Holiday Greetings!!!

December 2008

Hello All;

The best laid plans of mice and men……as the saying goes. My plans of getting my cards done and out early went by the wayside with a surprise 20 day stay in the hospital. I know it has been 2 years since I last sent out a letter to you all, but this last year has been a real write off in a lot of ways for me and the family.

Our happy news of the year was the arrival of my first grandchild on February 5th, 2008. Our little Sadie Hali’a Pidcock was born to Jill and Ryan on Auntie Jen’s birthday. She has been the sunshine in my life this year. I can’t get enough of her and I think she kind of likes her Grandma too! She is growing so fast. She’s already wearing 18 to 24 month clothes and is eating all sorts of solids.

In March, after a 13 year remission, I was diagnosed with a relapse of Hodgkin’s Disease. My best chance of another remission was to have a ‘Stem Cell Transplant’. I had 2 short cycles of chemotherapy and then was in the hospital for a week while they did ‘mobilization chemo’ getting my system ready to collect my stem cells for the transplant. Most of this went quite well although, it took 3 days to collect enough stem cells for the transplant! On July 23rd I entered the hospital in preparation of the transplant. I underwent 6 days of heavy chemotherapy to kill off my immune system. On July 31st and August 1st I had my stem cell transplant. All 3 girls were there, even though it was rather anticlimactic compared to everything else. It took less than 1 hour each day to return all those stem cells back to me. As of last month, when I saw the doctor, all is going well. My bone marrow is working and my blood counts are normal or near normal. After the transplant I did get an infection and was rather sick for about 2 ½ weeks. I was under precautions in my room, where all visitors had to gown and glove, and I couldn’t see Sadie for 3 weeks!! That has been the longest time I have gone without seeing my ‘Little Miss Sunshine’. The day I got to finally see her, I was still under precautions and we had to leave my room and I had to gown and glove. Sadie didn’t seem to mind Grandma’s blue hands. She seems to take everything in stride as far as Grandma goes. Grandma’s new hair or no hair, depending on the day or when she’s just wearing a hat. My mobility is terrible, so when we go out shopping I have a wheelchair. Sadie loves to go for wheelchair rides. I think she savours the attention we get when she’s on ‘Grandma’s’ knee!!!

Bruce has had a very busy year at Gateway. For most of the time I was in the hospital, he was supervising the lane re-surfacing and then they had a new scoring system installed. He certainly was under quite a lot of stress then. He did manage to get to the hospital everyday, at least for a little while. Things are finally settling down now and he actually took a day off recently. He is not bowling this year. His back has been bothering him too much so he decided to take the year off! Seems so strange.

The girls and their families are doing well. Jen is still working as a nurse educator and now works straight days, Monday to Friday. Trevor just finished his training on the LRT and is now driving that. I think that he likes it as he doesn’t have to deal with the public or the traffic. Jill and Ryan have had an eventful year with the arrival of Sadie. Jill has been on maternity leave since the end of January and enjoying her time with the little munchkin. Recently, Ryan received this electrician journeyman ticket. Joanne is still working in childcare but made a change in the age group of babies she teaches. Eric is working teaching music. They will be home here for Christmas tomorrow (December 20th). I am so excited. This will be the first time we have all been together for Christmas in years and years. It was my one wish when my relapse was diagnosed.

As I mentioned at the beginning of my letter I was just in the hospital again. I was having some breathing problems and ended up in ICU for a week and then almost 2 more weeks on the pulmonary unit. They couldn’t pinpoint what caused the problems but think it could be related to my chemotherapy. I am so happy to be home again.

Wishing you all a Very Happy and Wonderful holiday.

Love from
Chris and Bruce

Sadie and Grandma November 23rd, 2008

An Update

August 28, 2008 An Update

Well I thought that it may be time to give a bit of an update on my health situation, since I haven’t updated this since before I went into the hospital on July 23rd.

I’ve been home for nearly a week now and very happy to be here. I was literally kicked out of the hospital! Last Thursday they told me that I was just going to get out on a weekend pass, so we made all the arrangements for me to get picked up at 4:00 pm by Bruce as he was going to play golf in a tournament. Well Friday morning arrives and they tell me I’m being discharged. Great! I don’t have a ride until 4:00. Luckily my friend Barb called and spent the day with me or I would have been going crazy. We went to the cafeteria for lunch and when we returned all my stuff was packed up and in the hallway. I had been evicted from my room (as Joanne describes it!!!). Anyway, it was a long afternoon waiting for Bruce to come and get me. But I had a really nice visit with Barb.

