No more chemo!

Hey everyone! I finished my last chemo this morning without any major side effects so far. I did get a little tired from it so I slept for an hour. I was given a diaretic to help clean out the chemo from my system and that made me a little crampy like I was dehydrated even though they had me hooked up to hydration. I have drank lots of water and feel better now.

The big side effect from this chemo was mouth sores and a remedy for preventing the sores was to chew ice for a half hour before until 6 hours after. Needless to say I was eating a lot ice today. I think my mouth was half frozen all afternoon. I have been told by the nurses this will almost eliminate getting the sores. I have to keep rinsing with medicated mouth wash and club soda for a few days to try to keep the sores at bay.

It was kind of a bitter sweet day for us. The nurse who admitted me to Unit 57 here at Foothills was the nurse who administered the last chemo of my treatment today and is likely to do the stem cell transplant tomorrow. I was actually thinking last night about leaving this unit. I was almost choked up by the fact I am done. The nurses, doctors and PCA's here have got to know us so well it will be hard to say good bye, but on the other hand I cannot wait to get out of here.

So tonight Melissa and I are just hanging out not watching the Grey Cup. We aren't big football fans, but we will keep an eye on it so Melissa doesn't get caught up in the rush leaving McMahon Staduim because we are a block away. I think we might watch a movie and relax until tomorrow.

Thank you everyone for your prayers and even though I am having my stem cell transplant tomorrow, we will not be out of the woods for a while. I have to recreate my immune system and I won't have recovering cell counts for about 10 days from tomorrow. Please keep praying and we are so touched by all the prayers that have gone up for us! Thank you all and thank you Jesus for all You do!

Colin

Hi! it's Melissa here now, just wanted to say we had a great time with our kids this weekend! Colin felt great yesturday and we spent a wonderful day, just playin and cuddling! Today i said my last good bye to the boys as they'll go back to Medicine Hat until Colin is out of the woods for infections. Wow, our last good bye! Then we don't have to be separated for a very long time! It feels good to be in the tail-end of treatment....but kinda scarry for what's to come.....once we're not under the blanket of protection offered here by our Doctor's and nurses. I'm praying now, that we'll be prepared for this new "normal". Enough of that for now, it's day before transplant, day and God hasn't left us yet, so there's no reason to doubt Him to take care of us for all of our tomorrows!
Good Night!