it has begun!

Keith was admitted to UNC yesterday. He got his chemo around 4pm. He had a very restless night. Bad headache and nausea. Docs came to check on him today. He was sitting on side of bed and politely asked them to move....he did make it to the bathroom on time! Unfortunate side effect of this chemo. It only took 15 minutes to give it, but it packs a powerful punch. He is getting his stem cells today. This should only take about 20 minutes. He is very nauseous and has a bad headache. The nurse said some people get headaches first few days of being there because the air is so dry (the whole unit is heppa filtered). I had a headache from being there too.
Anyway, other than that, he is doing well. Unfortunately, ben accidentally dropped keiths cell phone in the toilet so it is toast. Waiting on a new one to arrive today.
He does have his laptop and he does have a Skype account, so we were able to let ben see him and chat with him last night. That was pretty cool
The nurses said he can decorate his room however he wanted, so anyone that would like to send cards, posters, pics, encouraging words would be great. No flowers but cards and stuff are fine.
Here is the address and phone number to his room. He should have his cell phone back up and running tonight or tomorrow.
mailing address: BMTU Room 4841 4th floor NC Cancer Hospital. 101 Manning Dr, Chapel Hill, NC 27514. phone number 919-966-6048
Thanks everyone!

so far so good.....

so far, so good. no more fevers. keith is extremely tired, wiped out. he has times when he comes out of the bedroom to eat, play video games with ben, that's about it.
as sad as that is, at least it seems to be keeping him well thus far.
going to a very good friend's house tonight with the kids to swim and cookout. keith requested a steak for dinner, since he can't go with us. Ben asked if daddy could go,and i told him no. Ben said "too many people?", yes buddy, too many people.
Bless his little heart. He understands more than we give him credit for. Bella is just rolling with the punches so to speak....she is such a cool kid....they both are in their own ways...We are very blessed to have a great support system thru our family and friends, but especially thru our church. Our friends there are as much family to us as our "blood" kin, as we say in the south.
The kids spent some time at another very good friend's house friday night....apparently Emily is training bella for a triathalon. Sounds good to me...you go Ems and Bella.
Love to everyone....will post with progress....don't want to bore everyone with our everyday goings on.....Hopefully, no drama for a few days!

Stem cells....

Ok, so keith was able to get his stem cells harvested yesterday. They took about 11 million or so! No more shots for him now! He hated those things. They caused lots of issues, but for now, we are done!
He came home yesterday and crashed. Slept all afternoon and most of the night. Woke up at 2am and had a fever of 101! Not good! He said he felt lousy, had a headache and his throat hurt. He did get up and eat and apparently that helped.
Hindsight, should have called UNC at 2am, but he wanted to see if eating would help. After calling this morning, they said, next time, CALL! No matter what time it is!
Going to monitor him for fever and call if it comes back. Hopefully it won't. Now we just wait.............something I am NOT good at!
In the meantime, he has to have pretty much no contact with anyone if he can help it. He has to wear a mask when he goes out of the house (to dr. visits, etc)

I will post later when we know what/when the next step is!
Thanks everyone!

stem cells getting harvested on thursday

Keith just called from UNC. His counts are as low as they can get. He cannot be around anyone, especially kids, for a few days. He is sad about that, but it is a good thing! Has to follow a strict diet to avoid all bacteria, no fresh fruits or veggies, everything has to be cooked well done.
Hopefully they will harvest his stem cells tomorrow! Then we wait.....

update

Keith is doing well, just tired, but that is to be expected. He went back to UNC today to get his labwork done. They said his numbers were looking good and if all continues to go well, he will be getting his stem cells extracted either wednesday or thursday or both. It will be outpatient, he will just be hooked up to a machine that is like a dialysis machine. It will basically filter out the stem cells and give them everything else back. They will then freeze them and then call us when they have a room open in the special unit he will be staying in. This could take 2-4 weeks. Keep us in your prayers! Ben starts school on Wednesday!! Hopefully this nightmare will be behind us soon and we can get back to normal....ok, we were never normal, but we will be happy to get back to whatever we were!
Hopefully we will get this all said and done and keith won't have to use too much disability, since unfortunately the Town of Cary doesn't allow people to donate time!
Thanks to everyone for their continued prayers and support! I will post again as things come up!