I am quite weak right now. Some of the simplest tasks tire me out quite quickly. My mobility is not great either. Walking can be a struggle even with the walker. I think that I’m getting stronger each day though. My first shower took almost an hour and the 2nd one about 35 minutes. That includes drying off and changing my dressing and getting dressed. So preparing to go out takes some planning. Thank goodness I don’t have to worry about doing my hair though; I don’t really have any (just peach fuzz).

Tomorrow I have to go to the hospital for some line flushing and possibly blood work and then next Friday I go to see the doctor.

I am looking forward to seeing Sadie tomorrow. I was unable to see her for 3 weeks as I had an infection that gave me horrible diarrhea. It was awful. I couldn’t get over how much she grew!!! She also got 2 teeth and started rolling all over the place to get around.

I guess that’s about all for this time. I hope that everyone had a great summer.

Update July 17th

Well everyone we are beginning the countdown to my long stay in the hospital. One week from today (July 23) I will be admitted for the stem cell transplant. I am getting more and more nervous as the time approaches.

I am trying to figure out what I need to take into the hospital with me. There is going to be a lot of empty time to fill. I have some movies to bring along, a couple of books to read (possibly), word searches and some magazines. Plus there is a tv in the room. I am hoping I won’t be too sick and will need lots to keep me occupied.

We have been pretty pleased with my blood counts over the past 4 weeks. Week one: 111, week 2 & 3: 107 and week 4: 109. Now that they have sort of stabilized, I will be getting another massive dose of chemo that will mess me up again. It will be interesting to see how much blood I may get during this stay.

It is 4 months today since I first went into the hospital. It is also 4 months today since I had a cigarette. There are still the odd times that I would like one, but I have resisted the urge.

I had some good news on the weekend, my youngest (Joanne and her husband Eric) are coming on Wednesday for a while. Joanne says she doesn’t know how long they will be staying. I have the feeling she wants to stay until she knows I am well on my way to recovery. It will be wonderful to have them here for support.

I am treating myself to a manicure and pedicure tomorrow before I go into the hospital. Thought that would be a nice thing to do for myself. I would do something with my hair but there isn’t that much there to worry about. I don’t think that it has grown much since I last got it cut.

I don’t know when I will be able to update you again. Visitors are welcome anytime. For the first while, please check with Bruce or one of the girls to see if I am up to visitors as I don’t know how I will react to the chemo. The other thing is that on the ward I will be on there are no cut or live flowers allowed.

That’s all for now. I will keep you updated as soon as it is possible.

My Update July 9, 2008

Thought I should do a bit of an update this evening as I have finally have something to say. I was at the hospital today for my weekly bloodwork. The last 3 weeks my blood counts have been pretty good. The haemoglobin has been staying steady at between 111 and 107. Not great for an ordinary person, but wonderful for me. Today I finally remembered to ask about my platelets and they were 173 in the 'normal' range. My doctor had been away and is back now and the discussion with the transplant nurses is that I may be going into the hospital on July 24th. Two weeks from now. I have to go in the 3 days prior to being admitted for an injection of some drug that helps with the mouth sores that the big chemo gives. They are being cautious because of my mouth troubles that I have had and am still having to a certain extent.

I am quite apprehensive about this stem cell transplant as it gets closer to the time. The killing off of my immune system, such as it is, scares the hell out of me. I'm also not looking forward to my long stay in the hospital. That's enough of that talk.

Today Jill, Sadie and I went out shopping for a B-Day gift. It was good. Sadie sat on my lap in the wheelchair and went for rides with Grandma. She loves looking around and smiled at anyone who paid attention to her. She is such a doll. We also had lunch at Gateway before we went shopping. There was so much for the little monkey to see and there were new people to meet. She really is a social little girl. We stopped to pick up a Tim's before coming home. While we were drinking our coffees Sadie was watching and watching. When I was done my coffee I gave her the cup and she was quite happy. I think I should submit this pic to Timmies and Sadie could be the newest Tim's Poster Girl!!!!!

Don't you think she could sell a tonne of coffees???

Not much else going on here. Bruce is pretty busy at work these days. They will be resurfacing the lanes soon and around the first of August they are supposed to start installing the new scoring system. And all this will be going on while I'm in the hospital. GREAT!!!!!!

That's all for now:)

June 15/08 Update

Well we had an eventful week this past week. I was at the hospital every morning by 8 am to get bloodwork. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday my counts weren't good enough for stem cell collection and I needed to get platelets. Thursday, we started the collection after more platelets. Friday, I needed to get some blood then they did a collection and then another unit of blood. Yesterday they completed the collection of stem cells. In all 4.2 million stem cells were collected. That is more than enough for a transplant.

