Latest News for the Month of
June 2008
Here today, gone tomorrow. :) We have left Florida and are on the road for our big summer trip. We stopped off in Bristol and seen the Dr. Brockmyre and also caught up with friends. had a wonderful time seeing Kim, Dave, Billy, Ramona, Vicki and Mike. It was great getting " back home ".
The house was fine but the evaporator fan went on the heat pump so we had no air conditioning. We elected to stay at the local campground instead of enduring a 90 degree house. We enjoyed our brief visit and then hit the road. We overnighted in Lebanon, TN at a WalMart, then got up and headed for West Memphis, TN. The campground we are curently at is pretty cool. Our site is right on the Mississippi and its been fun to watch the tug boats pushing barges up and down the river all day and night. We tried fishing but never got a bite so canned that idea. There are way to many logs and brush floating under the water to snag your line on. And yes I lost three fishing lures to them.
We both were blown away by the strong current in the Big Muddy ( Mississippi River ). If you ever fell over board from a boat into this river, you would be in New Orleans in 10 minutes. :) This river moves REAL fast. We have seen tree's, large branches and other debri floting down the river and they are here one second and gone the next. They just sail down the river.
On the health front, things suck. My blood volume was high again so Ally did a phleb. At Dr. Brockmyres office I had a full set of labs done along with a slide made and things looked crappy there as well. My whites just have not come back since going off chemo and remain low. I looked at my slide under the microscope in the lab and the red cells were in pretty bad shape. They were morphed, tear dropped shaped, large, small, etc. When they get like that it means the bone morrow is under stress and it also means your going to feel like crap. You have no energy and are run down. Fom the way it was explained to me, the red cells when deformed simply do not carry everything they need to throughout the body. Oxygen especially. Since we are heading into some very high altitudes, Dr. Bockmyre gave me orders for an Oxygen concentrator. It is basically a small machine that produces oxygen and sends it to you via a small hose. It's just like being hooked up to an oxygen bottle, but unlike the bottle, the supply from a concentrator never runs out. Now what is weird is that when I had my O2 saturation tested at the Doc's office, it showed a 98 % sat rate which is phenomenally good. The idea behind the conctrator is to overload my body with Oxygen I guess. Heck I still do not understand it myself and will give my buddy Jim, the extraordinare Canadian Doctor a call to have him explain this to me. Regardless, I have used the O2 at night while sleping and wake up feeling VERY refreshed. Amazing how it makes such a difference.
I am going to start a separate web page for our trip out west and will try and update it whenever I can. Thankfully my wonderful son gave us an aircard to take with us so we can ha ve internet access while on the road. Like Ally tells me all the time, " he really looks after his Daddy. You should feel proud ". And I do. I love both of my kids dearly and they mean the world to me.
Will update you once I get my travel page done. Until then, get right out there and enjoy life and the summer. Smile, laugh and live today like its your last.
Sending my very best wishes to all of you,
Chris
Keep up to date on the latest photos ( by clicking here )