scans

Jeff's blood work showed that his platelets are up to 53.  That is good news.  But he is still not high enough to take his trial medicine.  His white count was the same at 1.7.  Dr Patel was concerned about this.  He said it is an indication that Jeff's bone marrow was damaged from all the chemo.  We knew it was tough stuff and we knew that this could happen.  We don't regret our decsion for Jeff to take the extreme chemo.  There's nothing we can do about it at this point.  But from here on out Jeff will probably not build back a lot of his white count or his immunity.  And that leads us to our next bit of news.  Dr Patel noticed a lymph node on Jeff's jaw.  He thought it looked a lot larger.  This lymph node has been there since December when Jeff had the horrible thrush infection.  It didn't show up on his last set of scans in January and we had not noticed that it was larger.  But like we told Dr Patel - we are in denial that anything is getting worse and we can't see things like that.  Human nature.  He agreed.  He was very honest and said that this is part of the cancer growing.  He ordered scans immediately to confirm.  Jeff will scan on Thursday and we should have results on Friday.  Everything in San Antonio is on hold until we know how fast Jeff's disease is progressing.  We don't need to waste time on the trial medicine if it is not working.
We had our cry together in the car on the way home. We knew this would happen, that the cancer would continue to grow but we are overwhelmed with the feeling that everything is moving too fast. We're okay today.  Jeff is at work.  It will be a busy week for shipping cattle and Jeff won't miss that no matter what.  I'm going to enjoy a sunny afternoon watching Gracie's district track meet.  Life is going on.  We are very sad.  But we are past the point of "why" and "what if" and all the other emotions we have rollar coastered through these last two years.  The horrible anxiety has eased somewhat and we know, we KNOW this is all out of our hands. We still don't like it but we are no longer wasting our precious energy on anything but goodness and kindness.  We are praying for peace and dignity and grace to keep going as long as we can.  Please don't ask how we are.  Please don't look at us with those sad, sympathetic faces.  Just stand beside us like you always have.  We don't want to cry, we are trying to stand tall.

Love,
Jeff and Leta