So far so good. No nausea.

Tanner had melphalan yesterday and the last time it was given to him, he had a couple of really bad days afterwards with nausea and vomiting.

Last night I gave him a lorazepam (which is a nerve pill that also helps with nausea) at bed time and this morning he took a compazene and so far he hasn't been sick to his stomach at all today. Just really tired (which the nurses tell us is normal and will actually get worse over the next week before it gets better). I don't know if it's the fact that we have taken precautions to give him the extra nausea medicine here at the apartment or if the doctor might have added additional nausea medicine to what they give him at the hospital since they know he had a bad time during his first round of chemo. Whatever the difference is, we are both relieved that he's not nauseated today.

His blood pressure was really low so they added fluids to his drips today and have reiterated how very important it is for him to drink lots of fluids. Unfortunately, many of the drinks I put before him sit in the glass and just melt before he gets them down. I will have to see what we can do to work on that.

The pharmacist made a mistake when prescribing the companion medications that go along with the chemo and didn't give him enough to make it through Monday so they have decided to go ahead and move up his stem cell transplant to tomorrow morning. They don't want him to go two days without medication before the transplant. So, the moment has arrived and Tanner will have the transplant at ten in the morning! Yea!

After the transplant, he will go to the hospital every day and will have one growth factor shot a day so that his body will start making new cells to replace all the cells that were destroyed with the chemo. The stem cell transplant along with these new cells, should give him a cancer free system!!

His blood count will continue to drop over the next week to ten days then will start the climb back up over the week or two following that. He has it in his head that he's going to recover quicker than anyone they've ever seen before and will get to go home within two weeks.

He's a funny boy and has done terrifically well during this whole procedure. He's just so ready to come home -- even if it's just for a few weeks...

Our cousins, Kathy and Bobby, came up from Texas yesterday and cooked Tanner tacos for lunch and hung out at the apartment for a few hours - and watched the Animal Channel with us. The tacos were really good and it was great getting to spend some time with them, It was a nice break for Tanner and I both to get to spend some time with them yesterday. When Tanner gets a little better and we get back to Texas, we definitely will have to go out to the lakehouse and hang out on their deck. Those are always fun times and Tanner enjoys just sitting on the deck and visiting with the family.

We are at the hospital right now while Tanner is getting his first bag of chemo. The nurse is waiting on his lab work to get back so that she can order his melphalan. We can't keep Tanner awake so that he can munch on the ice. You should see the looks I get when I try to wake him up to eat the ice. LOL!

The nurse assures me that she will tell me when the lab work comes back. After that, she can place the order for the melphalan and that will give us enough time before she starts the drip so that we can try to get an hour with Tanner eating plenty of ice before it starts. She said that the mouth sores are truly horrible and often patients just have to sit with drool running out of their mouths into a towel because they can't swallow - and much of the time end up in the hospital.

We are going to give him a little while to sleep while these first meds run and then we are going to wake him up and convince him of the importance of eating the ice for the next few hours. He will need to eat it for about an hour before it begins, while the melphalan is running, and then for an hour after they get through. It's going to be fun to get that much ice down him in the mood he is in, but I'm sure we can make him see how important it is.

He will most likely be pretty sick tomorrow (since the day after melphalan was when he started throwing up before) and for the next while. She said his system will continue to drop for a week to ten days after the last chemo treatment (tomorrow) and then he will start to build back up.

If we can just get through the next two weeks, hopefully, we will get to come home for a while. Wouldn't that be great?

It is Saturday morning and once again we are at the hospital and Tanner is having his chemo treatment. They gave us some mouthwash for him to use every day in the morning, after every meal, and before bed to help prevent getting the sores in his mouth. I hope it helps.


He had cheese toast before we left the apartment this morning along with all of his pills. Then when we got to the hospital, he wanted chicken noodle soup - at 8:30 a.m.! He kills me with the things he can eat first thing in the morning.


Our cousins Kathy and Bobby have come up from Texas and we are both excited to see them. They want to go to the grocery store and buy something to fix Tanner for lunch at the apartment. Tanner told me to tell them he wants tacos! Since he isnt't neutropenic at this time that should be okay.


They have told us that tomorrow they are going to give him melphalan which is the medicine that made him so sick during the first round of chemo. It is a medicine that can often make you sick and causes cold sores. He has to be sure and eat lots of ice before during and after the treatment so that it will constrict his blood vessels in his mouth to help prevent the cold sores. It caused him lots of nausea and vomitting last time but he didn't get any of the sores, so I hope he doesn't again this time either.


