I was discharged from the hospital Sunday, August 17th. I felt well overall. A few head aches, a little weak, but nothing intolerable. Mom came to visit as well as my sister-in-law. We had a nice visit.

We haven’t had a formal family photo in years. You know, the kind at Sears or JcPenney’s. This came to our attention shortly after the cancer diagnosis. Took a while to coordinate schedules of everyone involved so that we could all attend. I mentioned I didn’t want to be bald in all the pictures. We went hat shopping on August 18th. Found some cheap but fun hats and had a nice family time, even though they framed me with some goofy hats.

We had visitors our first week home. My mom was here for a week and my sister-in-law came to visit for a few days. We had a nice time and my health mostly held out for the visits. Mom is an excellent cook. We all got spoiled to her delicious food. 

I began to get ill Sunday. By Monday night, early Tuesday morning, I went to the ER with fever, chills, and feeling very bad. I was breathing fast, bloop pressure elevated, lactic acid high, heart rate int he 100’s, my head was hurting, and a host of other ailments for good measure. They put in a new central line; I wasn’t too happy about that. They stated it was necessary because I was “pre-shock” and they needed to monitor my CVP (central venous pressure). They said I was going to the ICU when a bed opened.

I received 3 units of blood, antibiotics, and they performed many tests. I even had a new central line put in my right neck (IJ line). I also received 8mg’s of Morphine IV. Barely touched the pain. My oncologist changed me to my oncology floor and told them to cut out the CVP monitoring. I then received 3 units of blood due to anemia. It was bad, but not as bad as it could have been (7.1 Hgb). 

I became quite ill on the Morning of the 27th. Fever became high. I had nausea with vomiting, something that doesn’t happen much for me. I tell you, nothing as fun as hold my head in a bucket while the nurse is pushing meds as fast as she can giving orders to others to help me with this and that. I also had a good head banging headache. Miserable.

In the middle of this illness, I disappeared from social media for a few days. I forget that doing this causes some concern with others. The outpouring of kindness from so many is touching. Receiving well wishes, prayers, and letters of concern means a lot to me. I’ll point out one in particular, a cute baby I’ve shared with you before, Mr Logan. His parents heard I was really sick so they put on a Super Suit customized with lymphoma and tagged me in a post. I was down at that moment and their gesture really encouraged my wife and me.

I have another video I’m working on now to share more of the last two weeks. Will help to fill in the details. Have been improving since afternoon of 27th. I’ll start chemo soon, but will be behind a few days now due to this infection that hasn’t been identified yet. 

More to come…