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April 8, 2012 – Today there are many reasons for celebration. In addition to today being Easter, it is also an anniversary of sorts for Jacqui and I. Today we celebrate 6 months of marriage!

Six months ago on October 8, 2011, Jacqui and I tied the knot. Twice. Once at Jimmie Temple’s and again under a waterfall in the Smokies. We are excited to celebrate six months of marriage, and are looking forward to the next six months and many more

Jan 24, 2012 - 3 1/2-ish months of marriage. Vanderbilt recheck. Sitting in the hallway above the courtyard with the fountain outside of OTU.

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Saturday, January 7, 2011: Wow! – It’s been awhile since my last post in the beginning of December when we left Nashville. Readjusting life in Knoxville was a big change, and prepping for and celebrating the holidays made things even more exciting. If that wasn’t enough, I came down with a cold a week after we got back. We were worried about me, but a week of antibiotics got me better. Unfortunately, I gave whatever I had to Jacqui, so she was not feeling the greatest for about a week also.

We were both better before Christmas, which meant we got to celebrate the holidays, bake LOTS of cookies (really…LOTS!), and spend a few wonderful days with family. If you’re reading this, I hope you had a good Christmas and New Year’s as well. Jacqui and I rang in New Year’s in style. She, the cat, and I put on our party hats, broke out the champagne, turned on the tv, and brought in the New Year watching the ball drop at home.

Happy New Year's!

We looked at the New Year as a way of closing the door on the last year of chemo, stem cell transplants, cancer, and hospital stays. I have had clean PET scans since since end of August (3 of them!), and I intend to keep it that way, and let go of the cancer behind us. We put an exclamation point on the year by going on a ~7mile hike up to the fire tower in Frozen Head State Park to begin rebuilding my strength and endurance.

it was cold starting out

we warmed up quickly

Snow!

beautiful as always

the last 0.5 mile up was the hardest

So we’re done with the cancer, and, to keep it from coming back, I have been seeing my local oncologist here in Knoxville on a weekly basis just to make sure my bloodwork is staying normal. And the fun new adventure is going to be several weeks of radiation starting in February (to make sure the cancer doesn’t even THINK about coming back). That will be 5 days a week for several weeks, should not take too much time each day, and should not wipe me out nearly as much as chemo, since the radiation I will be getting is highly focused on one part of my body, and won’t attack my whole body like the chemo did (how’s that for a run-on sentence?).

In other news, I have been occupying my brain during the stem cell transplant process with studying taxes through H&R Block. I worked for them last spring, and over the summer and fall months I completed over 200 hours of online tax training. I am looking forward to working at the tax office this year, and I wil be careful about avoiding germs. I actually go to start working at the tax office on Tuesday, January 3, and have worked 30+ hours this week, doing several tax returns and scheduling appointments for the end of January and beginning of February. I love answering people’s questions so they can better understand their tax situation. I even have a profile page on H&R Block’s website–still working on getting a picture of myself up there.
http://www.hrbtax.com/Andrew_MacDonald

I am very excited to have the opportunity to work again. It’s amazing how much I missed cooking, cleaning, and working while going through the stem cell transplant process (Who knew I would miss those things?!?!).

Now, on a more serious note… when I started this blog in mid-2010 after being diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma, I put a tag line in the header picture: “Looking FORWARD… to 2011 and NO cancer.” The news at the beginning of 2011 that we had not seen the last of my cancer was disheartening, but we have have persevered and my scans have been clean with no cancer since August 29, 2011. Going through more chemo and the stem cell transplant was a grueling process, and I’m sure that radiation won’t be a cakewalk (though I could always hope), but we have achieved the goal of me being cancer free in 2011, and everything that we have done and are doing since then, the stem cell transplant, radiation, etc, is to make sure that it doesn’t even think about coming back. It is time to move on to a new chapter in my life, in which I am a cancer SURVIVOR.

The transplant nurse at Vanderbilt was right: “It’s time to go live our lives!”

