Another Word From Dalynn

Hi everyone! I hope you are all doing well and enjoying this Holiday Season!

I just wanted to take a few minutes to say "THANK YOU"!! Michael and I couldn't have made it through any of this without you!! We have been overwhelmed by all of the support and so incredibly BLESSED by ALL OF YOU!!!

THANK YOU for all of the PRAYERS, EMAILS, GROCERIES, FUND RAISERS, FINANCIAL SUPPORT, WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT, PHONE CALLS, VISITS, MEALS, MEALS, AND MORE MEALS!! You Guys ROCK!!

Some days I check my email just to hear the words of encouragement and to know we are not in this alone! God is with us and you, all of you, are in this with us! The Body of Christ is definitely AMAZING!

There have been many hard days since my last email, but the sliver lining in all of it is that Cole's Bone Marrow results from this Wed. reveled his Blast, Luekemia cells, are 0%!! Is God AWESOME, or what!!

All I can say is. . .Thank you for holding our hands up and helping us to fight, endure and have victory!! To me those words do not come close to truely expressing how we truely feel, but they are all I have! Just know you are making a difference and helping us through one of the most difficult things we have ever had to go through.

Cole is a Champ!! And he is fighting hard to kick cancer's butt!! :)

We love all of you and so appreciate each one of you so much!

With a thankful heart,
dalynn

The New Land of Normal

It's a pretty dismal day here at the hospital. Cole is so backed up he's now starting to vomit whenever he's given anything by mouth. It's certainly no fun for anyone involved, least of all, him. The doctors are talking about putting an NG tube down him, which is a tube that goes in his nose and into his stomach. They then will pump something called "Go Lightly" down the tube, which will clear him out in a few hours.

The first time they suggested this, a week or two ago (last time we were hospitalized) I was adamant I did not want him to have to have it done. This time, though, my feelings have changed, and I think it's an indication of what the new normal is for us. Now, I feel that if it will clear his constipation and allow him to keep things down, let's do it, and in a hurry.

We had a friend stop by, and he brought us some Starbucks, which was awesome. He's a coworker of mine, Anthony, and he and his wife just had a baby 4 months ago, Raymond. Raymond is quite adorable, which I'm sure he gets from his mother and certainly not from his father.

When Anthony was here, I was reminded strongly of when Cole was a baby, and I had a sense of surreality when I started thinking about how I would have felt about this hospital room and leukemia when Cole was as young as Raymond. It would have seemed horrible, and something that must be terrible to endure. Especially having to watch my child go through it.

Now, it is no less terrible to endure, but it is quickly becoming apparent that it is, in fact, endurable. This thing is not going to eat my soul, though it may try, and if it does try, I will simply have to resist.

That's the new normal, I think. It has new rules.

Rules like: Fevers are a potentially life threatening event which must be approached with the utmost care.

Rules like: If a fever exists, then it is imperative to not go through the ER, where they do not necessarily know how to take care of your child and could inadvertently do something which can kill your child.

I guess the new normal means I have to tolerate these rules. And, in deed, I do, and I'm starting to. I'm learning to accept many things that I don't think I've ever considered before. Like, learning how to harden my heart to my son's piteous cries when his vitals are being taken or an IV is being put in. It's not a hardening that lasts, though, it's a momentary state that allows for the betterment of the health of my son.

This new normal is a land of strange beasts that I have never before conceived of, yet they are all made out of normal everyday events. Moment to moment, things don't really look strange, but when you look down a line of moments and realize where you're going, then things get weird.

But, here, weird is normal. Thus, the new land of normal.

Back to the Hospital

Well, we were admitted again today. This time it's an unexplained fever which comes and gos at random. When Cole is neutropenic, which means he can't fight off infection, if he runs a fever of 101 it's to the hospital we go. This AM, Cole was running a fever of 100.9 and then a second fever of 100.4. The other rule about fevers is that if he runs 100.4 or more twice within an hour it's to the hospital we go!

