Cycle 4 – Ring the Bell!!

We were fortunate to be able to spend Easter at home and enjoyed going to in person church! But then we had to head back to Jacksonville that evening for the fourth and (hopefully) final cycle. It was thankfully a mostly uneventful treatment cycle. This cycle was the same treatment as cycle 2 – so Clay had one day outpatient and then 5 days inpatient.

The girls had a dance competition over the weekend in Jacksonville, so thankfully Maggie was sweet (or crazy) enough to bring the kids over on Friday. (All five kids 😬).

The girls danced beautifully, and Clay did great on treatment. He was a little nauseous, so they gave him anti-nausea meds and he slept most of the time! So I got a lot of work done while he slept without him complaining that I “stole his table”.

It was also good timing because I got to go to my cousin Mike’s retirement ceremony – postponed from last April because of COVID. I had never been inside the St. Francis Barracks in St. Augustine, but it is an absolutely gorgeous place. The ceremony was very touching and heartfelt. I even got to see Angie be forced to walk onstage in heels to accept her “wife of the honoree” award – which is so important! I am so thankful I could be there.

I did not know that when you finish your chemotherapy, you get to ring a bell that they have at the doorway. It is apparently a pretty big deal. So, at discharge time late on Saturday, Clay rang that bell! He said he rang it loud to let all those sleeping chemo patients know he was doing a jail break!

From here, we go back for a repeat PET scan on May 3 and if that all looks good, then we will feel like Clay is really cancer free. Dr. Hammond said he does not usually start to use the word “cure” until you are about a year out from treatment, but I will take a clean PET Scan as God’s blessing and not worry about anything coming back.

Thank you to everyone for all of the prayers, support, delicious food, encouragement, putting up with our cranky kids, helping with pets, yard work help, etc, etc, etc. No one fights alone is the cancer patient motto and it is so very true. We are truly blessed with family and friends and appreciate everyone enormously – words are not sufficient. I promise to update once we get the PET scan results back next month!