Home for Christmas

After being discharged from the hospital last Thursday, December 22^nd, Jayson was able to spend a few days at home before his second round of chemotherapy.  Friday, December 23^rd was spent at home just relaxing.  Saturday, December 24^th was another quiet day.  We just went to church at 6:30 p.m. for the Christmas Eve mass, had dinner then opened a few Christmas gifts.

Christmas Day was a busy one.  My brother and his family were hosting our family Christmas party this year.  So, we loaded our recently purchased RV for its first road trip and left for Rancho Cucamonga at 9:00 a.m.  The gathering was set for lunch time, but it lasted until late evening.  Of course, there were lots of food, family & friends, gifts and fun.  Cousins played Xbox games and competed in the “Dance Central” games.  Despite having to wear a mask to protect himself, Jayson was able to enjoy the day.  He was one of the winners when we played “bingo”.  We left Jerry’s around 7:30 p.m. and were home by 9:30 p.m.

For most of the weekend, Jayson did not have too many side effects to deal with.  The only side effect he had to deal with was hair loss.  His doctor had noticed some hair on his pillow on Thursday (December 22^nd) morning before he was discharged.  Every day when he woke up his pillow was scattered with hair.  When he combed his hair with his fingers, there was usually hair on his hands.  When he showered, the shower floor had more hair.  Slowly his head full of hair began thinning out.  We were hoping to avoid shaving his head until after Christmas so that our Christmas pictures would still show him with hair.  Luckily, we got our wish.  We didn’t have to shave his hair until December 26^th.

On Monday (December 26^th) morning, Henry (Jayson’s dad), Jayson and I headed to Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD) for his 2^nd round of chemo.  His vitals were taken and blood was drawn.  The blood work results indicated that his platelets level was at 62, not at the level of 75 needed to begin chemo.  So, his doctor told us to come back in a few days to try again.  That night, we decided to go ahead and shave Jayson’s hair.  We thought of giving him a Mohawk style haircut, but his hair would not cooperate, so we just went ahead and shaved it off.  Kristen took before and after pictures of Jayson and recorded his haircut on video.  To show Jayson his support, my dad also shaved his head.  While Henry was shaving dad’s hair, mom came down to see the final trimming.  Kristen took pictures of Jayson, Henry and dad with their new hairdos.

On Wednesday morning, December 27^th, Henry & I again took Jayson to the NMCSD for his second round of chemo.  This time, his platelet count was at 82, so Jayson was able to begin his next round of chemo.  This session will be for 5 days, so looks like we’ll be celebrating New Year’s Day here in the hospital.  This is just a small sacrifice our family is willing to make to help Jayson battle this disease.  This New Year’s Day will definitely be one that we’ll always remember.
We still haven’t heard back from Dr. Federman, the oncologist at UCLA’s Sarcoma Center who was supposed to get back to us with their final finding on Jayson’s biopsy samples and scans.  Hopefully, we’ll be hearing from him soon.  In the meantime, we will continue with the treatment plan we have.

On behalf of our family, we again say “thank you” for all your warm wishes, prayers and support.  We wish everyone a blessed new year.