So, off to the clinic we went this morning. Dr. Owen made the decision to admit us this afternoon because he was afraid the fever would make a reappearance and we'd end up going through the ER, which we didn't want to do. Turns out he was right. By the time we got up to the floor Cole had a fever of 101 again. We'd have been in the ER by 10 pm...

Dalynn and I figured it was as good a time as any to try only one of us at the hospital, so she's there with Cole and I'm at home. Pray that it goes well, as this will be the way we have to do things in the future.

Donate to Cole

It's weird to be putting this up, quite honestly, but a lot of folks have asked how they can donate to Cole's care, so here it is. We're going to be taking donations through a local charity called The Noblemen. 100% of any donations through them will be given to us, so you need not worry that we're not getting it all.

The Noblemen do noble work in and of themselves, so don't hesitate to check them out, also. Good group of guys.

Here's the donation info:

1) – Pay online through the Noblemen website

http://www.thenoblemen.org/support/

This will direct you to a paypal.com site specifically for the Noblemen.

After you have entered your credit card information, a second page will appear. On that page put Cole Rollins in the section that says "Add special instructions for the Merchant". If you do not put Cole Rollins in this section, it will not go to the Rollins family.

2) – Mail checks to:

The Noblemen

PO Box 418

Va Beach, VA 23458

In note section, state that money is for Cole Rollins.

If anyone has any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. You can leave your questions in the comments section if you wish, or you can contact Travis Jones, who has volunteered to handle all of this for us. Here is his contact info:

Travis Jones
757.450.4778
travisnjones [AT] cox [DOT] net
(I'm trying to protect Travis' email address, so [AT] is @ and [DOT] is ., with no spaces in the address)

Things So Far

I wanted to put up a couple of pictures to illustrate what chemo and leukemia have done to Cole thus far.

The top picture is from Cole's birthday party. At that point, he probably had active leukemia, and he does look a little sick. He'd had something going on for a week, whether it be croup or nose bleeds. This picture was taken on 11/4.

Cole was admitted to the hospital on 11/12 and was diagnosed on 11/14. The second picture was taken on 12/6, so over a month after his birthday pic. So far, he's put on about 6 pounds. Most of the visual change is from the steroids he's taking, and from what we understand, he should shed the extra weight and puffiness quickly, within a month or two.

However, it is still difficult for me to see, obviously. I look at Cole and wonder where the sweet boy who used to run to greet me at the door with "Daddy!" went. I miss his sweet smile. We haven't seen Cole smile in over 2 weeks, now. He mainly sleeps and eats. We're forcing him to get up and walk and play. It's just heart-breaking to watch.

The light at the end of the tunnel is that there's less than a week of induction left. Less than a week of steroids. As a matter of fact, he's already had his last dose of vincristine. Hopefully, soon after, I'll get to see my little boy smile and play and laugh again.

On a positive note, we went to the first Qdoba fund raiser tonight. It was wonderful to see all of the support for Cole. There were so many people there, from my work and from church. It was very bracing to see so much support, and to talk to everyone.

Thank you to everyone that came. You not only helped raise money for Cole's treatment, but you certainly made things easier in mine and Dalynn's hearts.

A Bath for All

We had a good day in the clinic, though we did have a "Code Brown" moment. It took Dalynn and I, combined with the aid of one of the nurses, to change Cole's diaper today. After we were done, they had to call a cleaning crew to clean down the bathroom. Cole's pants were rendered unwearable and his Mickey slippers took one for the team. It was, hands down, a huge poop.

Speaking of poop, the last few days we've been up to our eye-balls in poop. Cole finally got over his constipation, and things unfortunately swung the opposite direction. We had to take him off of lactulose completely (that's his stool softener) to get him to quit going. His hiney is so raw we had to get something called "Bag Balm", which is something they use on the udders of cows when they are milking them. If you're in need of a diaper rash cure, I can highly recommend it.

With Cole pooping so much, he was due for a bath tonight. Baths are not his most favorite things now. As a matter of fact, he cries as much for a bath now as he does for a procedure in the hospital. It is also a two person job, now. I'm sure we could do it with just one, but we use two to make it as fast as possible. This all makes baths a rather high stress time.

Cue tonight's bath!