Round 1

On Monday, keith had his port put in. Let me just say that Monday was a day that unless you were with us, I am not sure anyone would believe it.
We had to be at UNC at 8:30 for check up and chat with doc. When we arrived, we both had to use the restroom. I came out first and waited for Keith. When he came out he had a look of horror on his face. Apparently a gentleman didn't quite make it to the bathroom in time. When keith went in he noticed on the floor a pile of clothes and a pile of poop. As bad as that was, when he looked up there was the poor guy NAKED on the counter washing himself off in the sink. Oh, our day gets better.....
So after the 8:30 appointment, we headed to the other end of the hospital to check in to have his surgery. We were way early, but were hoping they would do it early. hahahahahahahahahahahaha. what were we thinking? Anyway, we were ushered from one waiting room to another one down the hall. After sitting there for about an hour or so, a lady came in with an older lady that was in a wheelchair and on oxygen. They were chatting and you could tell it was polite conversation, one that you would have with someone you didn't know very well. All of a sudden the lady said, OH MY GOD! I NEED HELP! Apparently the older lady said she felt dizzy, then her head slumped and then she began to snore loudly (not like you were sleeping, but like you were dying)
Good grief. Doctors and nurses came from everywhere. Then they called code blue.
After quite a while, I heard that they shocked her and got her back. Lesson 1: If you are thinking of dying, try to do it in the cardiac testing area of a well known hospital. that's your best shot of making it.
Sooo, after more waiting, they finally came to get keith. His surgery was scheduled for 2pm. While we were waiting, a patient walked by and was stopped by a nurse. Apparently, he was splattering blood all over the floor from whatever procedure he had. They had to call a stretcher for him.
They finally took keith back at 4. Unfortunately this caused us to miss ben's kindergarden open house, but luckily I have a wonderful sister who was able to take him and send me pictures. Broke my heart, but at least a lady didn't die, so I'm ok with that.
Today we took Keith to have his first chemo treatment. This went a little smoother. No naked men and no one tried to die in front of us. Nurses were cool and quite funny. Keith of course pulled jokes on them all day. They set us up in a private room with lots of windows, a tv and they even brought me a recliner! Had lunch with my best buddy Delia who just happens to work at the hospital! She has been an angel.
So, Keith goes back tomorrow for another 6 hour day, but at least he will be comfortable. He is feeling pretty good, little tired and little icky, but other than that, he is great. Thanks for all your prayers and support. Starting Thursday, he will have to wear a mask if he goes around a lot of people and when he goes in and out of the hospital. His blood counts should be dropping next week, so he will probably be more tired and have to be even more careful of germs. He will be going back to UNC twice next week to have bloodwork to make sure he doesn't need blood or platelet transfusions. Hopefully he won't, but it wouldn't surprise us!
He will start taking shots to boost his white blood cells Thursday, this will be twice daily for about 2 weeks, then he will go in to have his stem cells "extracted". This may take a few days (outpatient), then we wait for a bed to open. Praying that this will be sooner than later! It could take 3-4 weeks! Hopefully not, but we will do what we have to do. God has it all figured out. HE is probably snickering at our plan.
Thanks to everyone for continuing to pray and for support. Ben is starting kindergarden next week, so hopefully this won't weigh on his mind too much. Trying not to stress too much, but I do worry about the children, they just don't understand and poor ben was so close to my mom, I know he worries his dad will meet the same fate.
I will update when things start moving forward or if anything exciting happens. I'm sure it will!

update

keith will be going to see doctor at UNC on Thursday for physical/labwork and to go over all tests that he took last week. He will be going in Monday 8/23 for his port and will receive chemotherapy 8/24 and 8/25 at the hospital (outpatient), then will start shots to stimulate his white blood cells for about 10-14 days. He will have a complete blood count done several times during this period and will be getting his stem cells extracted after his shots are done. We won't know when he will go into hospital until after this is done. Looks like mid september maybe. Will post more after thursday.