We’re home! We left Houston on Friday August 8, 2008 and returned home to Georgia on Saturday August 9, 2008. Marissa’s mom and Gary met us at our house with the boys (Paddington and Yogi), who were just as excited to see us as we were to see them. As soon as we walked in the door at our house we noticed our home makeover immediately. All of the projects that we had started had been finished thanks to Christine, Gary, Meaghan, Nathan, Maison, and Ashleigh. They even tackled some projects of their own inside and out. Sunday we went to Meaghan’s and we were surprised by a dinner party with everyone there to celebrate my return. Thank you everybody for all of your hard work and thoughtfulness, you really made coming home special, and our house looks so good we didn’t even recognize it.
Monday August 11, 2008 we met with my new doctor in Georgia, Dr. D’Amato at Emory Crawford Long. She came to Atlanta from Tampa to start up a Sarcoma Department at the hospital. Dr. D’Amato was very informative and very personable, and Marissa and I both really liked her. My chemotherapy was scheduled to start on Monday August 18, 2008.
The rest of the week we spent unpacking, settling back into our house, and getting reacquainted with our dogs. I went to work to visit everyone and catch up on all that had been happening, and Marissa went and watched Jack a couple of days. Saturday we had everyone over to hang out and have pizza before chemo began again, it is so nice being home and having visitors.
Monday August 18, 2008 we left for Emory Crawford Long at 7am. We didn’t get home that night until 7pm, and we were both exhausted. The day was filled with my usual chemo regimen but the staff had to familiarize themselves with my orders and medications. It took a little longer because typically a patient receiving my chemo at this hospital is admitted all week as an inpatient. Since I preferred to remain outpatient the typical little kinks had to be worked out. Marissa and I also had to get used to the way Emory Crawford Long does things-everywhere is different.
Round 4 has not been as bad as Round 3, and I am thankful for that. I have experienced some nausea and definite fatigue. As soon as we get home at the end of the day I eat dinner and go right to bed. It is great being back in my own bed. The days are very long and the commute is tiresome, but I would still rather deal with that than be confined to the hospital for 5 days. Also, the nurses are quite nice and since it is a small facility I see the same nurses daily, and they already know me.
We have a week and a half at home to rest and then we leave again for Houston. We are praying everything is still working as it should be and we will only have to stay there for 4 days. As of right now we do not have internet at home, so I will just continue to post when internet is available and as I am able.
I also wanted to thank everybody back in West Tennessee for all of their hard work in planning and hosting such a successful spaghetti supper in my honor. The turnout was huge and it sounds like it was a great time. I wish we could have been there. I know there are a couple of other benefits in the works and coming up soon and I just want to thank everybody involved, please know how truly appreciated everything is, thank you all again.
