Surgery A Success!

Well, we got home around 4:30 this afternoon and he did very well! We will have to go back on the 12th of May for them to perform it again. They could not biopsy anything and they will put a bigger tube down his throat then. This doctor puts out those BIG words that I cannot understand so I called Kristina to interpret it for me. They could not put the bigger tube in so they stretched it as far as they could for right now. He had some of those really good drugs though. He didn't think they had done the surgery when I got back there to him. He is asleep on the couch right now, snoozing away! John hurt his knee last night and I had to carry him to the doctor early this morning and hopefully what Dr. Darnell did will work! He was the first doctor to discover T's high white blood cell count and sent us to Dr. Yeilding. I am going to fix some soup for him for dinner and see how he does then a vanilla milkshake! That ought to put a least a pound on him! Gil, at SCS, is doing a fund raiser for the Leukemia Society, so go to www.manoftheyearlls.com to donate in Terry's behalf or you can go the Service Construction Supply's website and it will tell you how to donate! We are suppose to go to a dinner next Thursday for this event and Terry is really looking forward to it! Gil has really put forth alot of effort for this cause! Last year's benefit raised over $22,000.00 so if you can help, please do! Wouldn't it be great if they could find a sure cure for leukemia! The LLS supports all of the families that are struck with this disease. They have a person at the BMT unit that is dedicated to nothing but helping people through this society. They offered all kinds of services to us and were a great help in showing us how to get the help we needed! We hope one day to be peers to others that are going through what we have been through and to minister to them. God has been our constant strength through it all and others need to know he is there for them too! I will update soon! Hugs to you all! Alyce

Quick Update

As most of the family knows now Aunt Lois passed away Monday morning. She is up there with Uncle Raymond now, where she wants to be acccording to Kenny. I know he will miss her as will everyone. The viewing is at Roebuck Chapel on Wednesday night and the funeral is on Thursday at 11 am. She will be missed! We love you Kenny! We will go in the morning to Kirkland Clinic for them to stretch T's esophogus. They will also biopsy what is in his throat to see if it is the GVHD for sure. I talked with Lidia today and she gave us the great news that his chest x-ray they did yesterday was clear! The bloodwork is not back yet, they will watch it grow in the cultures for a few days. She also said he should gave gotten blood taken out of him last week while we were there. His iron is high again and that is most likely why he is not been feeling good lately. So they will do that next Wednesday. We learned of the assistant baseball coach, B.J. Green, will go in next Tuesday for his transplant. He has a blog, it is www.bjgreensol.com. I was reading it tonight and he is going to go through exactly what T. did. Makes us re-live all of that! I let him know we were here for him if he needs us! I will update tomorrow after we get home! Hug your loved ones! Love to you all! Alyce

Getting Ready for 1st year Anniversary(Birthday)

Well, we are approaching the 1 year from transplant and they said they will begin the tests soon to determine how his body and blood are withstanding everything. He is having surgery Wednesday to stretch his esophogus and they will biopsy whatever is in his throat to try to determine exactly what it is. He has lost 4 more pounds and it is hard for him to eat much at all! Hopefully this will take care of it and he can get back to enjoying food again! I sure hope so! They are drawing more blood tomorrow because they saw something they think is fungus in his bloodwork from Tuesday. Sharon, the NP, said it could have been a mistake on the lab part, so pray real hard it is only a mistake in the lab! If it is not he will be going in for treatment. Rick Rockhill has gone home and sounded so much better when we talked to him Thursday night! He lost his best friend, Paul Davis, this last week. Ron was with him and that brotherly love was evident!!! Lois turned 90 years young this past week, I did not know this until Karen called and told me,so "HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY LOIS"! I talked to Butch and he sounded good but tired! He is overdoing, of course, and is still having chest pains! I am sorry I have not posted anything since Tuesday, but our internet service went out. Just got it back today! Keep Terry in your prayers and I will update after the surgery on Wednesday! Love to you all! Alyce

Getting Stretched!