Grammy and I cart a crying Cole upstairs to the bathroom. She starts the tub filling while I take off Cole's clothes. Much to my horror, Cole had a previously undetected poopy diaper! Grammy abandons bath filling to run downstairs and grab the special wipes we're using on Cole, so as not to tear his hiney up any more. I hold Cole still til she returns.

Grammy wipes Cole down, much to his angst. He is now screaming and crying in equal amounts. We fumble around trying to put the sleeve on his arm which covers his picc line while we bathe him, but eventually get it on.

About that time, as Grammy is bending over to check the water, I notice that my stomach, to which Cole is pressed, is rather warm, and that warmth is spreading down my legs... Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Cole had just relieved himself on Daddy! In my shock, I start yelling at Grammy to help, though I'm quite unsure what she could have done at that point.

We then rush to get Cole in the bath as quickly as possible, but yank him back out when he starts screaming bloody murder (we had put him in feet first, thank God). Seems neither Grammy nor I had actually managed to check the temperature of the water in all the fuss.

We did manage to get him washed, though, in the end, and it only took us about twice as long as it should have.

I took a shower, afterwards, but ran out of hot water half way through it. It was just a bad night for baths, apparently...

Change

I have recently been finding myself wondering what kind of changes God is going to bring about in my life as a result of Cole having leukemia.

To be quite honest, I have felt pretty humbled over the past few years. I look back on my pride and arrogance and realize just how mistaken I was. Not to say that I'm ultra-humble now, hehe. But, given the past few years, a lot of that pride and arrogance seems to have evaporated, and it was all a work I can say God has done.

For instance, in the past, I would have thought that I was capable of handling what we're going through now. Capable of handling it by myself, that is. I probably would have figured that God had gifted me so greatly in order that I might not just survive this time, but thrive in it. I have no doubt that the first few weeks would have chewed me up and spit me out a wreck of a man if I had tried that approach. It's not a pretty picture, but it's pretty close to the truth.

In contrast, when we did start this whole thing, I knew right away that I didn't have enough, and that most, if not all, of the strength that I was going to need was going to come from the Lord. Don't think this is some kind of wonderful revelation, though. This is a terrible, poverty stricken feeling and I would much prefer the feeling of the self-assurance.

I guess what I'm getting at here is that I hardly recognize the person I've become when I compare it to the person I used to be. And, while a lot of that change was wrought during a very difficult time in my life, I doubt it was as difficult as what we're going through now. So, this makes me wonder what the Lord is going to change in me this time, and how drastic the change will be in the end?

It's quite a frightening and daunting thought.

Well, enough with speculation, here's a Cole update for you.

Cole's cytogenetic screening is back. This is a genetic screening of the cancer cells they've harvested from his bone marrow. There are two things they look for, what they call "good players" and what they call "bad players". Each is a genetic mutation or change, but the meaning of them is different. Obviously, a "good player" is a good mutation, one that means his cancer is easier to treat, while a "bad player" is a bad mutation, one that means his cancer is harder to treat.

The long and short of it is that Cole has one minor "bad player" and no "good players". Dr. Owen indicated that this would probably put Cole firmly in the standard risk group, which has ramifications on his treatment (though we still don't know what those ramifications are). So, his cytogenetics weren't great, but they also weren't horrible. I'll take that, thanks.

There is also some concern regarding the side-effects Cole is having from the vincristine. These would be the constipation, some numbness and tingling in his legs and something called foot drop, which is a condition where his foot isn't pulling up enough for him to walk correctly. He also seems to be having more foot and hand pain. With his numbers being so good Dr. Owen is thinking that the next dose of vincristine (which comes on Wednesday) will be a smaller dose, which should help Cole recover a bit from all of these side-effects.

In addition to these side-effects, they are also concerned with the general malaise that Cole is having. Apparently he's not as active as he should be, and doesn't feel as good as he could. They have already taken steps to combat this, however, and today Cole seems to be feeling better.

I tell you all of this not to alarm you, however, but to allow you to pray more effectively. The clinical staff says that his reactions are still well within the normal range and their concern is mainly that he could be feeling better than he does.