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Today, February 5th marks some important anniversaries for us.

Six months ago today we learned that Darcy had a form of Acute Leukemia. She had been in the hospital for a couple of days at the time. Over the next few days we would learn more about the disease and the road that lay ahead for us. It seems so long ago…now.

Early that morning I was unable to sleep, the first of many, many sleepless nights. Not knowing what else to do, I began writing. At around 6:00 a.m. I posted the first post on the blog that was to become so central to our lives, and our connection with so many friends and family. I titled it “Here’s what we know so far…”, and outlined Darcy’s situation as we then understood it. Since that time I’ve posted a total of 173 items, some serious, some funny, some poignant, some downright silly. We’ve had fun with it, and it has been a lifeline between us and our friends and family. You’ve posted 457 comments on the blog, and as of this afternoon there are an astounding 30,936 total page views! My goodness, I never dreamed when I sat in this very chair six months ago in the wee hours, typing wearily on my computer, that even a hundred pairs of eyes would ever read them. Thanks everybody for paying attention!

Three months ago today, Darcy and I drove to Ann Arbor for pre-admission testing in preparation for Darcy’s bone marrow transplant. We didn’t leave the hospital for many days. She endured two days of the vilest chemo they had to offer, followed by three days of TBI, an innocuous sounding acronym for Total Body Irradiation. It made her sicker than she had ever been. It made her wonder, no doubt, whether the “cure” was worse than the disease. And in the days, weeks, and indeed months ahead it surely made her wonder whether she would ever feel good again.

She feels good again.

Which brings me to the Red Letter Day. Darcy is coming home today.

Let me say it again, in case you didn’t hear me the first time: DARCY IS COMING HOME TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you Lord, for watching over her!


During a recent conversation with my Dad, we were talking about the hereditary proclivity toward long lives in our family tree. Dad is 77, and would be among the youngest in our family tree to die if he passed away tomorrow. Most lived into their eighties and many of my ancestors lived into their nineties. My great-great-grandmother was 96 years old when I was born and passed away the following year.

However, as I thought more about my immediate family, it occurred to me that we all owe our lives directly to modern medicine in one way or another. Dad has had three heart attacks, and likely would not have survived them if not for modern procedures to open blocked arteries. I had an appendectomy in 1988; the first such successful procedure was performed in 1885. My brother has type I diabetes, diagnosed at age 14. The only effective treatment -insulin injection- was introduced in 1922. Prior to that, both diabetes and appendicitis  sufferers died after an agonizing (and relatively short, in the case of a burst appendix) period of illness.

My sister is a cancer survivor, having been successfully treated seventeen years ago. Those treatments have kept her free of cancer since. Her husband Dan recently passed away following a tenacious battle against Lou Gehrig’s Disease, for which there is still neither a cure nor effective treatment. And as everyone reading this blog knows, Darcy is currently being treated for leukemia, which according to the doctors would have taken her life within weeks of diagnosis without the chemotherapy that drove it into remission.

Connor was born six weeks premature, and spent a couple weeks in the neo-natal ICU before we were allowed to bring him home. He might have survived a similar beginning a hundred years ago (my grandfather was born in 1911 weighing less than three pounds), but chances are against it.

Being a student of history I am given to feelings of “Wow wouldn’t it be cool to have been there for the signing of the Magna Carta” or any other significant event from throughout history. Who wouldn’t be thrilled to witness the American or French Revolutions, or the Battle of Hastings? However, it seems that had any of my immediate family been born even a hundred years earlier, it is unlikely that we would be alive at our present age, given the history of medical advancement, and its prior limitations. Which raises an important (and somewhat vexing) question: How did so many of my ancestors live to such a ripe old age?

