Flew the Coop

Today we welcomed my Daddy home after 12 long days in the hospital.  A banner adorning the garage door reads, "Welcome Home Daddy. We Love U Grandpa!"  Banners are a tradition with our family, dating back to those awesome days of dot matrix printers with the hole punched perforated trimmed paper.  I always prefer the hand drawn ones myself.  The boys had fun coloring in the letters of "GRANDPA" and tracing their hands.  

My Daddy was not feeling so great today after enduring 3 days of chemotherapy, but he was thrilled to be out of the hospital.  He said that the smell was driving him crazy:-)  The smell.  That's hilarious, out of all of the things that would drive you crazy about the hospital, it was the smell that did it for Daddy.  Owen, Eyan, Felicity, and I went to visit him last night.  All the nurses were loving Dad since he would feed them all the delicious goodies that friends had been bringing him.  Dad told his nurse last night that he was breaking out of this chicken coop today.  He was in great spirits last night.  

Today he looked beat and worn out, exhibiting obvious pain and nausea.  Poor Daddy.  I am sure it will be great to sleep in his own bed, with his own pillow, next to my sweet Mommy.  

The official diagnosis is yet to be determined, with the pathologists still not giving a stamp of approval.  The doctor is standing firm with his assessment of the form of lymphoma being lymphoplasmacyctic, an uncommon classification which involves the B cells in the plasma and an increase in the IgM protein in the blood.  This increase of protein in my Dad's blood is what caused most of his scary symptoms because it made the blood so thick that it couldn't flow properly in his body.  While in the hospital he had to have plasmaferesis, a treatment which replaced my dad's protein-ladened plasma with fresh plasma.  The difference in my father after even his first treatment was extraordinary.

We continue to pray for everyday miracles as he proceeds with his weekly check-ups and chemotherapy every 3 weeks.  It is difficult to watch my father whom I have always viewed as superhuman with superhuman strength and ability, be so vulnerable and susceptible to human conditions.  I know he will be victorious in this battle.  He has too, he's my Daddy.