Cycle 1, Day 7

We had our first "Fast Track" blood work lab today, 1 week after Dad's first chemo cycle. Everything is moving just as expected, so that's totally great. His white blood cell counts are on the way down, and his platelets dropped a bit — but that was expected. All of his other blood items were better than they were the 15th, which is nice.

I had been praying that over the weekend, Dad would begin to feel something happening with the mass in his chest. I prayed that he would keep it to himself until he knew, without a doubt, something really was happening — and at 9:30 on Saturday night, he called to tell me the lymph node under his arm shrinking, and that his breathing was also improved. He was also finally able to eat more. This was a total answer to prayer.

Since then, he's been doing great. He hasn't had any of the chemo side effects just yet, but we're expecting them to begin this week now that he's no longer taking the 5-day regimen of Prednisone. The Neulasta injection will be kicking-in — Neulasta being a drug that helps the body create white blood cells. Since this creation occurs in the bone marrow, you often feel aches and pain in your long bones and hips, which is where the highest concentrations of marrow are. This is also the week where his counts will be at their lowest, so he'll have to be extra cautious about what he does and who he goes around.

But all in all, things are starting off great — and we pray that God would continue to be merciful and compassionate as we walk through the next 6 months of treatment.