"The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly"

Amy brought Taylor and Tyler to Savoy for a little over two weeks, July 23-August 8. Oh, what fun to cuddle with and give bottles to the babies, to watch them learning to roll over, sit up, and crawl, and even to see them take their first bites of baby cereal. Amy especially enjoyed taking her good-natured babies to meet her many friends still living in town. She is a wonderful mother - loving, patient, and prepared. We rejoiced in lots of family time with Dave, Kathy, and Jack stopping by often, and Jeremiah and Betsy making a trip from their home in North Carolina. The babies were passed around freely, each of us begging for holding time.

Yes, I learned to feed both of them at one time.

Having just finished gardening, Amy with Taylor and me with Tyler relax.

Sadly, it was during this time that Bob started experiencing uncomfortable side effects from his chemotherapy. (He was also fighting a cold that held on for a good month.) He was on a three week cycle with two weeks of medicine followed by a week of rest. His drug cocktail included a pill that he took everyday, a shot that he self-administered twice a week, and a medicine that was taken once a week. In addition, he had one 20-minute infusion per month. The goal was to complete four cycles which Bob has done. At the beginning, his worst side effect was turning into a Jack Russell Terrier after that once a week drug. He was a man in motion without a purpose or attention, sometimes speaking in partial sentences. It lasted only a day or two and was ameliorated when the dosage was split in two and administered on two different days. The infusion gave him a two-day flu the first time he received it. The second time, he had entirely different symptoms, and by the third, he had no side effects at all. Fatigue and some light-headedness crept in fairly early, and Zoe, our Yorkie, has especially enjoyed Bob taking two to three naps a day.


It was the injectable drug that ended up driving Bob into depression. It brought about a myriad of painful symptoms in Bob’s arms, hands, legs, and feet. At first Bob had a lot of back discomfort and was concerned the disease was eating more lesions into his vertebrae. On August 7th, the orthopedist ordered an MRI and blessedly discovered that not only did Bob not have any new lesions but that the only one he did have was smaller! But the bone pain did not go away and was joined by this additional peripheral neuropathy*.  He can have shooting or aching pain and/or numbness. Lately he says he feels like his feet are getting frostbite, and that there are ½ ping pong balls under the soles of his feet that he’s trying to walk on. One of the few times I was not with him, he had a painful and frightening fall on concrete stairs when his legs just failed him, and he had little strength to pull himself up. Some or all of the neuropathy may be reversible. We pray for healing.


*Neuropathy is a collection of disorders that occurs when nerves of the peripheral nervous system (the part of the nervous system outside of the brain and spinal cord) are damaged.  The condition is generally referred to as peripheral neuropathy, and it is most commonly due to damage to nerve axons...Neuropathy can affect nerves that control muscle movement (motor nerves) and those that detect sensations such as coldness or pain (sensory nerves)...from Medical News Today.