Where's Wally?

Posted for Sheri...

I know it’s been a while and you’re probably wondering, “Where’s Wally?” Well, Wally has landed himself back at Virginia Mason Hospital – room 1575 to be exact. I guess I better start from about a month ago...

June 18, Wally had his chemo treatment. As I stated before, he has been feeling more nauseated and tired but we chalked it up to the good ol’ accumulative effect of the chemo and were just anxious to start our vacation cruising the Caribbean. We left for Florida on the 19th with 7 bags - yes, it sounds like a lot but with 5 of us and our dinner dress clothes, suitcases fill up quickly! Anyway, only 3 bags made it that evening so Wally, Matt and I slept in our clothes. The next morning we received 3 more bags, unfortunately Wally’s bag was on it’s way to Nicaragua – oops! I was hoping he could just relax and enjoy the day we had in Miami but he hopped in a cab and found a Target to purchase “basics” just in case his bag didn’t make it to the ship. He just loves shopping – NOT! Thankfully his bag made it so now he has plenty of underwear :) He was a good sport even though he still wasn’t feeling well.

We boarded the ship on the 22nd with our friends and set out for the Caribbean, visiting Haiti, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel. So much food and so much to do on the ship, yet Wally lost weight and slept a lot. I watched for things to turn around a little but he never really got his energy back. We flew back home on the 29th and he had chemo again on July 3rd. We mentioned symptoms to the doctors but they were not too concerned. He was prescribed a new anti-nausea drug called marinol which is synthetic pill derived from marijuana. Thankfully we have insurance because this is one expensive drug – I guess I understand why people end up ingesting the real stuff, it’s much cheaper! To make a long story short, that didn’t work either.

Wally had completely lost his appetite and didn’t want to eat or drink anything – he lost 20 pounds within 6 weeks and just had no energy. He had chemo again this past Thursday and the doctor instructed him to take his pills a little differently and if that didn’t work then he would need to come in to the hospital on Monday for some tests and to call first thing Monday morning. Well, we called ALL of Monday and it wasn’t until he started running a fever that they finally had me bring him in to Emergency. Right now they say he has an infection in his liver which they will drain tomorrow (Thursday). He has had a CT scan and endoscopy and may have another test either tomorrow or Friday. He is resting now but food and drink still don’t work well for him so they will continue to run diagnostic tests to try and figure out what is happening in his gut.

We seem to be back on the roller coaster ride we were on in the beginning of this “adventure”. We covet your prayers and know that our God is faithful and good and makes no mistakes. As the old hymn says, “My hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus’ blood and righteousness... On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.” We continue to try and look at the eternal and not dwell on the now.

Hopefully I can update this in a few days,

Sheri