You're Not Well Yet

That's what my GP told me when I went in for a follow up visit yesterday. On Friday night of last week, 1/15, I went down with a cough and a fever. The next morning, my temp was 102 and I was still coughing. Carol called the cancer doc's office on a Saturday morning and they phoned an antibiotic Rx to our local pharmacy and we got me onto some antibiotics pronto. We have known two cancer patients to die recently (one in pretty good health) and they both died not from cancer, but from pneumonia.

The next few days were some rocky ones with sustained temps around 101 to 102 and peaks over 103. I was about like a sack of potatoes, but less fun. On Tuesday, we got in to see my GP. He diagnosed bronchitis and later said that was the worst breathing he had ever heard anybody do who wasn't in a hospital. He put me onto some steroids and nebulizer breathing treatments. He also sent me over to another place to get my chest x-rayed. The x-ray showed bronchitis from a probable viral infection, but no pneumonia.

On Wednesday, I was well enough to work some at home, and I went back to work on Thursday. Matt came down with the same thing shortly after I did, but also got onto some antibiotics and bounced backed quickly. Yesterday, Carol thought that it all looked like so much fun that she would give it a try, so I get to take care of her for a while.

Anyway, I am fever-free, better, and not coughing nearly so much, but as my GP said, not well yet. He meant for me to keep at the meds and breathing treatments, rest and let my body mend, and keep the fluids going. It's a deal.

Here's a candid shot of me watching the Tennessee - Va. Tech game on New Year's Eve. Photo by Carol. Note the name of the game on the box is "Worst Case Scenario."

Birdhouses

It is cold in Illinois in December. Here are some pictures of the great birdhouse project we did to have some time with the grandchildren while we were there for Christmas.

December 2009

Sometimes life is just too much fun to bother with blogging, and that's how it was with our lives between Thanksgiving and New Year's. Some of the events I enjoyed the most were:

• Setting up the nativity set in the front yard with the grandkids and hanging the Christmas lights on the house on the day after Thanksgiving.
• Celebrating Matt's 25th birthday on Nov. 29, and Carol's birthday on Dec. 5.
• Going to see the opening night of the Rockette's Christmas performance (courtesy of my sister), with my sister, her husband and friends, Carol, our two youngest kids and their dates.
• Going to our Sunday School class's Christmas fellowship, and hosting our 21st annual neighborhood Christmas party.
• Going to our church's fantastic Christmas concert, with choir and orchestra, and sitting in a packed out sanctuary on the second night of the performance.
• Traveling to Illinois with Carol, as we spent Christmas and a few days before with our kids and grandkids there.
• Attending the Christmas Eve service at the church where our son Daniel serves as the pastor.
• Stopping by Arkansas on the way home to see my brother, my sister, their spouses and some other family members.
• Exchanging presents and celebrating a late Christmas with the Dallas-Fort Worth kids.
• Celebrating New Year's Eve with friends and family as we watched Tennessee play Virginia Tech in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl.
• Too many other wonderful times at church, with family, friends, co-workers and clients to mention, and even driving around listening to Christmas carols with a Christmas ornament hanging from the rear view window of my truck.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures of the holidays. The pics are small, but worth clicking onto to get the big picture:

Setting up the Nativity Set with the grandkids, and others:

Birthday celebrations:













Alyssa and her Christmas slide. She was too little to manage sliding down on her bottom, and had to slide down head first on her tummy.






Christmas with Peoria grandkids:





With siblings and siblings-in-laws in Heber Springs, Arkansas:

Daryl Bennett, CPSC (Cancer Patient, Second Class)

Since I only go to see my cancer doc once every two months now, and much of the time I don't see him but his capable young assistant, I asked him some time ago if I was now a "Cancer Patient, Second Class," meaning things were not as urgent now and I seem to be more on a long-term maintenance program.

I got numbers back on my latest blood work today, and the results are good. The M-spike has been hovering at a consistent but unmoving low level like a catfish on a river bottom (see blog entry for 11/17), but this month it moved down again, dropping from 0.6 to 0.4. Total proteins also made a nice drop, and most parameters of the general blood chemistry are showing some slight improvements as well.

I keep on the current medication program, and go back to see the cancer doc again in two months.

I want to thank each of you for your faithful and persistent prayers for me over the past 2+ years. As I told my Sunday School class recently, you don't learn the meaning of perseverance (in prayer) from a dictionary. So often, when we pray for someone and there is no apparent answer, we are inclined to give up on our prayers and say, "God's will be done." But perseverance means praying just as fervently and ardently two years or more later as you did when you first heard the news and brought your petition before God, and I know that such prayers are many of you.

Thanks for love, prayers, support and concern.

In His Mighty Care, Daryl

Some Grand Kids

Wow. Am I ever blessed to have this pack of kids loving me and calling me "Grandpa."

Happy Thanksgiving 2009