Well, we finally got an answer to all our questions today! He will be getting the procedure where they go down into the esophogus and stretch it. He has a stricter(medical term)half-way down his esophogus and Dr. Ashraf said he thinks its GVHD, but would not know unless a biopsy is done. So they will do that while they are doing the procedure on him. They will set up the appointment and let us know when to be there. He has lost 4 more pounds because of not being able to swallow food good. He is mainly sticking to a liquid diet, which includes Ensure Plus at least twice a day. He will be relieved when this is over and he can eat better food and not take so long to eat(Gil and Davis)! They are talking about putting him on a LIGHT steroid after they do the procedure to try to get the GVHD disease under better control. Hopefully not a long term thing! This will make his appetite increase so he liked that idea but can cause muscle weakness, he DID NOT like that! They are also going to start setting up his 1 year tests from the bone marrow transplant!!! YEAH! I am looking forward to that because I know God has a plan for him to stick around for a while! We met the assistant baseball coach for the Alabama baseball team today, B.J Green. He has leukemia and is going in soon for his bone marrow transplant. We tried to encourage him and told him if he needed to talk, Terry is the only one that can relate to what he is going through! We gave them our #s and wished him the best and told him to look to God for his strength to get through this! We have been keeping up with him through Kristina(his girlfriend is in her nursing class) and also he has a blogspot too! Connie(works @ SCS)introduced us to him, she is friends with B.J.'s mom. They also know the Christmas's(Jan & Shannon) and B.J. played baseball with Chad Langston, he was our ring barer in mine and T's wedding! It is a small world! More news on the family! We talked to Kenny and Lois is doing about the same. She is in a private room now and giving him things to do for her. Terry talked to Rick Rockhill and they had to cut him open to take out his gallbladder. He still has a fever because of the infection that was in his body, but hope that will go away soon! He called late last night and told us that Paul Davis(some of you might remember his music)had a heart attack yesterday, on his 60th birthday! Pray that he comes through this ok! Butch(Terry's brother) is doing OK and has decided to retire! Yeah, no more stress! And Karen will soon this summer retire too! We got a few more years and children to finish putting through College before we can consider that! Keep the prayers coming especially as we get closer to the bone marrow test! It should be within the next month! We love all of you for hanging in here with us through this long journey! Hugs and kisses to you all! Alyce

Family News

I talked to Kenny tonight and he said they may move Lois to a private room as soon as tomorrow. It all depends on how she is doing in the morning. He said they sat her up for three hours today and she was not fond of that at all. She needs encouragement to go on! Send her a card if you can! She is at Trinity Hospital in SCIU right now, but that could change soon! I also talked to Jackie this afternoon and she said Butch was feeling OK but not good. He is supposed to go to the doctor in a week or so. He just does not need to overdue it! He was with Micheal today helping him pick out a new truck! Some new news that I do not know how many of the family knows this, but Rick Rockhill is in the hospital in Nashville. They removed his gall bladder yesterday. He said he was feeling really bad and they scoped him and discovered that his gall bladder was infected and could have released deadly bile into his body that could kill him. He was groggy this afternoon when I talked with him so I will leave him alone for a day and let him rest. We go to the doctor on Tuesday. We did not go this week. First to the gastrointerologists then to the BMT unit. Terry is fishing today and Friday in Eufala, the AGC tournament, and was real tired when I talked with him earlier. But caught some fish so he was happy!I will update as I find new things going on. Love to all of you! Alyce

New News

I wanted everyone to know that Butch went home today. They are going to try to let a medication treat him and see how he does on it. He is feeling good according to Jackie tonight and is taking it easy for a while. He will go back to the doctor in two weeks. I spoke with Kenny(Cuz) tonight also and he said that there is a slight possibility Lois may move into a private room this week. He had gotten her to eat solid food for dinner, first in a while, so he was feeling good about it. Say a little prayer for them and God Bless all of you! Terry now has his own email address! IT is tdavidson1108@aol.com! Send him something! He is excited about having his own email and he can even use the computer by himself now! Take and care and hug your loved ones! Alyce

