The Roller Coaster (courtesy of guest blogger Hunter)

Thought I might sabotage my wife's blog.  There's been quite a lot going on at our house, and after our blood work and consultation with the doctors today, I thought I'd give an update.  So, from guest blogger Hunter, here goes.

I think in the last post my platelets had begun to swing up; not quite normal, but in the right direction.  Well, we had a week or two of steady climbing, and I've been running back in the low end of normal.  That's good.  I had got to back off my steroids down to 40mg and it looked like all this was going to get back under control fairly quickly.  Well, about 10 days ago, I started noticing that my hemoglobin was slowly dropping about a point every 3-4 days.  The doctors didn't say anything about it, but it was starting to bug me, as memories of last June are still very vivid in my mind.  Last June is when my hemoglobin tanked, and I literally was fighting to stay alive for 2 weeks.  I had also started having way more pain than what I had previously the other 3 times I had been on the high dosages of steroids.  I told Jennifer, "I just don't feel right."  That's normally not good.

Well, we had a doctors appt scheduled in Houston for August 29, so I figured we'd just discuss it then.  Jennifer and I had been making a list of questions and things we wanted to talk about while we were there, sitting in front of them.  We drove to Houston that Friday morning, and got to our appt at 1:00.  They got us right in, did the blood draw, got my immunizations, and then the dreaded wait.  After, the several unexpected hiccups, you can't help but have some anxiety every time you have a blood draw.  Because every time we seem to get life back to normal, we get blindsided.  Our doctors come in and just kind of flip us the sheet; he's pretty easy to read, and you could tell it wasn't good.  My platelets were still 137, which was exactly what they were the previous draw.  Not bad, but they would've expected a jump as I had got an nplate shot just a few days earlier.  However, my hemoglobin had dropped another point in 4 days to 10.6.  Not scary low, but not a good trend.  At this point, we start talking and the scenarios are not great.  My body is starting to show the cumulative effects of the high doses of steroid: increased muscle pain, no sleep, high blood sugar, increasing blood pressure.  Yet, they know they have got to get this under control or we could have major issues again.  They start throwing out long term scenarios with different drugs; we didn't want to hear this.  We wanted this to be back under control, and just be done.  In talking with them though, it did seem like we may have finally nailed down what has caused my flair ups.  So they ran a couple more blood tests and told us to go have a fun evening.  They could tell we were bummed out and frustrated.  So we left with really no game plan (since they didn't have all the labs back), and a feeling of helplessness and defeat.  We'd get the labs back on Tuesday as well as fresh blood counts in Abilene on Tuesday (today).

Needless to say, our weekend was pretty rough.  We're all mentally and physically exhausted, and have no clue as to what is going to happen on Tuesday.  Jennifer and I talked a lot on the drive back from Houston and during the evenings over the long weekend.  We question why is all this happening to us.  We question our decision to do the transplant.  I told her that I am mentally smoked.  By the way, my wife is a rock star, and there is no way I could do this without her.  As tough as the physical pain and suffering has been at times, it's the mental and emotional side of things that is the toughest.  I've prayed and prayed to God to take this burden from my family.  It's such a helpless feeling to know there is absolutely nothing I can do to fix this.  I didn't know if I could mentally take it if I got more bad news at today's blood draw.  I was mentally and emotionally drained.  I knew it was in Big Daddy's hands, and to say I was begging for some good news over the weekend would be an understatement.

I showed up when the doctor's office opened at 8:30 to get my labs and my nplate.  As I'm waiting for the lab results, my mind just keeps playing out the different scenarios good and bad.  I'm hoping and praying for the best, but trying to prepare myself mentally for the worst.  I get the results, and just about did a fist pump and screamed.  My platelets had gone from 137 to 180, and more importantly, my hemoglobin had made the turn from dropping.  It had gone from 10.6 to 11.1.  We called the doctors in Houston, and the test they had run Friday had come back negative too!  When we were in Houston Friday, everyone was pretty positive that the test would come back positive (this test shows if you're destroying red cells).  Because of the results, we didn't have to change our course of action, and I was able to back off the steroids some.  We're not out of the blue yet, but it was very relieving to be headed in the right direction instead of the wrong.  And, it does look like we have a better idea as to what has caused these hiccups, so maybe we can avoid them in the future.

To say this transplant has been a roller coaster of emotions would be the understatement of the century. There have been times of incredible joy and praise, and I've been so mad and frustrated with God at times that I truly wondered if something was wrong with me.  In 1 Corinthians, Paul talks about God not giving us more temptation than we alone can bear.  And, in 2 Corinthians about them being burdened so excessively they could not bear it.  I think that's what we've learned the most from this transplant.  There have been times, like this last weekend, that I was at my breaking point; I was burdened beyond what I could bear.  But it seems like when I get to that point, my Big Daddy picks me and gets me to the next day, and the next day, and the next.  I also can't express the gratitude we have for our friends and family that have prayed us through these tough times.  You can feel it.  You'll have a bad day and as you're going to bed think, "I don't know if I can do this anymore."  But, you'll wake up with a peace and strength that's indescribable.  I pray we're close to the end of this journey, and we still ask for prayers of healing and strength.  My next blood draw is Thursday, and another nice increase in platelets and hemoglobin would put everyone's hearts at ease.  I feel God is shaping and molding myself and my family though all of this to do great things for His Kingdom.  However, I'm human, and I'd be OK with some smooth sailing for a while.