Ben's status report

Dictated from Ben:

Despite the fact that I can't see very well, I want to thank all of you for your support.

~B.

Ben asked me to give the details on his state, so for anyone interested:

Ben is not doing that great. Status: medium amounts of nausea, much higher in the mornings and evenings and lower after being injected each day - enough to eat some lunch and dinner. Pain - Ben is really achy (similar to having the flu). Fuzziness - Ben can't see very well or think that clearly. He's also very tired. Diarrhea - maybe this is a delicate subject, but it's gotten very bad. The chemo Ben's received every day is "arinatikan" or as the NP we saw today says "I ran to the can." So a common problem, but possibly serious as it can dehydrate and as we've seen, keep one from getting a good night's sleep.

As you may have noticed, Ben didn't receive the last day of treatment due to very low white blood cell counts, and we don't know if he'll get it next week or not. He also still has two more chemo pills he was supposed to take originally but were held off on. So we're meeting with Dr Dax Monday to talk about the potential remaining treatments. In the meantime, Ben's scheduled to go to the hospital Saturday and Sunday to get some liquids and anti-side effect pumped in to his system. Time consuming, but it will probably be much easier for him to get through the weekend. It also means I get to be less of a drug-nazi (breaks from force-feeding him pills/liquids). Since my mom is in town she's driving him, while I clean the house :)

Tomorrow night there will be a Halloween party at our house, and Ben may or may not attend. We're only co-hosting though. I was hoping that the party would give Ben something to look forward to and for awhile it did, but now he just wants to sleep. Thank you so much for your prayers for him...

Lisa