My Kryptonite

Hi my name is Brandy and my fiance is Donald Fitzgerald. As most of you know Donald has been dubbed "Superman" and for good reason. Donald was diagnosed with ALL (leukemia) when he was 13 years old and relapsed when he was 18. He was cured of this cancer and has gone almost 13 years cancer free. During this time, he has undergone 2 hip replacements and a partial shoulder replacement due to the high doses of steroids he had to take. Then, on March 24th 2011, 3 months after his 32nd birthday, we got the devastating news that the cancer had come back. We are now at UMC about to undergo the long process of Chemo once again. He will have to stay in the hospital for a minimum of 30 days for the initial treatment. He is strong and will beat this once again but we need everyone's prayers. God is in control and there is nothing out of his hands. As someone posted once on facebook "The deals not done until God's done dealing".

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Reaction!!!

We are taking it easy after a long night of platelets and blood. They didn't start Donald's blood products until about 6:30 last night and he had a slight reaction to this round of platelets. His eyes and lips started to swell and his throat started to feel itchy and had a burning sensation down his esophagus. They gave him some extra benedryl and it finally started to improve so that he was able to start getting his blood at 10:30 last night. So, we were up most of the night because they have to constantly check your vitals while you are getting blood products and it took about 2 1/2 - 3 hours for each bag of blood to run in. They finally finished running it in around 4:30 this morning. Then, they came to draw his blood about 5:30 and the day begins because around 6 am the nurses, nursing assistant and doctors begin there final rounds and the next shift begins their morning rounds. So, we had someone in the room every hour until 12 noon today. Finally, everyone cleared out and Donald was able to go to sleep and rest for a short while. His nap was short lived because he was having a nightmare and woke up in a panic about an hour later. He told me he was dreaming that the doctors kept running all kinds of test trying to find something and saying "we've got to find it, we've got to find it". Nothing like being in the hospital and dreaming about undergoing horrible testing to find something else other than what you already have. He has since taken something for anxiety and calmed down again. He is now resting peacefully.  He is so exhausted from the events of this week.

We spoke to the doctor and now have a better idea of what we can expect. She said that if all goes as planned he should be able to go home after his last chemo treatment. That is, once his white count come up above 1,000. Right now it is at 0 which means he has absolutely no immune system. Once his counts improve he will go home for 1-2 weeks. He will then come into the clinic for a bone marrow biopsy and return home to wait for the results. We are praying he is in remission. If he is in remission they will then schedule him to be admitted into the bone marrow transplant unit to begin his chemo for the transplant. That is the plan anyway. But as we all know things can change in an instant.

Over the past 2 nights we have met 2 of the bone marrow nurses because they are so short on patients in bone marrow transplant that some of the bone marrow nurses are working on the cancer floor. They have been extremely nice and very informative about the bone marrow unit. I think, aside from what he will be going through, he is going to feel more at home and like the bone marrow unit much more than the cancer floor. The nurses seem so much more caring and seem to really enjoy what they do. They want the very best for their patients.  We have had an extraordinary nurse during the day this weekend. She is always smiling and loves to talk. She has this bubbly personality that almost makes you forget why you are here. I wish all nurses were that way.

My prayer is that God will heal Donald's body. I pray he continues to give him strength and courage to endure what lies ahead. I pray the Lord will continue to work in Donald's life and draw him nearer to God and not let Satan plant those little seeds of doubt that cause him to lose focus. Our God is an Awesome God and I know he will see us through to the end. He is with us always. All we have to do is call on him and he is there to offer comfort in times of trouble.

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