I’m sure the answer is a combination of many, many factors. Though my paternal grandparents were both fairly heavy, most of the pictures of previous generations show them to have been fairly trim. Being farmers, they all did a great deal of hard work- this being the era before big tractors, or tractors at all for that matter- and they didn’t have a McDonald’s down the road to tempt them. I do know that their diet was anything but low-fat; lots of butter, beef fat and bacon to flavor the many vegetables and other staples they ate, and meat was the centerpiece of every meal. I think, however, that Michael Pollan’s new book Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual provides some important clues. For those who haven’t read any of his books or seen him on television, he advocates a sort of back to basics approach, especially avoiding highly processed foods that are so pervasive in so many of the foods we eat.

Other factors that might contribute include the sedentary lives most of us lead as compared to our ancestors, the plethora of chemicals that bombard us from all directions, and and perhaps the stress of modern living (though I’m not necessarily inclined to believe our lives are that much more stressful than those of our ancestors; we may be less equipped to deal with the stress due to the factors mentioned above.).

In any event, I find it interesting that a majority of the increases we have made in life expectancy over the last few centuries come down to two factors: gains in infant mortality, and (especially) drastic reductions in the number of women who die during childbirth. Modern medicine has made many advances in the treatment of many serious diseases, and Darcy has been the beneficiary of those improvements in technology. The price of such technology is very high, as we have also learned. However, I wonder if the gains made by modern medicine aren’t mostly offset by the hazards of life in today’s environment. As Paul Harvey used to say, maybe we’ve outsmarted ourselves after all…

Update- Sunday

It’s been a week since I last updated this blog. Darcy remains in the hospital in Ann Arbor, though this morning Dr. Levine confirmed that she would be able to go “home” to the apartment tomorrow morning. We are currently searching for someone to stay with her each of the next few days.

Since returning to the hospital nearly 2 weeks ago, they have been trying to determine the reasons for her ongoing lack of appetite, relentless nausea, and subsequent weight loss. They have run numerous tests, from GI scopes to CT scans to ultrasounds, and have eliminated a number of potential causes. Apparently she has some sort of a bug that she has been unable to get rid of on her own; they have treated her with steroids and various other drugs that seem to have helped. She has been able to eat better in the last few days; she even told me that she has been hungry a couple of times! She also has kept everything down, and feels much better than she did the last several weeks.

We are hopeful that after a few days at the apartment she will get the green light to come on home to Sparta, if she continues on the track she is currently on. Connor and I are so looking forward to having her here with us. It has been a very long time- three months since she went to Ann Arbor, and six months (on Wednesday) since she was admitted into St. Mary’s- since we have all spent an evening home together. We are ready.

Though it is not yet official, I expect that I will be switching to a day shift in the next couple of weeks. If we are fortunate, that will coincide with Darcy’s return home to Sparta. We are looking forward to being able to spend evenings together the way a family should.

The toll this ordeal has taken on all of us is substantial. That Darcy has been through considerable trial is obvious; the difficulty for Connor and I has been great, if less apparent. Connor misses his mom terribly, though he doesn’t say so explicitly, and has had trouble focusing on his schoolwork, especially since going back after Christmas break. I think that having some normality at home will help him immensely.

I am exhausted, emotionally more than physically. Some normality will help me too, no doubt. Talking to Darcy on the phone once, maybe twice a day doesn’t cut it, although the couple of days that she didn’t feel like talking at all were agonizing for me. It was better when I was there with her; at least I could see that she was okay, or at least I knew exactly how she felt without having to decipher her words over the phone. I have run out of days to take off work to care for Darcy, and so must go to Ann Arbor only on the weekends. Of course that is draining too, though not seeing her is in many ways worse. (We stayed home this weekend to try and catch our breath a bit.) We will go over next weekend, assuming she is still in AA then. Please keep Connor and me in your thoughts and prayers as well as Darcy. We all need them.

Darcy will be released from the hospital tomorrow sometime- we don’t know when yet- and she will need somebody to drive her home and stay with her at the apartment. I am not able to go since I am apparently out of days to take off under FMLA, and I have used up all of my vacation days as well. I regret that this is the case, but I felt I needed to be with Darcy for all the days I did take off. She is doing pretty well now and we are hopeful that she will get to come home to Sparta sometime in the next couple of weeks.

