Define Irony

Let me tell you a story of irony. It's a double-feature. Friday during the day, Ryan and I were talking about life and how sometimes things can happen that come out of nowhere and completely throw you off balance. Ryan likened it to a car accident (because he is the master of analogy). He talked about how you're happily driving along and BOOM! You get hit. It shakes you up. You're shocked, you're skittish around other drivers, you're sore. It takes awhile to calm down, it takes a few days to drive around and feel somewhat safe again, etc. It runs its course, you deal with it, life goes on and pretty soon you're feeling pretty good again.

So on the way home from the hospital that night, I got rear-ended. It was not a big hit, the car's fine. But the first thing I thought (well, right after "What the heck just happened?!?!") was "How ironic." And that's what I texted Ryan.

So I went home and decided that instead of working, I would just veg in front of a chick flick. A time-honored remedy for stress, right? I got set up with some ibuprofen and cold cereal and settled in to watch my run-of-the-mill romantic comedy about a funny, beautiful, and successful woman that can't open herself up to love until she meets the right man, etc. etc. etc. Pretty standard stuff, which is all I wanted. Then the movie takes this major turn. The girl goes to the doctor, the girl finds out she has colon cancer, the girl quits the chemo treatment, the girl says a slow and painful goodbye to her family and friends, the girl dies. Holy crap! That is not what I needed in my chick flick. Sheesh.

So the next day they do an endoscopy and colonoscopy on Ryan and find a polyp. How. Ironic.

Enough about me and irony. I want to give you all the details on Ryan. I've been told I don't give enough detail. Since the last post, they found out Ryan has another virus called the BK virus. It's a similar story to the VRE virus- they won't treat it unless it starts to cause a problem. Hopefully his body (with its climbing neutraphils) will be able to keep things under control. We're not going to worry until there's actually something to worry about. His platelets climbed another 10 today, his white blood cell count is climbing as well, his hematocrit is almost at 30. Things in his blood are definitely headed in the right direction.

They did six biopsies during the procedures yesterday. The GI doctor was very good. She said we'd have results back on Monday. It will tell us everything we need to know about whether Ryan is having GVHD symptoms, and also about that pesky polyp. They didn't remove the polyp because they were worried about bleeding and infection risks. Tony (our nurse yesterday) said that the bone marrow patients make the surgeons really nervous, and they're very reluctant to do much work on them.

Ryan's mouth and throat have improved a lot. It no longer hurts much to swallow. His stomach is feeling less upset the further he gets from that unfortunate bowl of Cheerios. He hasn't eaten anything for two days now and it's going better. He has found ways of dealing with his burning feet. Leaving them out of the covers, not letting them touch each other, ice packs, putting them on the cold floor in the middle of the night, etc. He looks a lot better than some days I've seen him. The pain pump is helping control his pain quite well.

Ryan's friend Travis dropped by last night with a smoothie for Ryan. Very thoughtful and it went straight to me. Ryan really liked talking with him. Travis actually had an autologous bone marrow transplant about a year ago I think. He looks good, is doing well. Scott and Melissa visited for awhile after their anniversary dinner in Salt Lake. It was so good to see them. We talked about all the black-and-white shows we watched as kids. (Loved The Donna Reed Show, hated The Andy Griffith Show, felt neutral about Mr. Ed, etc.)

Today's plans are to get Ryan to walk around a bit and do some exercises and stretches. Also to finish watching Spies Like Us, which I've never seen before. Ryan decided now is as good a time as any to make me watch all the movies from the eighties that I missed (which is most of them). I wouldn't say I missed them, Bobs. Finally, here's a picture of Jonas on his first ever fishing trip. Jenny & the Porritts treat him like the world's only and cutest kid, and frankly, spoil him completely. I think it's exactly what he needed. Thanks so much Jenny and all the Porritts! Jenny says Jonas caught 15 fish at Strawberry Reservoir. Ridiculous!