would. Then we ordered pizza and went to Heather's house to hang out for a bit. It was nice to get out of the hotel room. We just relaxed. The kids played Rock Band and games, I got to surf the net for MSU states on the game


In His grace,


Frank