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Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2011 – Day 29: Today is a wonderful day! Today, we had our last doctor appointment at Vanderbilt for the year, and my last (~ninth) PET scan of the year. Tomorrow we start packing our things to return to our home in Knoxville. More importantly, we get to tell the GPS that GO HOME takes us back to Knoxville!

leaving vanderbilt for the last time

We are really excited about coming home to Knoxville, and also very nervous. There were a lot of ‘rules’ we learned going into the stem cell transplant — but there are not so many rules to follow coming out of transplant. There are plenty of good ideas I’m sure, but we don’t know that we know all of them, which makes it hard to know we are doing our best to take care of my health.

Jacqui: Do you know what this is?! This is Andrew's and my 'walking papers'!!!

We’re very thankful for the wonderful support system we’ve had here in Nashville. Jacqui’s parents have been beyond amazing! We’re also excited to be coming home to Knoxville, and we look forward to reconnecting with our support system there. It has been wonderful to get letters and cards from everyone – they truly brighten both mine and Jacqui’s days and dark nights. It makes both of us so happy to read your cards, messages, and emails, even though I am not always up to responding at the time – or capable of remembering afterwards! [it's the chemo brain, you know.]

We got to say our goodbyes to many of our newfound friends today, including the nurses and the doctors at Vanderbilt. Carol (one of the brightest and dearest nurses) had the best words for us as we left:
“Get out of here and go live your lives!”
Yay!

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Thursday, November 24, 2011 – Day 17: Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! An amazing thing happened today. If you know me, you know I love hot sauce. Since the chemo for the stem cell transplant is so hard on my GI tract, I have not been eating hot sauce for quite some time, to take care of my insides. Today, I am feeling good enough that I have started eating hot sauce again, and it tastes wonderful!

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Wednesday, November 23, 2011: Day 16 – There’s a lot of things I miss because of this stem cell transplant.

Driving: I haven’t driven a car since I drove to my first day of high dose chemo on Tuesday, November 1. I miss being able to drive. It’s okay that I’m not driving, but it feels like I’ve lost a bit of my freedom.

Fresh Foods: Neutropenia sure can throw a wrench in a person’s diet. No salads, no fresh foods, no fresh fruits or vegetables, no garnish on my food. It gets better. Leftovers can be refrigerated for 2-3 days, and then they are not safe for me to eat. Foods that are cooked and frozen are only safe for me for 30 days. I can’t add any spices to foods after cooking, except salt (thank goodness!). I can have cheese, but I can’t have aged, sharp, or moldy cheeses. Brie cheese is off limits. There is so much more. It is very complicated, and can be frustrating when planning meals trying to figure out what is safe for me and what is not.

Using a toilet: The first day of treatment, the nurse handed me a urinal and a piece of paper, and told me that from now on, we’re keeping track of everything that goes in and everything that comes out. It’s my homework. I have to turn the sheets in every day, so the nurses can make sure I’m getting enough liquid to take care of my kidneys, that I’m not holding water in my ankles or chest/lungs, that roughly the same amount is going in and out, and that my weight corresponds to ratio of ins vs. outs.

I got this back today. I decided that since I was feeling better, and that we totally lost track of my I/O when I was in the hospital (the nurses tracked it but I had no idea what it was. I just wrote it on the whiteboard on the bathroom door and they transcribed it.), that it wasn’t worth keeping up with. It’s so strange to be able to use a toilet like a normal human. I’ll have to get used to this.

Taking a shower: I can take showers, but I have to wrap my chest in plastic to keep my catheter waterproof so it does not get infected. The good news is that I’m supposed to have my catheter removed on Monday, Nov. 28, so hopefully I will be able to shower by middle of next week. I have to shower every day, and every day I have to use a fresh clean towel and washcloth.

Cooking and Cleaning: Who knew I would miss this! I’m not allowed to be in the kitchen when food is cooking, because I may react adversely to the smell. Also, we have to clean everything, all the time. Clean the house weekly, wiping down everything you would normally clean, and also wiping down door and window frames, picture frames, trim, baseboards, light fixtures, and anything else that can collect dust. This is a lot of work, and I’m not even allowed to do it. I can’t be in the house while cleaning is going on. If I am, I have to be in a separate room with the door closed and my mask on. I have to wear completely new outfits every day. Old outfits go in the laundry.