Family News

We have other family members in the hospital now. Butch(Terry's)brother is in UAB because of trouble with his heart. He had chest pains during the times we were getting Ruth's house ready to sell but when we saw him last Sunday at the nursing home he said they had gone away. Thursday he started having them again with shortness of breath so he went to the emergency room at UAB. His doctor from Carraway is now at UAB. They are looking at his previous records on his open heart at Carraway and comparing them to the arteriorgram(can't spell) they did yesterday. Send him a card to let him know we are praying for him. He is in W652 in the Wallace Tower at UAB. I went to see Aunt Lois yesterday and she didn't even know I was there. She was sleeping but seemed restless because of the way she was moving around while I was there. She is in SCIU at Trinity Hospital. Pray for her to come out of this OK! Terry is fishing today so he is a happy man! I am just praying he does what he is supposed to(not touch the fish)That is hard for him as most of you know! The bacteria from the water and fish can make him very sick! Those were doctor's orders! We go back to the doctor this Wednesday so I will update on everybody then and hopefully Butch and Lois will be much better! God Bless you and Hugs to everyone! Alyce

Waiting Again

Sorry I have not posted anything lately! Jan Christmas called to ask me how his barium swallow test went and reminded me I had not updated the blog. So, he did not pass it totally. They gave him the barium to drink and they would watch him swallow and video it going down his throat. They found a place down in his esophagus going into his wind pipes to his lungs that had a place that was restricted. They gave him a tablet to swallow and it got stuck. They gave him a glass of water to disolve it and it finally went down. We will see the gastrointerologists(can't spell) on April 22nd. He is going fishing Saturday with Kyle(an employee) and this week he will fish the AGC tournament with Mike. He is excited! I called his "other wife", his nurse at the BMT unit to make sure it was OK. He just has to drink alot of water and stay covered up from the sun. We learned of Aunt Lois being in the hospital in ICU today. Karen had sent me an email but I had not looked at it since Monday. Kenny had called Terry today to give him an update. She is not doing well, so say a little prayer for her to come out of this ok. We hope Danny Files is doing good, we have not heard. And Matt, we have not heard how he is doing either. If anyone has information about any of the family, please email me at alyced680@aol.com and give me an update! Again, I am sorry that I have not updated lately, so busy working now! That eight months off is taking a while to get back into the swing of things! Hugs and kisses to all of you! Alyce

Good News and Bad News Again!

We had a little more on our plate to discuss with the docs today. He has lost more weight and his throat has a spot on it. He chose to divulge this to Lidia(BMT NP)today. Has not said a word to me about it! They looked at it very closely and of course had to discuss it. They came to a conclusion it could be the GVHD in his throat. He will have an x-ray done tomorrow where you swallow barium and they take pictures as it goes down his throat into his esophagus and it will tell them if his throat is closing up due to GVHD or something else is happening. His taste buds are terrible too. Nothing is good to him and he doesn't want much when he does eat. Dr. Ashrof thinks this is because the GVHD is making his taste buds not taste anything. We will know more after tomorrows test. His iron was high again and they drew a pint of blood off of him again today. Such a waste to watch them throw it away! They said that too much iron is bad for his liver and pancreas and can make him feel very bad. So hope them drawing it out will make him feel better. He also got a testostrone shot. He will be treating the GVHD by swishing a steroid mouth wash down in his throat 4 times a day. They did let us get his prescription filled for the megase, this makes him hungry so he will want to eat more. So get ready Gil and Davis, he may eat both of yours at lunch! Thank you Gil for taking care of us today! I will update after we get the results from the test he is having tomorrow! Love to all of you! Alyce