Super Hero transformation was completed on the morning of December 21st, 2011. Signed certificate and radiation mask to prove it! Congratulations Baby! You did it!! The war is complete. The tumor has surrendered. We'll surly have some cleanup battles - necessary to wrap this one up for the History books - but we're as ready as we can be!
My mom and Carl drove up to our home away from home in order to bring Randy back to the Hobo house. Lucky Carl had the privilege of driving the Camry back - I gave him the car with cruise control - that's the best I could offer! I took the Corolla (no CC) and headed east to Cincinnati, OH. My drive went smoothly, arrived at Tince's around 9:30 and settled in for the night. We took our time packing up the Ford (again, no CC) and on a rainy ugly day drove the 11 hours home. It was a long trip but the conversation flowed easily. It was good to see "our guy's" face when we finally arrived. Unfortunately, Ran's last few days had been much rougher than ours.
Ran got sick on the ride to Neosho, several times, fortunately he was being driven by a nurse and besides her hating that she couldn't "fix it" for him, she wasn't phased by the yuck. On Thursday the yuck continued. All day and all night. On Friday morning it continued. Fortunately, we had called Dr. Craig and let him know we would be finishing treatment and back in town. I made the call. He told us to meet him at the hospital, he'd call and get a room reserved and, as soon as he finished what he was in the middle of, he would meet us there. He did just that. We got the blood work ordered (dehydrated - no surprise there) - so we got the IV set up and the fluids flowing. They continued to flow for the next 48 hours. A strong and steady dose of nausea medicine was administered and it took until Saturday evening to show progress. Pain became an issue so that was dealt with and sleeping, of course, was the main priority. Thank you, all of you, who offered to help in any way. Those who offered to come to the hospital. We appreciated that everyone went with Randy's request for no guests. He can't talk much and he is so tired - he simply can't do it. His quick visit with Billy was a pleasant surprise and showed that there are certain people that need to ignore Ran - his Billy being one of them! Soon though! Soon.
We came home on Christmas and had a lovely laid back day. On Monday, Billy, Adrian, and Carly Rose came to visit before they headed back to Texas. It was a wonderful visit. We were sad to have missed out on an entire night with them but we would have taken five minutes if that was all we could get!
Monday thru Thursday went very well. A small amout of progress each day. Our Amy came and spent a few days with us. It was perfect - exactly what was needed - for everyone! She and I made as much "copycat" jewelry as we could, drank, visited, ate wonderful snacks, and stayed up ridiculously late visiting - much needed talking!
We went to IA Thursday for our early morning appointments on Friday. Blood work looked good (a little dehydrated), things felt good, and the scope looked great. Getting the scope, on the other hand, sucked. Lots of gagging, his mouth is so torn up, so burnt, he just can't say AWWWW as easily as he could before. We scheduled another follow up for the end of January. We headed out, excited to get home for a month, but things went south pretty quickly. Ran, for some reason, started to get sick on our way home and this continued for the next two days. As of today our road is still a dirt one with some major potholes. No talking. Not getting sick (nausea) anymore but feels - well, to be honest - terrible. He's sleeping a lot, not talking, and trying to keep up with the water/gatorade and food.The thick mucus is a common and long lasting gift from the radiation. He has this on top of dry mouth as the result of damaged saliva glands, if that makes any sense. It gets unbearable and gags him - resulting in . . . throwing up. Can't seem to win for losing at the moment. I can't fix this and that feels awful.
We know things are going to get better. We KNOW this. All that we were told and that we read is proving to be true. The two - three weeks after treatment ends are proving to be the hardest. We've got a few more weeks of "nothingness" and I know that Ran will take complete and total advantage of his home time.
Happy NEW Year. Those words have never meant quite so much. They are three simple words. Three simply powerful words. Looking forward. . . . the only direction we'll choose to acknowledge.