IF you are able to help us out this week anytime between Monday and next Saturday, please contact Darcy (446-4033) or me (446-4077) or Dana (260-3567) or sign up on the Helping Hands website .

Thanks for your help and have a great day!

We are in need of caregiver help for Darcy in Ann Arbor this weekend. At this time they 
are not sure when she will be discharged from the hospital, but it is looking like we 
need coverage from Saturday pm (Jan 30) through next week. If you can cover the weekend, 
please contact Darcy or Blaine directly as I will be unavailable. I'll be working on 
adjusting the calendar accordingly so you can sign up on it as well for this coming 
week.

Thanks!
Dana

Saturday Morning-

This morning Doctor Perez saw Darcy and reported that there was no objective finding of graft vs. host, though the tests did show a significant amount of inflammation of her stomach and GI tract in general. They are beginning a course of steroids today that will help to heal the inflammation and hopefully allow her to begin to eat (and keep what she eats down long enough for digestion to occur.) She will likely remain in the hospital until her appetite responds and she is eating more regularly. They are obviously concerned about her recent weight loss, which cannot be sustained for a long period of time. Thus they are going to treat it fairly aggressively in order to reverse the cycle.

Once the issues with Darcy’s gut are resolved we believe that she will be on track for a good recovery, and can head home within a week or two after that. All other signs and levels appear very good, according to the doctors, and when she feels better will be able to eat and exercise, two things that are vital to her recovery.

No News Yet

We haven’t heard any results of the GI scopes from earlier this week. We had hoped to learn something today, but maybe tomorrow. I’ll be at the hospital early in the morning in time for doctor’s rounds. If we learn anything I will post it as soon as I can. Please pray that the tests reveal a clear diagnosis, which will result in an effective treatment for the misery Darcy has had to deal with for nearly three months.

Back In the Hospital

Darcy had an appointment at the clinic today and Dr. Levine decided to admit her to the hospital and run some tests to see if they can determine the cause of her nausea, lack of appetite and diarrhea. She has continued to lose weight over the last few weeks and they are concerned about that. The doctors say she is doing quite well otherwise, and I believe if they can solve this she will be on her way toward better days ahead.

There is a possibility that this is a manifestation of graft-versus-host disease. While this isn’t exactly what we’d wish for, there is an upside. This would be a fairly mild case of GVHD, and since transplant patients do better in the long run if they have some form of it, it would be a pretty good thing if that were the case. We’ll see what the tests show. It is much better to know what the problem is and be able to treat it, than not to know at all.

Hi everyone. Just heard from Darcy that Blaine is not able to make it over to Ann Arbor this weekend. We are needing someone to stay with Darcy from Saturday, 1.16.10 noon until Sunday, 1.17.10 at 5:00pm.

Sound like something you are able to help out with? If so, please respond to this or email me at dpostma@aol.com or feel free to call  - 616.866.5889 (home) or 616.260.3567 (cell).

Thank you!!

Dana

A Lovely Winter’s Day

Today was such a beautiful day, and I was reminded of this poem from Robert Frost:

A Winter Eden

A winter garden in an alder swamp,
Where conies now come out to sun and romp,
As near a paradise as it can be
And not melt snow or start a dormant tree.

It lifts existence on a plane of snow
One level higher than the earth below,
One level nearer heaven overhead,
And last year’s berries shining scarlet red.

It lifts a gaunt luxuriating beast
Where he can stretch and hold his highest feat
On some wild apple tree’s young tender bark,
What well may prove the year’s high girdle mark.

So near to paradise all pairing ends:
Here loveless birds now flock as winter friends,
Content with bud-inspecting. They presume
To say which buds are leaf and which are bloom.

A feather-hammer gives a double knock.
This Eden day is done at two o’clock.
An hour of winter day might seem too short
To make it worth life’s while to wake and sport.

*******************************************************************************************************************

Later this afternoon, as the sun neared the horizon and the cold began to remind us that it is January we were treated to a couple of rare sights out the window of the apartment:

This one really blew me away:

In Ann Arbor? Who knew?

Boy is it cold!!!!!

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