Chemo is Over! (By Sarah - Rick's wife)

Hi Everyone! I wanted to give you a quick update until Rick has the energy (& time) to complete his chronicling of the journey.

As of Tuesday August 23rd Rick has officially finished him chemo treatments. This second round of treatment was definitely much tougher on all of us. Rick was definitely sick and worn down by it all. His white blood cell count got extremely low and he has to take a shot called Neulastra that cost $6K! Youch! The shot was to increase his count. It definitely helped his immune system but was very painful for him as it made his bones ache causing terrible muscle spasms. He needed to take some painkillers and muscle relaxers (valium) to ease the pain. This was tough for all of us, watching him in pain. Hannah has taken it particularly hard not really knowing what was going on.

The day Rick finished treatment I traveled to NH with Hannah and Jack. I felt terrible leaving him but really wanted to be at the wedding of my good friend Wendy. On the plane ride east I had time to reflect on our experience this summer. I found myself thinking about how bad it sucked having to face my husband's mortality. I can't even type about it without tears running down my face. It's still all so terribly surreal. I must say I'm still scared for the coming months/years of follow-up tests. I've kept so much bottled up this summer trying to keep things going distracting us with various activities that until the plane flight I hadn't really allowed myself to sit and think about it. But as I sat with my daughter sleeping to my left and my son sleeping on my lap I just let the tears stream down my face finally allowing myself to succomb to all the emotions I was feeling, sadness of what Rick had to go through, stress of dealing with it all; the illness, taking care of the kids, house, etc.; fear of the future unknown. I know we never know what could happen regardless of cancer but man does this make you ponder the reality of it all. I can't imagine my life without Rick.

He is slowly feeling better as the toxins leave his body. He is pretty anemic right now which only time can help but I was encouraged to hear he went on a short bike ride today. We fly back to CO tomorrow and it will be interesting to see how he has changed in a few short days.

He will definitely update you all on his progress soon and recount his last few weeks.

Again, thank you to everyone who helped us make it through this. Everyone's kind words, thoughts and gestures have been more encouraging than you'll ever know. It definitely helped keep Rick's spirits up and helped me keep it together.