home sweet home

tim came home tonight...he tolerated this round of chemo pretty well.

we will be doing follow-up appts for transfusion support back at the 6th floor "day hospital" starting tomorrow afternoon.

we have home care coming in tomorrow morning.

we are already scheduled for the next round...pending no problems he is due to be re-admitted on May 17th...the one year anniversary of his transplant and one day after the twins 14th birthday.

we will be in touch...

thanks for checking in.

tim and tammy

sunday morning update

well...the weekend is here and almost gone already. my car is now working on "auto-pilot". between my work and tims appts and now him being a patient i can't count the number of times i have driven to hershey this past couple of weeks.

saturday was a pretty good day. he had some visitors all throughout the day which made his day go quicker than looking a me all day long!! i do have a question for all you guys out there though...how many of you can actually sit and watch that NFL draft for 24 hours???? talk about a sleeper!!!!!!

tim is still doing quite well considering. some pain issues and stomach issues and getting tired, but with all that he has been though this is all kinda minor stuff. his biggest issue is the fact that he has to stay in the hospital for his treatments...he wants to invent a drive-thru chemo lab.

all his girls were into see him yesterday and we got him out of bed and down to the lobby. this was good for him to get out of his room for awhile.

well...he is insisting that i stay home this morning and take the family to church so that is what we are going to do. hope you all can get yourself moving and get out to church yourselves-it is good for you!!! i don't know what this family would do if we didn't have a church family and such an awesome GOD to rely on.

thanks for checking in.

tim and tammy

day two...

...so far so good.

tim tolerated the first dose of chemo which wasn't actually given until 2am this morning. the doctors feel that the tumors are already showing signs of shrinkage...although that is very normal with this chemo treatment i guess. tim needed a little lasix for fluid retention but other than that all went smooth. he has a PICC line put into his arm today. this is a central catheter that is used for drawing blood and for administering chemo and other fluids. it is in his upper right arm and we think it will stay in for a while.

we visited with a lot of familiar faces today...all the nurses that we became so attached to during his first round of illness were down to see him. boy, was he ever a popular patient-they all remember and still tell stories about when he was in. (some are pretty funny). i think it was good for tim to have all the familiar friendly faces around today. (i know it was good for me)

he is feeling pretty decent so far. mild stomach issues and getting a bit tired, but he is hanging tough. his second dose of chemo should be started now-they were bumping it up to around 10pm.

better get some stuff done around the house...

thanks for checking in.

tim and tammy

day one...

tim was admitted at 4:50pm this afternoon. this was 10 minutes away from the 5:00pm deadline in the chemo lab...so we made it just in time. they have started his "pre-chemo" stuff and the real stuff should be hung at about 11:00pm tonight.

everything went VERY smooth with the admission and all that preliminary stuff of meeting the new resident doctor and the new intern doctor and the different nurses and having to tell the same information over and over and over again. tim was a real trooper.

the doctor (original oncologist) was in to see tim late tonight...about 9pm and did the here we are speech and the this is not good speech and we will have to wait and see speech...but after he left tim and i talked and decided (like mark and deb) that we can not dwell on the what might happens but rather keep finding the positives and picturing tim well again.

thanks for all the calls, cards, blog comments, thoughts and prayers. you guys are awesome and we are so blessed to have such great friends, co-workers, relatives, neighbors, etc...

i will update when i can.

thanks for checking in.

tim and tammy

a TOUGH one...

...this is going to be a tough blog to post tonight.

we got the results of the PET scan this afternoon and found out that not only is the cancer back, but it has chosen to come back in multiple locations. this will eliminate the possibility of radiation therapy. we are moving on to CHEMO...yuk!!!

we are scheduled for admission to the hershey medical center (pending bed availability) sometime tomorrow afternoon. he will have some sort of central line put in and the first round of chemo will be scheduled to begin tomorrow night if all goes as planned. tim is less than thrilled with the fact that he has to stay in the hospital for the chemo (about 5 days minimum) but he really has no choice.

i wish i could tell you more. all they say is that this is NOT good news. we are all struggling a bit tonight. it is impossible to describe how hard it is to tell your 3 teenage daughters that we have to go through this AGAIN>

keep us in your prayers.

thanks for checking in.

tim and tammy

good morning...

who (besides tim) is LOVING this weather????