Now we are at Monday. I had bloodwork today and my haemoglobin was borderline so I'm off to the hospital again tomorrow of more blood. In the past 12 days I have been to the Cross 9 days and one of those days I had to go back to get typed and cross-matched. After tomorrow, I'm not sure what the plan will be until I go in for my stem cell transplant.

My hair is falling out like crazy now. I suppose I will be bald before too long. I have lots of hats and scarves to cover up with. I haven't practiced with the scarves yet, but surely they can't be too tough to put on.

We had a good day yesterday. Went for dinner at Jen's. Today, Jill and Sadie picked me up at the hospital and we went shopping and then for lunch. Then it was home for a nap. I have been somewhat tired since my collection. I don't think that it's too unusual though. My body's blood volume went through the machine 65 times in the 3 days of collection.

That's about all for this week. I'll keep everyone posted of any new developments.

June 3rd Update

Time to bore you all to death once again with an update on my health situation. I certainly hope that it doesn't bore you too much. I had an eventful week though. I was admitted to the Cross Cancer Institute on Wednesday for a supposed 3 day stay. Wednesday I required 2 units of blood and some magnesium. That put off starting my chemo until Thursday. This chemo is a mobilizing chemo to get my bone marrow moving to start production of stem cells. Thursday was a looooong day and very tiring too as my transfusions took all night to get done. They gave me 3 drugs, one was 2 hour infusion followed by 4 hours of hydration (this one I had the next 2 days also). Then I had one that lasted 12 hours of infusion. After all that fluid I gained 6 kg. YUCK!!!! Then it was diuretic time to get rid of some of the water weight. When mobility is a problem it is NOT FUN getting to the bathroom on time!!!!!!

I was lucky enough to have a pass on Sunday for 8 hours. Got to spend most of it with Bruce, Jill, Ryan and my sweetheart Sadie. She is such a delight to me. I think she thinks she has a very funny Grandma as she is always laughing at me. Jill had her in to the clinic yesterday for her 2nd shots and the little 'chunky monkey' is nearly 16 lbs. She is in the 90th percentile for her age.

Yesterday I needed to get 2 more units of blood. Even though my haemoglobin count was slightly higher than the day before. Given my history of LOW blood counts, I need to be prepared to have these transfusions. I am hoping to keep them up as best I can though. My Dr. stuck his head in the door yesterday and apologized for ignoring me (I had seen another Dr. all the time I was there). He isn't too worried about me as I came through the chemo easily (no real terrible side effects....Lucky me!!!). He said that my stem cell transplant will be sometime around the end of July. That will give me part of a summer, June and July!

I have started to take my as expensive as Gold drug on Sunday. I have to give myself an injection twice a day for the next 10 days of this hormone (GCSF) to help stimulate the production of stem cells. Since I do not have any extra health insurance until August, I was funded for this VERY EXPENSIVE drug. Thank goodness!!!!

Guess that's about it for today......Hope you're not too BORED, but this the easiest way to update as many people as I can. Stay tuned hopefully one of these days I can discuss something other than my health.

My Update Week of May 26th......

Thought I would update everyone tonight. I had several appointments this week so far with Dr.'s, nurses and ultrasound. Yesterday I had an appointment with the Ear/Nose/Throat doctor who told me there was nothing more they would be doing for me. Although, I still can't open my mouth very wide and eating can be quite a chore at times! He said that my mouth problem is caused by my lymphoma and would get better with the chemo. I guess we will see........

Today started bright and early with me drinking 3 huge glasses of water in preparation for my pelvic ultrasound @ 8:00 am. Then that wasn't enough and I had to drink 2 more glasses and wait for 40 more minutes. I guess the cyst on my ovary is still there and may need to be followed up again later. Then they whipped me down to the Day Care Unit and up to the Canadian Blood Services room for blood work. After that it was off to the Lab for an ECG and yet another tube of blood to take. I think they took about 10 tubes of blood today. Then it was back to see the transplant nurse for a few minutes. Now as long as they have a bed tomorrow I will be going into the Cross for 3 days to receive my mobility chemo to kick start my Bone Marrow into making stem cells. This chemo will probably cause me to lose my hair in the next couple of weeks. I'm not too worried about it though, just one of those things. Hopefully, everything will go good and theywill be able to start collecting the stem cells in a couple of weeks and then do the transplant sometime the first part of July.

I have enjoyed seeing Joanne the last few days and am sad to see her go home so soon. I
know that this whole thing with me is hard for her being so far away, but Jen and Jill keep her well informed.

That's about it for this week. I will keep everyone informed as soon as I know what's going on.