Merry Christmas Everyone !!!!

Dear Family, CODS and FODs,

Merry Merry Christmas to all. I hope you are all happy and healthy and surrounded by loved ones enjoying my favorite day of the year. Wish we had a little snow to make it look like Christmas but it's pretty cold out so that helps. The boys are here and my sister is coming for dinner so it will be pretty quiet at theTeklits house today. Jess and the kids will be up on Thursday. I can't wait to see them. Joey heads up to N.Y. to see baby Isabelle on Friday. Then we will see her for the christening in Jan.
I am especially thankful to be home today. I started with high fevers again on Sunday nite (104.5). I knew from Fridays blood work that my white count was dangerously low so I called down to Penn and Dr. Porter answered the phone and told me to come rite down with my bags packed and would probably need to be admitted. So we headed down with me crying the whole time and not feeling to well either. Thank God for those wonderful nurses who were kind and supportive and got me smiling again. We were there by 9:00 am and it was pretty quiet at the clinic, so they put me in a private room, while i waited to see the lab results. Thankfully my white count has gone up from the neupogen shots. So Dr. Porter came over and said the safest way to go would be to get admitted and be given iv anitbiotics, but he could give me a dose in the clinic and send me home on antibiotics with the promise of coming back if things got any worse. He bumped up the steroids and gave me fluids so then i opted for choice number two. I spiked high fevers again last night and now have those "leukemia bumps". So i feel fairly safe that this is not an infection just the leukemia rearing its ugly head. I will start round number two of Dacogen the first week of January, and hopefully after round two and the increase of steroids will hold the leukemia at bay for a little while. SO I AM SO GLAD TO BE HOME WITH MY FAMILY AND NOT IN THE HOSPITAL!!! I prayed last night for all the patients that are in the hospital, and wished they could be home with their families.
So i hope everyone enjoys their day with their loved ones, and a good sleep tonight after the fatigue of the holidays has set in. Thank you so much for all of the christmas cards, i so enjoyed the pictures of everyones families. Thank you too for keeping up with the blog, its so encouraging to read the posts and hear about everyones busy lives. I send you all my love and gratitude that im so blessed to have freinds like you
Love, Debbie

p.s. This is joey and i want to wish eveyone a merry christmas. I hope everyone has a great day with their families. And also thank you so much for all the cards, blogs just everything you all do for my mom. She is so lucky to have all of you supporting her and cheering her on so thank you all it means the world to her and merry christmas

Christmas Update

Dear Fods,

Debbie breezed through her first round of the new chemotherapy and while her counts are way down (which is expected) she is still up and about and trying to do too much for Christmas, as usual. Her WBC is 1. something and her anc is <200 which means that she is totally immuno-suppressed, but she is still up for the movies -- with a mask and her sanitary wipes! We saw Charlie's War yesterday and she and Joey are at Kite Runner now. Just amazing!

Debbie remains platelet dependent and she needs to go to HUP at least once a week for a refill. This may be how it will be for the foreseeable future. We are scheduled to go to HUP and see Dr. Porter on Friday -- but do not expect any new news on anything yet. Debbie will start round 2 of the new chemo in early January and we are hoping that her counts will recover enough for her to avoid getting so sick like the last time. Since this is not a clinical study, however, Dr. Porter will have much more control over the dosage and timing than was the case last time.

We expect to be home for Christmas with the boys. Jessie and the kids will come up toward the end of the week and will stay for a few days. Depending on how everyone feels, we may do the First Night Event at the shore house. They have a number of choirs, magicians, story tellers, etc. that should be fun for everyone. Of course, it is all capped off with a giant fire works show.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and thank everyone for their continuing support for Debbie and our family.

Debbie sends her love to all.

December 8, 2007 Update

Dear Fods,

Debbie finished her first week of the new chemo and she seems to have gotten through it with flying colors. Her WBC is normal, hmg is fair, but her platelets need work. She is getting tired now which is a natural reaction to the chemo. Many thanks to Fods Eileen, Ron and Pam who helped this week with the rides, it makes a huge difference to us.

Thanks to Fod Pam for the great pork dinner on Friday night. That tray vanished in a few moments.

The big issue for Debbie this week was a debilitating pain in her lower back that emulates down her legs and makes walking very painful. This is a new development that came on last Sunday. While she is able to hobble around the house by holding on to walls and rails, she needs a wheel chair for any type of extended walking and we have a walker in the bedroom for the evenings. Fod George let us borrow his mother in law's wheel chair and that helped a lot this week at HUP. Finding a wheel chair on the right floor is scarcer than hens teeth, so it made our visits much easier. Also, HUP allowed us to call from the road to order the chemo and the chemo was typically there when we finally arrived on the 15th floor.

Debbie will be nadering down this week as the chemo does its job. Most likely there will be a trip or two to HUP for blood or plateletes. We hope that this new chemo will be more gentle than the last round and that she will tolerate the downsides better than the last drug.

Debbie continues to decorate the house here and there as she is able and she is looking forward to the holiday season. Her indominable spirit is an inspiration to us all.

Thank you for your cards, blogs, calls, visits and rides. They help us more than you can imagine.

Debbie sends her love to all.

December 2, 2007 Update

Dear Fods,

We had our first snow of the season last evening. The back yard, creek and woods look very beautiful this morning.

Debbie ended the high dose steroids last Sunday and by Wednesday all of the old demons were making their way back into her life. She had her first significant fever on Wednesday and they are now a regular visitor every night and sometimes during the day. Last evening she was up to 103.9 with rigors and a new cough. At about 1:00 AM we moved Debbie into the jacuzzi and the warm water settled the rigors down, the meds kicked in and she was able to get some well deserved rest. The old nurse kept taking her temp on and off for the rest of the evening and she did not come down to 101 until around 7:00 AM. She is sleeping now, but still looks a little pink in her cheeks.

Yesterday FODs Edie and Mike came up from Roanoke, VA for a visit and the visit did Debbie well. Because Friday night was much like last night, Debbie was still in bed when Edie arrived, but the two good friends were able to visit and Edie helped Debbie position some of the army of Santas from the basement. The rest will remain POW's for the rest of the Season.

Of course, through all of this Debbie was able to eat a cheesesteak and fries for lunch which was a treat for our Roanoke FODS -- as they cannot get such cuisine in the South. Later in the evening, the boys put one of the Christmas trees up so that things are looking a little more like the Holidays.

After lunch FODs Cathy and Mary stopped by for a cup of tea and they brought Debbie buckets of Christmas cookies for the Holidays. Everyone had a nice visit until Debbie ran out of gas at around 3:00 PM. She had a nice rest until the fevers, et al., started later in the evening. Hopefully, we will do a better job today of keeping ahead of this stuff with the meds.

Tomorrow Debbie is scheduled to start a new outpatient chemo regime using an FDA approved drug called "Dacogen." The course of treatment calls for the drug to be administered for 5 consecutive days during a 30 day cycle. Because this is not a clinical trial, Dr. Porter has much more flexibility to alter the dose and it will be delivered IV rather than by injection. Because Debbie's counts tend to plummet with the chemo, we do not want to take the chance of another bout of cellulitis.

Hopefully, this chemo will put the demons back into their cages for a while and give Debbie a break for the Christmas Holidays. We can only hope for the best.

Thanks again for all of your cards, blogs, calls and visits. They really cheer Debbie up.

Debbie sends her love to all.