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9/19/05

10:00 PM Today has been a very full day (as expected). Susan left early this morning for work but felt miserable most of the day. In fact, her sore throat got so bad, she ended up going to the doctor again this afternoon (still no strep, but the doctor suspected a sinus infection). On the home front, the home health care nurse came today to draw blood and the results were really good. Sophie's counts are high enough to continue this phase of the treatment. We have three more weeks in this phase, starting tomorrow with a spinal tap and a particularly nasty drug called cyclophosphamide. The problem with this particular drug is that it can cause crystals to form in the urine (I think), which can damage the bladder, so the plan is to hydrate Sophie with IV fluids for several hours prior to giving her the chemo and chasing the chemo with several more hours of fluids. Since Susan is not feeling terribly well (and probably does not need to be exposing cancer patients to whatever virus and/or other germs she is carrying right now), I'll skip classes tomorrow and take Sophie to UNC. That, actually, was a very easy decision to make.

Elisabeth had school today (and piano lessons at school--she promises she's going to practice this week). After school, she had dance classes in town. On the way home, she fell asleep in the car. I can sympathize! She has a field trip on Wednesday down to Carolina Beach and that whole area. It looks like it'll be lots of fun.

It was great having Shatesha here this morning. I have a laundry list of phone calls and errands to run for the church, not to mention several hundred pages of reading to do for coursework. I got some of it done, thanks in large part to the fact that I didn't have to tend to every need of Sophie all day.

If I may brag, the women's group at our church (the UMW) set a goal of assembling 10 health kits for the hurricane Katrina relief effort. I delivered over 40 health kits today, and while I was gone, somebody brought some more stuff. Yesterday at a committee meeting, somebody asked me if there is anything else that we can be collecting for people in the Gulf coast. It's moments like that that make me appreciate being involved in the life of a church!