Wednesday, November 14th

Yesterday went well.   Jacob had to get his blood checked first thing.  His counts were fantastic!   So, we had the rest of the day to do whatever we wanted.  We went back to the Ronald McDonald house and just relaxed for awhile and played video games in their arcade.  When we were hungry, we decided to head out for lunch.  Jacob really wanted to go to The Cheesecake Factory.   We both ate a HUGE lunch and Jacob got a piece of cheesecake for dessert to go.  He had never had cheesecake before so he decided to get the raspberry lemon.  Not my first choice, but it was for him.  Next we went to the Mayfair Mall.  It’s a 2-story mall.  We walked around that for a couple hours and checked everything out.  I was quite tired after that, but he was still rarin’ to go!  He asked if we could go to the other mall – Brookfield Square.  So, we walked around another mall.  Once we were done with that, he still wanted to keep going, but Mom’s feet and legs were sore so it was time to take a break.  We headed back to the R.M. House and relaxed for the rest of the evening.  Jacob eventually had his cheesecake – loved it!  Thankfully he only ate half, so I got the other half.  🙂  YUM!

Today started off kinda crazy.  We got to the hospital at 7:40 for them to access his port on the second floor.   Originally we were supposed to go up to the 3rd floor after (as of yesterday) to register for surgery.  But plans had changed and they told us to report to the first floor instead.  Once we got to the first floor, they told us it was wrong and to go to the 3rd floor.  On the 3rd floor, they said to go to the 4th floor.  On the 4th floor, they took care of us and got Jacob prepped, but said we should’ve been on the 1st floor.  They just got a new computer system, so that was the problem, but what a way to start the day!  He finally got into surgery at about 9:30.  Everything went well and he was in recovery by 11:00 and in his room by 11:30.  They started harvesting the stem cells at 12:30 and were done 4 hours later.  Their goal (which I was way off originally) was 5 million.  They were hoping they could get that many within 2-3 days.  Well guess what????  They ended up getting 11 MILLION!!!!  Can you believe it?  God is so awesome!  They got 2 bags worth in one day.  So, tomorrow morning they’ll be able to take out his central line and start chemo later on in the day and finish up Friday.  Yippee!!!

Unfortunately with everything going on today, Jacob did get sick a couple of times and doesn’t feel very good.  They said it’s probably from a combination of things – surgery, the anesthesia, not eating for so many hours, the morphine, and the meds they put in when taking the cells out.  Also, harvesting the stem cells just wipes your body out.  He’s been pretty tired all day.  Thankfully he hasn’t been in much pain.  Just uncomfortable from having a big tube sticking out of the side of his neck.  Hopefully he’ll be back to himself tomorrow.  And hopefully he’ll be able to sleep okay tonight with that thing in his neck.  Pretty bad when he feels better with chemo than with this stuff.

Thank you for all of your prayers and support!  I know the prayers are working.  Evidence of that today!  🙂