The News...

Tuesday January 17, 2012

Yesterday was full of information. We found out that FOR SURE Carl has A.L.L. This is Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia...this is a child's cancer. The adult version of this has a lower success rate...but that is OKAY because our doctor is going to treat this one as a child :) which has a GREAT success rate. Found out that these days pediatrics's consider someone to be a child until age 31. We will be attacking the cancer more aggressively with Carl than most doctors do with adults.

Our Doctor gave us some reading information...about the drugs they will be using and the Leukemia itself. What is really great is that the nurses on this floor are here for these kind of illness's and the ones that we have had are great about sitting down and explaining things to us, sharing some stories from other similar situations and really being there to comfort us. We have found that the night RN's are spending a little more time with us than the day ones, but that is mostly due to the fact that during the day we have friends and family here, and at night it is the two of us. We are starting to get our preferences about who we would rather have, but really have not met anyone who is a bad nurse, the staff here is great, and most of them are younger and easy for us to relate with.  

Carl and I went to bed early last night, we both were sleeping by 9pm because today is a busy day that starts EARLY! Yesterday was a good day for Carl, he is starting to get restless, he got out of the bed and sat in a chair in the room for a while, and was in and out of small naps. We also took some walks around the block here and spent some time sitting in the lounge area... It is a big seating area, lots of windows... and makes you forget that you are in a hospital.

Carl was a little jokester last night thinking that he was the new floor comedian.. it was great to hear him making jokes about the situation that is going on now.

The 1st joke from Carl about his Leukemia...
Connie (sitting in a char in the room): "Man... I feel like I have something in my eye" (Continues to rub eye)
Carl: " I feel like I have something in my blood"

We at first were not sure how to respond to this here joke... but decided that it is great that he is joking about things and having a great attitude about it all!

Later on he said that sometime during his vacation here he was going to hook up his X-box to the Big screen in the family room they have down the hall from our room...

I will say that the nurses are always laughing when they enter and leave the room and Carl is still his usual self, and being quick to grab a line to use on them all.

Last night I got a couch in the room that turns into a bed, I was excited to lay flat and sleep in something other than a chair, then we passed out watching a movie, so maybe I will try it out tomorrow. Carl has a new bed mattress on order it is one that is filled with air and SUPER comfy compared to the normal ones...or so they are telling us...that should be in the room today!

We have been up since 4am, Carl has already showered and they took some blood work for tests this morning. He has an 8am appointment to get a spinal tap, which means by 7:30am there will be people here to get him.

After the spinal tap is over he is going to start his chemo..