Radiation Day 4 (Tuesday, Dec 18, 2012)

Radiation went well this morning. Afterwords Eric just had to wait until a room was available for him to move on up....people. HE MOVED UP!!! yay! Back to the 9th floor he went. The view from his room is of the parking lot instead of the mountains :( That's ok. He is out of the ICU folks. And it allows me to look out...oh yea! That's where I parked. You know you have visited the hospital too many times (a couple times a day) when you walk out of the hospital and wander because you have no clue where your car is. lol


  Eric's sister Laura and her family came up from Texas for the Holidays. Last night Laura and her husband Adam took turns being with Eric. Seems as though they had a good time seeing him. I guess that Eric was pretty funny on his medicine that helps him sleep. While he was part awake and part sleeping he was saying some pretty funny things. Among them he told Adam, "nice job Maytag". This morning I went and saw Eric for about an hour and left shortly after his brother Paul arrived to stay with him for most of the day. It was nice to have a morning with my Tayvia. We played and ran a few errands.

Soon after I got up to the hospital this evening to see Eric the physical therapist came by to do a few exercises with him. Eric was able to go on a walk with the help of a walker. I should've taken a picture. It had a special attachment for his left arm to rest on. He is slowly able to move that arm again- small jerky movements but he isn't able to move his fingers much yet. Good signs though that the radiation is working. Half way through our walk we stopped at some chairs by big windows to rest. The physical therapist also did some arm, shoulder, and neck exercises with him. Eric said it felt good to practice range of motion and work out a few knots in his muscles. The physical therapist is impressed that Eric can walk around so well. We took a wheel chair along with us (my job was to push it!) in case he got tired but he never needed it!

I was also there this evening when the oncologist came by. He said that Eric's kidney and liver functions were doing much better. He would like to do Day 16 of his first round of chemo which is tomorrow. Now that he is off of the oxygen he feels it would be good to get the Bleomycin and officially be done with Round 1 of chemo. As the physical therapist was walking out the door the oncologist asked her what she thought Eric needed to do to be discharged from the hospital, and where she stood as far as physical therapy goes. The PT recommended that Eric go to an out-patient facility to continue getting treatment on his upper left body. They also discussed the possibility of Eric being discharged from the hospital and admitted to the 12th floor of the big IMC building where they have an in-patient physical therapy program. Hopefully we will know tomorrow which he will be doing. Either way it means that he won't be home for Christmas. When the doctor said this I could tell that Eric was a little bummed. I am too, but you just have to put it in the big perspective of things. He does need to build up strength and learn how to use his arm again as radiation does its thing and blasts those metastasis that are in his brain affecting his ability to use his left arm and fingers. Maybe he can at least come home for a couple hours on Christmas? We shall see.

Not only was it a good day because get was able to get out of the ICU where no one under 12 is allowed, but Eric was able to see his daughter. He has missed her! I could tell that he was emotional seeing his little girl again. He had the biggest smile on his face and was holding back tears. I just held her while she stood on his bed. She squawked at him. They played patty cake. She also LOVED playing with his wrist ban. I'm pretty sure it meant "dad it's time for you to get out of this place and come home with me :)"

My aunt Char works for Southwest Airlines. About a week ago she texted my mom that she had a couple stand-by passes that any of Eric's family could use to come see Eric. She said that it wasn't much but she wanted to help. So I put Char in touch with Eric's sister Jenny who lives back east, so Jenny was able to fly out with her two kids this morning. That was such an answer to prayer because there was no other way Jenny would have been able to come out to see Eric whom she is really close with. Thank you Char!