We talked to a friend we have made here who had his stem cell transplant a couple of days ago about how it went and he said it was really anti-climatic. He said you go through all these treatments and sickness all building up for the stem cell transplant and they hang the bag and it runs into you for about ten minutes and then you just sit there a couple of hours while they monitor you and it's done.


From what I understand, after the stem cell transplant on Wednesday, they will start giving him the growth factor shots again so that his body will start creating new cells once again and his system will climb back up and then we can see what Dr. Barlogie says the next step is.



Hopefully, it will be getting to go home for a while!

I tell you, taking ten steroid pills in the morning sure makes Tanner feel bad. He seems almost agressive. Everything gets on his nerves -the other drivers, people talking to him, just about everything for about half of the day.

He really works to try and control it. By the time we left the hospital today, he was telling me how much he hates taking "Dex" (the steroids) and you could see the blood vessel in his temple just throbbing. It makes his heart beat really strong in his chest and he doesn't like the feeling at all.

We got back to the apartment and he layed down on the couch and slept for about three hours. I finally had to wake him up so that he could take his lunch time pills. He hates all the pills and I have to continually remind him that they are helping him become well. The one he hates the worst is the one that dissolves in his mouth that helps prevent thrush. I told him that he really doesn't want to have thrush on top of everything else.

After I woke him up, he wanted a baked potato followed by a bowl of vegetable soup. I went to the drug store just a while ago to buy a thermometer and I picked up some vanilla ice cream and root beer so he can have a float here in a while.

His favorite thing lately has been his IPOD. He seems to have those ear phones on his head night and day. When I went in this morning to get him up, the earphones were still on his head and that's how he goes through his daily chemo treatments. Maybe he just wants to tune his mom - and the nurses - out for a while!!

His face is really flushed and red but he actually seems to feel a little better now that he's been up for a while. We are scheduled to go back to the hospital for Tanner's chemo treatments at 8:00 a.m. through the weekend so it will be just like during the week. No break for Tanner or his mom!

You can tell that the chemo is beginning to catch up with Tanner. He has not been in the best of moods today and has been pretty quiet.

He played X-Box 360 for a while and then plugged in his I-POD and has just been lying on the couch most of the afternoon. Right now he is asleep.

The PA told us today that he's doing well but that he will most likely bottom out here in about a week.

She said that his mucous lining will become inflamed and that he will have a sore throat and an irritated esophagus (and possibly sores in his mouth) and might not want to eat much when things start getting rough for him.

She says that all of this is normal and is to be expected before he starts building his way back up. We will be at the hospital for a little longer tomorrow because his red blood count is getting low and they are going to have to add some other drips onto his chemo tomorrow.

I went to the grocery store this afternoon and bought some things so that I can make soups and some meals in the crockpot. I know that soon Tanner will get to a point where he won't feel like getting out much and I want to have things on hand that we can eat here at the apartment - and also so that I won't have to leave him.

All in all, it was a fairly quiet day and he's doing pretty good. I'm glad that he's getting some rest - which is good for him.

Some of the other patients that we have come to know during our first month of treatment have also moved up to 7C so Tanner has others that he can still talk to. I think it helps him (and me) to have others who are moving along at about the same pace as he is that we can talk to as we move down this next phase. He's also meeting new people and one of the men who ended up in the room with us today told him that "Bart" (Dr. Barlogie) had told him about Tanner and that they were personal friends and that he wanted Tanner to know that he was going to be fine and that Dr. Barlogie was telling him how well Tanner was doing. Everywhere he goes at UAMC, people recognize Tanner as the "young" myeloma patient and always have kind things to say to him. I think he inspires everyone he meets here at the myeloma clinic. I know he inspires me every day.

It has been another long day. We left about 7:15 a.m. to head to the hospital to start Tanner's next round of chemo and didn't leave there until after 3:00 p.m. They hung a bottle of chemo meds this morning that took about four hours to run and then we waited an hour for them to bring in some other meds and they ran for another hour - and in the meantime they hooked him back up on the bag of chemo meds that he just carries with him overnight. Looks like he's going to get a LOT of medicine this go around.

His hair was driving him crazy and even as short as it was, it was falling out all over his t-shirt. After we left the hospital and stopped for lunch, he saw a Sports Clips and wanted to go in and have them buzz the rest of the hair off.

They don't "shave" heads at Sports Clips but they buzzed it right down to his skull then put him under the water and really worked the scalp and most of the rest of the hair came out. He told me I could shave the rest off of his head when we got back to the apartment and I told him Dr. Barlogie would get me if I cut his head and he got an infection.

