Friday evening - wrapping up a tough week

Dear Family and Friends,
Jan is so tired tonight, she has been invaluable all day helping Nan in so many ways.
We left the house this morning at 8 am and drove to the oncologists office in Antioch. The visit was very helpful, Dr. Melynk is an incredibly kind person and listed to our woes, examined Nan's foot and leg, saw the swelling, felt the heat and saw the redness. He prescribed the same thing we had about 3 or 4 weeks ago when Nan's foot hurt so badly and it was delivered to our home this afternoon at 2:30. By 2:35 the medicine was flowing into Nan's blood stream. He also agreed to order a hospital bed for Nan with jellpad, filled out a form for our travel insurance, started the process of getting AMN107, at least he has the papers that Jerry Call emailed me. Any help from anyone getting the AMN from Novartis would be appreciated. After we drove home Nan walked into the house, up to her stair chair, from the stair chair to her bed and crashed. Before too long she call out asking to come down to her chair. So we helped her come down and she and Jan watched movies for hours. Nan was in intense pain for most of the afternoon and Jan sat in a little Keanna chair and rubbed her foot, her leg, her thigh and it helped a bit. Jan helped her so much during that time. Finally about 5:30 she went back up to bed and tried to sleep but of course the dogs kept opening the door, so I switched door hardware from another door and now her door closes and stays closed. She managed to sleep some but mostly was in pain to strong to let her sleep. Jan rubbed her leg some more. Finally Nan took an Adavan which often will help her sleep. Keanna arrived at about 6 for her sleep over and Jan made dinner for her, for me and for herself. Very tasty! Then Keanna and I took crackers out on the back deck and Keanna called geese and ducks and fed them until the sun set over the trees in the distance. Then we came back into the house and Jan helped her get ready for bed, shower, brushed her hair, the whole process. Now Keanna is sleeping (hope hope). It is so special to have her come to visit and she calls herself Grammy's best medicine. She kept popping in on Grammy and I could hear the happy exchanges from the baby monitors I have on the lower level so I can hear if Nan needs anything. In addition to the things I have mentioned Jan also did laundry, changed Nan's sheets and in general helped in every way.
We found out good news today, the blood work from monday showed good creatins, 2.3, hemoglobin at 9.5, potassasium at 4, all are good numbers. Our present challenges are ongoing nausea and leg/foot pain on the left side. How would like to see these get better. The doctor thinks the nausea will get better now that the heavy duty antibiotics we have been giving every day are over. If this is like last time by the second day of the special antibiotics the foot pain went away. We can only hope and pray that we can repeat that miracle.
So a lot has happened today but Nan will probably remember this day as the day she and Jan watched movies and the constant pain she endured.
I'm glad that the Sabbath hours have arrived. I long for the days when we could go to Sabbath School and Church, potluck and then to the park or home for a nap afterwards but those days seem a long ways off right now. Yet we have things to be thankful for. Tonight we are very thankful for Jan who took time out of a busy schedule and traveled here to spend long hours working and healing. Thank you Jan and Ann for your help in getting her here. We deeply appreciate her time with us.
I spent time at the bank shifting money today to get the accounts into the black. Without the funds resting in the recovery account I could not be in the black this evening. Of course I need thousands to cover all the bills I need to pay but tonight at least we are not overdrawn. Thank you for that.
We are fast approaching the year anniversary of Nan's surgery, June 6. We are thankful for every day we have had this year due to that surgery and the miracle team Dr. Bertagnolli had assembled. Life is not easy but it has given us many blessings and wonderful moments.
Please pray for the foot pain, for the nausea and for Nan's general health and recovery.

Thank you very much,

love

tim and nan and jan
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