Tube Wars

Day 45 of 1,278

I headed out to Quantico Marine Corps base on Sunday for a mountain bike race. For those keeping count, this was my second race on a mountain bike...ever. I started in the safety of the back of the pack...and pretty much finished in the same place. (No false sense of ability here!)

This was my first time at Quantico, however. Here's how the ride went: pedal up an insanely steep hill until you think you're going to pass out, then struggle to push your bike up the rest of the way. Once on top of said insanely steep hill, wait for the picturesque wooded surroundings to stop spinning, remount your bike, and hang on for your life as you tear down the other side. Repeat for the next hour. Or, in my case, the next hour and twenty minutes.

After the race I heard that we were "lucky" because they redesigned the course this year to bypass the infamous "Puke Hill". That's interesting...I wanted to puke on ALL the hills.

Honestly, it was a beautiful, albeit brutal, course. But, my hour and change of self inflicted pain is nothing to what Carson is going through.

Another Spinal Aspiration

On Monday Carson had another spinal aspiration and chemo treatment. He was lightly sedated for the procedure, but could feel some poking nonetheless. He was slightly dehydrated which made it harder to get enough fluid samples. (Hello? You're not supposed to drink for an eternity...of course he's dehydrated!) Jennifer did an awesome job of keeping him distracted.

After the procedure he snacked around, watched videos, and talked about cars. FYI, talking about cars...especially antique cars...has become quite the sensation. We even surf the Internet to pull up pages and pages of pictures...but I digress.

After waiting about an hour he had his ara-c chemo treatment, which is just pushed through his tube, and then we were sent home. Just like last week, we are scheduled to do the ara-c treatment at home on Tuesday and Wednesday. And, just like last week, we are having a rotten time getting anything through the tube.

Just to summarize, so far we have yet to complete an ara-c treatment at home. That's 0 for 3, folks. And it's not like we are totally medically incompetent. We've had some medical practice with Francesca. Anyway, tomorrow we are going to see if we can make it 0 for 4!

The nurses at the clinic probably think we're nuts. But so far every time we've taken him in they've had problems with the tube, too. I'm not sure if that's a "bright side" of things, but it's something.

We have another home-based ara-c treatment scheduled for Wednesday. Check back to see if Jennifer was able to get the tube to work. Anybody want to take bets?

Please keep those prayers coming!!

Paul.