On behalf of Daddy (Lynmore Gay) and our entire family, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all of your recent thoughts and prayers. Many of you know that Daddy has not “bounced back” like he should have from his upper respiratory problems that he had in the early spring, but we really not had worried about it. Routine (every 3 months) bloodwork indicated very low hemoglobin but Dr. Taylor noticed some other abnormalities, which led him to send Daddy to a hematologist/oncologist. Two blood transfusions were given while going through testing, after which a bone marrow biopsy confirmed what both doctors had thought – AML (acute myeloid) leukemia. Family members met with the oncologist on 7/10 and Daddy began chemo on 7/11. At his age of 77 and respiratory/heart history, the traditional aggressive treatment was not recommended. Current plan is 7 consecutive days of chemo (excluding weekends) on a monthly basis for 6 months. He finished up his first “round” today, and the oncologist spoke with him Wednesday and said that the bloodwork of that day indicated that things are moving along as she had planned – slowly progressing along the right path. Luckily, Dr. Taylor hooked us up with Dr. Darla Liles from Greenville who comes to Ahoskie every Wednesday. This allows for outpatient chemo and traveling to Ahoskie daily – what a blessing this has been not to travel to Greenville that often. He is receiving his chemo via IV and receives a medication prior to chemo each morning which is to help lessen the negative side effects (which have been minimal thus far). However, this particular med does prevent him from sleeping and has played heck with his diabetes – currently working with Dr. Taylor to try to get that under control as best we can. I can tell you when his monitor indicated “HI” Monday night, I ended up calling Bayer to find out what that meant….which was that his level was greater than 600!!!! And that was WITH insulin! Reaching out to Dr. Taylor that night (thank goodness for small town docs), we know that it will be some trial and error to start with between his “on chemo” and “off chemo” days…but we’re taking it all a day at a time. We realize what a blessing it was for Dr. Taylor to see the abnormality in Daddy’s routine bloodwork, and what a special blessing it was that Dr. Liles had an opening that following Wednesday in Ahoskie so that we weren’t facing that Greenville trip. We are extremely blessed that Dr. Liles has an oncology clinic right there in the hospital in Ahoskie and that Daddy is able to have his chemo administered there, and are blessed with the terrific nurses and staff that are in the oncology clinic – they have all been wonderful! Mama has been a real trouper taking Daddy to chemo every day – she says she might be asking later for others to fill in, so many have offered to assist, but for now she’s hanging tough. I know this is a very long “status update”, but so many of you have been concerned and I wanted to give you a good synopsis of the situation. We appreciate all the love, thoughts, support, and prayers that you have been pouring out to the entire family. Please know that we cherish all of them and all of you. Please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers and know that we are doing our best to push forward with the “Gay” fighting spirit that DeWitt Gay instilled in all of us! Love, appreciation, and blessings to each of you!
Posted on: Fri, 19 Jul 2013 20:39:10 +0000
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