August 4 Prayer Update

Update to the Update

I saw Jerry today. He looks great ... well, for a leukemia patient who's been through what he's been through, he looks great. His brother, who goes by Dump—really—was very upbeat about how things were looking. Thank you all for your prayers. His biopsy is Wednesday, and, to be honest, will almost certainly determine whether he lives the rest of his life or dies within a year. He's 52, and he's got some Christians around him in his family, including a 74-year-old uncle who's had "fatal" cancer three times, but refuses to die, still mows his own lawn, and never misses a church service. That man would be worth meeting!

I couldn't go see Jerry yesterday. I didn't have any energy for one, but with my fluctuating temperature, it didn't seem good to risk visiting him if I had an infection.

However, on Tuesday I saw him. He looked awful, but his heart rate was up, and the doctors had told him they liked his numbers. His white blood cell counts had crashed to zero, which is what they want, and his red blood cell counts were up a bit. I didn't know they wanted red blood cell counts to rise, but Jerry's brother and Jerry's wife indicated the doctors were very positive about those numbers.

So, he's on track, and it's one more week until he gets his marrow biopsy to see if this second round of chemo worked.

Oh, by the way, what was funny was the nurse, who knows I visit him, and who has had long talks about non-medical things with both of us, coming in to tell me Jerry moved to a new room. There are very, very strict laws about patient privacy, so they can't tell me anything about him. He can tell me anything he wants, but the nurses are supposed to be rigorously careful about not divulging even a hint of anything about a patient's medical condition to anyone.

So Martie comes in and says, "The patient in room 7 wants you to know he's been moved to room 18."

I wanted to laugh, but I know how serious HIPAA laws are.

Of course, then she listened to me tell her about walking by his empty room yesterday morning and wondering if he suddenly died. That seemed impossible because I know so many of you are praying for him. Then I thought, "They've just moved him to cardiac because they're not actually putting chemo in him anymore. The regimen's done, and he's just stewing in the chemo right now."

About five minutes later, I got to my room and remembered that Jerry's brother had told me that they were trying to get him a bigger room.

So, anyway, things are going well—though he's miserable—for Jerry. Pray he gets a clean biopsy a week from today.

And I already wrote an update this morning.