I'm a little nervous about how sick he might get taking this many medications on this round of chemo. Today, he would do really well for a while, and then he would get pale and you can tell he just feels wiped out.

I just gave him his "evening" handful of pills and he told me he was really tired of all the pills. I told him I was sorry but they are necessary to his recovery. I think the one he hates the most is one he has to put in his mouth and let dissolve - and unfortunately that's the one he has to take four times a day.

We go back to 7C again at 8:00 a.m. in the morning. The nurse said we shouldn't have to be there so long tomorrow since they only have to hang two bags of medicine. Each one should take about an hour to run. That most likely means, at a minimum, we will be there three hours.

The girls at Great Clips were very sweet to Tanner and cut his hair, massaged his scalp, and gave him a shoulder massage. They said he needed a little pampering! I think he really enjoyed it!!

Great news today! Dr. Barlogie says that Tanner's bone marrow biopsy came back normal and that there are no longer any cancer cells evident in the marrow!! He also said the other tests indicated that the lesions are greatly reduced!! There are just no words adequate to express this mom's feelings right now - and I know that the rest of the family is so excited by this news. Trevor called when we got back to the apartment and we were able to tell him and he was so relieved and excited. I know that he worries terribly about his brother while we are so far away.

We are being moved to "7C" over at the hospital and will have to be there a little before 8:00 a.m. in the morning to begin the next round of chemotherapy. He will undergo chemo until next Monday. Tuesday he will have a day of rest and then next Wednesday they will do the stem cell transplant and after that, his counts will drop really low and he won't have any immunities again for a while. They will closely monitor him until his numbers all come back up (probably all together it will take about a month) and after that he should be able to go back home to Texas for a while.

Tanner told Dr. Barlogie he would ask what comes next after this but he knew that it would depend on how he does and how he responds to the treatment. Dr. Barlogie told him yes, it would be a "saga'.

Depending on how things go, they say that he might only have to undergo one stem cell transplant. It will just depend on how everything turns out after this round of chemo and transplant.

Dr. Barlogie is such a caring physician. I know that he is very busy and puts in some extremely long days, but you can tell that he genuinely cares about his patients. He hugged me and Tanner both as he was leaving the exam room today.

I talked to two of the ladies from his office about the insurance and how they are still denying much of the procedures as "experimental". Sandra, the insurance lady at the doctor's office, said that now that Dr. Barlogie has decided to go with the "BEAM" transplant and not the "M-VDP Pace" transplant (which Tanner's insurance denied) they might reconsider and will cover the procedure. She said that no matter what we will continue to pursue coverage and submit appeals. In the meantime, they had me sign another form taking financial responsibility. LOL. I told her it didn't matter, I would sign whatever they needed me to sign. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and we are so fortunate to be here at this facility so that Tanner can get the care that he needs.

One of the other ladies at the doctor's office who came in to talk to me told me not to stress too much over the insurance. She said they go through things like this all the time and that Dr. Barlogie always gives the patient the treatment they need, regardless of coverage.

We got to the infusion clinic for Tanner's lab work at 8:30 a.m. and then went and had breakfast at one of the hospital cafe's with Loren and John, a very nice couple from Virginia, who are here while he undergos treatment for Myeloma. We sat and talked for quite a while and then went to see Dr. Balogie at noon. We ended up being at the doctor's office HOURS and didn't get back to the apartment until 7:00 p.m.

We saw the doctor right away but then you have to wait for the RN to come in to talk to you and that took quite a while. When she finally came in at about 3:00 p.m., Tanner told her he was so hungry that his head was hurting. She told me we could go back over to the hospital and have a sandwich and pick up a presciption and then come back to the office. It ended up being an all day appointment. But you know what, after the news we got, it doesn't even matter. It was a great day!

When we got back to the doctor's office to talk to the nurse, Marti, she went over all the new instructions and medications with me and then she handed me a check for $1000 made payable to "Robert T Walker". I asked her what that was for and she said it was from one of the other patients. I asked her who and she said it was just another patient who met us while Tanner was undergoing all of his tests and that he just touched their hearts and they asked her to give us the money.

Marti and I both just sat there in that room and cried when she handed me the check. I mean, my goodness, this is $1000 from someone that Tanner met in while in a waiting room since we got here to Arkansas and we aren't even sure who it is. We just know that the check says they are from Hot Springs. I don't begin to have the talent to describe how we felt - how we feel.

The kindness and generosity that we have experienced from everyone since Tanner found out he has cancer has been truly overwhelming. Our lives will be forever changed.

Can you imagine? Truly, can you imagine?