April 11, 2015

David's sister Angel (from California) and her boyfriend Mike were able visit for a couple of days.
  

Angel recorded comments from David:

The doctors came and visited David when he first arrived and he didn’t record it. Here is the information he could recall: Basically the leukemia is not in his blood or bone marrow but it in his Spinal Cord nervous system. So he is in a lot of pain and they have to be super careful how they radiate the nerve. They can't go through his stomach. At the end of his nervous system there are lesions. They are touching his legs and it spreads to the rest. Because the chemo takes so long, it might take until his next spinal tap to start getting his legs back. They are giving him the hardest hitting chemo in his spine. But won't affect him as badly as other chemo did because it's not through his whole body. He said his speech is impaired and his balance is off.

Here are images of the lines they have drawn with the spots they will radiate. 

Chrissy said the CAT Scan that they did a couple of days ago was a very long painful process. David had to lay uncovered flat on his stomach on a cold bed for over 20 minutes with his head bent backward. He hasn’t laid on his belly for over 3 years because of neck pain.

He's taking Curcumin ( a chemical compound in the spice turmeric), vitamin D & B as in hopes they will help.

He threw up his breakfast on Sunday morning. But was able to keep the sushi down that he had for lunch.

He is really sore in his shoulder. Angel was able to give him several massages and he said they really helped.

They watched the movie Big Hero 6 and enjoyed it.

They went shopping and bought him a electric hot pot so he could fix his own oatmeal, tea, or blanch grapes (he doesn’t like the skin on grapes).

David’s eye started clouding up February 2013 and started seeing specialists in Irvine, CA about it. After moving to North Carolina Leukemia was diagnosed in February 2014. The eye was treated with 18 doses of radiation. This is what his eye looks like today. He can’t see out of it and discusses having it removed sometime in the future.

Chrissy was able to get a day home with the kids.
Anna needs her eyes examined to see if she needs glasses. She keeps getting headaches.
She had an eye exam setup for Wed thanks to some local friends.