for the first time in a year and a half he helped me do some yard work yesterday. we pulled weeds and raked and mowed...the place looks pretty good. should he have been out in the sun raking, pulling weeds and mowing??? probably not from a physical point of view BUT from an emotional point of view i didn't have the heart to tell him NO. he was so happy to be out there with me working in the yard that i just didn't say anything. it was good medicine for him.

so...many of you are wondering where we go from here. welcome to the club-we do not really know anything about the cancer relapse yet. today we have an oncology appt to discuss "stuff" followed by a P.E.T. (CAT) scan tomorrow. we are hoping to get the scan results tomorrow but we may have to wait-we are not sure. sometimes the whole group of oncologist get together and review the info and they decide on a course of treatment at a round table forum. but when we know we will let everyone else know.

one change that has already been made was that they are taking tim OFF the anti-rejection drugs. yes, as of this weekend he will officially be OFF the steriods (along with a couple other drugs). in theory we have been holding his immune system back from attacking tims body (this is called graft vs host) but now they want to "unleash" his immune system and are hoping that instead of attacking tims body it will attack the cancer. who figures this stuff out????

we are trying to keep focused on the day to day chaos in our lives instead of what "might" be. so far that has been working pretty good. what is coming is going to come regardless of how much we worry or fret, so lets just keep on keeping on.

my parents and tims dad are coming down today to watch sports. twins have a soccer game at 4pm and kelsey has her first softball game at 6:15pm. i told them to bring a pop tart or something because on nights like this we sometimes forget to eat supper.

well...thanks for all your thoughts and prayers.

thanks for checking in...

tim and tammy

wondering where we are?

sorry...

to relapse=to fall or slip back into a former state.

sorry...

tim discovered a lump just above his 8th rib a couple of weeks ago and we just found out that the tumor was malignant. they are calling it RELAPSED B-CELL LYMPHOMA

we are still pretty numb and really don't know too much until all the tests and scans are performed next week. the doctor mentioned the possibility of using radiation therapy this time but we will not know for a week or so exactly how involved or complicated this could become.

please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we face ROUND #2.

tim is discouraged but ready to fight.

i will certainly update when i get a chance but for now i would only be guessing if i were to say any more.

thanks for checking in.

tim and tammy

those who wait...

...upon the LORD shall renew their strength. aren't you glad that we can rely on the LORD to help us through the times when we just seem to be unable to muster up any strength on our own.

i am just tired. i have caught myself a cold or something and haven't slept much the last few days and am just plain old tired. tim has a few issues he is dealing with and i think we are both emotionally and physically drained. pray for us. once in a while everyone has a downer week and we seem to be in the middle of one now. we are hoping for a MUCH BETTER week next week.

ashley is still out. she still can't play soccer because of a knee injury and she still can't talk...it is going on about 5 weeks of silence now. at this rate she may be missing the whole soccer season she was so looking forward to playing. we have her on antibiotic's for the vocal cords but no sign of relief in sight.

well, have to get moving. got things to do. have a wonderful wednesday and enjoy the sunshine while it is here.

thanks for checking in.

tim and tammy

off we go...

off to berwick for a few days...enjoy your weekend.

happy easter...

tim and tammy

april already...

tim is still working
tam is still working
meg is still working

and we have been unable to decide if the girls are keeping us young or making us old. i was looking through the house last night and in my living room i saw soccer cleats and shin guards in one corner and a softball glove and batting glove in the other corner and along side the chair was a field hockey stick and indoor sneakers...yes, we have all three sports going on at once. meg is doing an indoor field hockey clinic this month and kelsey is playing rec softball and school soccer and ashley is captain of the middle school varsity soccer team. last night was our last indoor soccer game and i must admit that didn't make me sad.

so...if my updates keep getting farther and farther apart one can see why. we are loving watching the girls play sports but it is certainly time consuming. tim is handling being back to work pretty well. he is tired when he gets home, but i think it is a "good" tired. the oncology doctors appts are spread out farther apart which is nice. it is certainly nice having the second TAXI back in service...tim has been doing a lot of the pick ups and drop offs.

my major concern now is the SUN...i need to get tim a shirt that says "please remind me to stay out of the sun". for 40 plus years he hasn't really worried about the effects of the sun on his fair skin...BUT that has to change. so, if you are out and about and see him in the sun...tell him that his wife said to wear a hat and put on 50+ sun screen. just being a chemo patient makes him very susceptible to the sun but it also is a major cause of sparking a graft vs host reaction. so no sun for tim...(so those of you that take him out golfing...make sure he covers up).

well, gotta get the kiddos moving...

thanks for checking in...

tim and tammy