Catching Up: Feb 2025

 It has been a busy few weeks since Jim finished radiation. He had an appointment with Speech Therapy and Occupational Therapy that both went well and reinforced how good he is doing. He also started making plans to go back to work and is looking at starting back on March 10. He will get to take it slow and work part time the first two weeks. He also will be able to work from home some and we are looking forward to him having an office in town closer to summer, which will hopefully greatly reduce his time spent commuting.

Jim, Ezra, and Emmett went to a Spud Kings hockey game

Jim's parents came to visit and to help out by staying with Ezra for his regional math competition while the rest of us went to a soccer tournament in St. George, Utah. It was so disappointing that these two important events were scheduled the same weekend, but we were grateful that Jim's parents could help out. Jim and I went skiing together at Grand Targhee while they were here. It was a very cold day, but we had a good time.

Unfortunately both Elliott and Ezra got colds, and Elliott's cough lingered for a few weeks. Jim started to cough and feel feverish the day after we skied. His doctor recommended a few things and Jim decided to still come to St. George with us. The soccer tournament was generally good, but Elliott and Emmett's games overlapped quite a bit and I missed watching Emmett's team play. Jim watched some soccer, but also spent a lot of time resting and coughing. He slept very poorly. Because Emmett's team made the finals, we ended up leaving him with a teammate and heading home as we had a 7 hour drive and didn't want to be leaving after 8pm. Elliott's team tied one and lost 2, and generally had a good experience. Emmett's team had a loss, a tie and a win, and got 2nd place in their bracket. Emmett got to make the drive home in 2 days, crashing on the floor of a teammate's grandparents on the way home. Ezra's MathCounts team got 2nd place and he got 13th place individually. This means he will compete at the state MathCounts competition in Boise in March.

Elliott's team

Emmett's team

Mini Golf at the resort

Bingo at the resort

On Wednesday I came home for lunch and Jim was feeling quite weak and his doctor recommended going to the ER since he had been sick for a week. He was diagnosed with pneumonia and the cause being mycoplasma, a bacterial infection. He was given Motrin, Tylenol, IV fluids, 2 different antibiotics through the IV and had a chest x-ray and chest CT. We were released after a few hours and he is on an oral antibiotic for 10 days. He will also need a follow up CT in 4-6 weeks to confirm that the pneumonia resolves completely.

Today he had a neurology appointment. We talked about how different seizures present and she was very happy to hear that Jim has had no signs of seizures since mid-September. The nurse practitioner asked to wait until Jim had finished his next chemotherapy pill days and a few days after that he should be ok to drive. the chemotherapy shouldn't cause seizures, but it can affect how well the seizure medicine is absorbed, which could possibly allow him to have a seizure. He didn't have any issues with that the first time he did the chemotherapy, so we are expecting this time to be similar. We also talked about Jim's sleep. It's been especially bad with his pneumonia, but even before that it has been quite fragmented. The neurologist is going to try to get an at home sleep study approved to see if he is having any sleep apnea, as that could possibly explain the poor sleep and is sometimes a result of brain surgery. We are waiting to hear back on the approval on that and will meet with her again a couple weeks after the sleep study. We also discussed hyperbaric oxygen chamber therapy. This hasn't been proven to help with brain stuff, but I have read some encouraging things about it possibly helping with post-radiation brain necrosis. She felt that it was a very expensive (not covered by insurance) option, but that it wouldn't probably hurt anything if we wanted to pursue it. We will keep it as an idea for the future for now. She is also taking over prescribing Jim's seizure medicine and got him refills approved for the next year.

Jim will do 5 days of chemotherapy starting tomorrow (2/26) and has a follow-up with radiation oncology, speech therapy, and occupational therapy next week. If all goes well he will start work the following week and also have an appointment with the medical oncologist that week.

We will also celebrate Jim and Ezra’s birthdays this week. We would appreciate prayer for Jim’s continued healing and a smooth transition to driving and working for him!

Celebrating Jim's birthday

Emmett went on a weekend ski trip to Big Sky with Lucas, and Lucas' dad and brother