Wearing a mask: Anytime I’m outside, or out in public, or near people, or near dirt, etc, I have to wear my mask. When I’m walking outside and wearing my mask, my nose gets runny, and that’s just annoying. I will need to wear my mask for quite some time, either 3 or 6 months.

Feeling better: So, I feel a lot better right now, which is a good thing. I’m also really tired, but that’s to be expected. The danger is that even though I feel much better, it means I have to be even more careful to take all the same precautions as before, even though I feel like I can do more.

There’s a lot of other things I will miss, as far as being able to resume normal activities, but I won’t get into that now. Right now I’m just going to focus on feeling better, and that we are over halfway to Day 30!

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Tuesday, November 22, 2011, Day 15 – Jacqui and I went to the hospital today for my daily checkup. I feel a lot better now that I have neutrophils! My mouth and entire GI tract feel A LOT better! We got some lunch while waiting on my bloodwork results before seeing the doctor. I had a cheeseburger and french fries. It was delicious!

My bloodwork looks good. It looks so good that the doctor says I get two days off. We don’t have to go back to the hospital until Friday! Yay! We’re going to go home, enjoy a few days away from the hospital, and enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! To everyone who can be home enjoying it with their family, to everyone who has to spend it on 11N, and to everyone else who is not able to be home with their loved ones for Thanksgiving, I hope that you find joy in this holiday.

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Monday, November 21, 2011 – We are getting out of 11N and going home! Such a great feeling. We’ve been here since Thursday night, and they take really good care of me here, but it will be nice to get out of here and go home. Here’s what’s happening:

8:00 AM – The doctor came in to see me and said I can go home today. Once he finishes rounds and puts the order in the computer we can get out here.

8:15 AM – The nurse unhooked my IV line. I am free! Now to get out of the hospital so I can take off my wristband.

Somewhere in here, I went to go to the bathroom. I got out of bed, walked halfway to the bathroom, turned to grab my IV line to make sure it didn’t get tangled, and it wasn’t there! The nurse had already unhooked it. I got a sheepish grin on my face and realized that even though I was happy that my IV had been unhooked, I missed that it wasn’t there. Strange…

9:57 AM – We are leaving 11N! I can take off my wristband. We took the elevator down to the 1st floor, and walked through the lobby to the front door. I was amazed…there were REAL PEOPLE in there! After 3+ days of not seeing much of anyone besides doctors, nurses, other patients hooked up to IV poles, and caregivers, it was very strange to be out in the real world again.

The hospital got its holiday decorations while I was upstairs this weekend. Holiday decorations can be so happy.

Holiday wreath on Pedestrian walkway

fancy tree

It will be good to get home. I’m looking forward to not being checked on every hour by a nurse, being able to kick back and relax in a room bigger than a large closet, and feeling like I can breathe normally again. It’s been a stressful weekend in the hospital. I’m glad that it’s over and that my immune system is coming back.

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Sunday, November 20, 2011 – We have reached engraftment! My stem cells have found their way into my bone marrow, and with the help of daily Neupogen shots, they are producing new cells like crazy and growing my new cancer free immune system!

Yesterday, my cell counts were:
500 total white blood cells
30 neutrophils (white blood cells that fight infection)

Today, my cell count is:
1200 total white blood cells
450 neutrophils

We have much better counts today, and hope to have even higher counts tomorrow. Our goal is to get to 2,000 to 7,000 neutrophils in my body.

Another good thing that may happen on Monday is that I might get to leave the hospital. This would be very good news because it will be less stressful and I won’t be attached to an IV pump 24/7. Will post an update tomorrow to let you know the news.

It’s so encouraging to see everyone’s comments and messages. They are so encouraging and uplifting. They make me smile even more and make me very happy. Thank you.