Thursday, May 26, 2011

Update # 151   

Month 53

Good Evening,

Jeff is back in Iowa!  Meridith decided to drive down late Monday night to be here for the appointment yesterday.  They left Hillsboro about 2:00 PM this afternoon and arrived home at 8:45.

The four days since Jeff's hospital discharge were spent mostly resting around our house.  He did venture out Sunday afternoon to my classroom while I worked and again on Monday to walk a bit at Wal-Mart.  He did well but was tired and rested after each.  I had to take his temperature every day and it was always normal.  Jeff's eating and drinking were also back to normal.  And we all have noticed his cough has diminished more since being out of the hospital.  Episodes are farther apart and also less severe.

We drove to StL yesterday for Jeff's 3:00 appointment with the physician assistant, Stephanie.  She usually does not see discharged patients till 7 days after they've been out but an exception was made in Jeff's case.  When we left last Friday, the hospital pharmacy had only 5 days of the antifungal med.  That meant we would need to go to StL on Wed. for meds and then return on Friday to see Stephanie.  So we requested they change Friday's appointment to Wed. and save us a trip.  When they did this, we knew she would be extra sure Jeff was well enough to return to Iowa.  Jeff's labs were in his normal range.  Stephanie thought Jeff looked great and that his lungs sounded good.  She knows Jeff will follow her directions so agreed to let Jeff return to Iowa but wants a few more days of rest before his returning to work.  Hopefully, he will resume his work schedule the beginning of June.

A CT Scan has been added to the Dr. DiPersio six-month June 20th appointment.  That will be almost 5 weeks on the antifungal med and maybe some improvement might be seen.  Although it could takes months to really see a change.

This afternoon on their drive to Iowa, Jeff got a call from StL saying his liver enzymes show a change.  They are contacting Dr. Masri in Waterloo for Jeff to have weekly labs until June 20th.  It might be Jeff's body still out of whack but something to watch and see which way the counts are going.

I forgot to mention in the last update that while Jeff was inpatient in StL, the Waterloo oral surgeon's office called.  Something came up and they now needed to cancel the May 31st surgery.  Jeff told them he was still having health issues so he postponed it till July 12th.  Hopefully, he'll be totally back to normal by then.

Our St. Louis Wednesday was an adventure.  StL was having tornado watches and warnings.  Just as we were leaving Jeff's appointment, the sirens went off so we stayed in the parking garage and waited it out.  We then (Jeff kept watch on his iPad) headed to one of the malls to wait out the rest of the storms passing through the area.  On our drive, we had some small hail and heard the sirens go off again.  At the mall, we parked in the covered garage.  As we entered the mall itself, security had us join a large crowd down in the basement.  We all waited 15 - 20 minutes before we were cleared to return upstairs.  After supper, we did a bit of shopping, left StL about 7:30 and enjoyed sunshine and a rainbow on the way home. 

One thing that Jeff did while here in Hillsboro, was attend my union retirement party.  I had told him months ago, that he did not need to try to come down for my official retirement breakfast on May 27th -- June 20th was too close.  But since he and Meridith happened to be here on Tuesday, they came with us to the local winery and enjoyed the festivities.  My students surprised me this morning with flowers, balloons, gifts and a breakfast of donuts and juice.  Tomorrow will be my "last" day.  Strange to think all these years have gone by and I'm at the end of my teaching career.  It has been some journey so Ken has given me a "journey" necklace of 7 diamonds to remember the 5 school districts (4 states) I've taught in along with Jeff's 2 cancer journeys.  God has richly blessed me these last 39 years.

We continue to thank you for the prayers for Jeff.  God's love keeps showing in Jeff's life.  His healing is again a wondrous sight.  

I hope I can wait until after the June 20th appointment to write the next update.  We plan to see Ken's mom after the doctor and then drive to Ken's brother's house in central Missouri so I may wait until the morning of the 21st to contact you.  Thanks again for everything.

love,

Marcia