The Ultimate Transplant

Hello Everyone! This is Tony's wife and I just wanted to give you all an update. Tony made his ultimate transplant into heaven on Sunday, December 21, 2008 around 12 o'clock noon. Unfortunately, his health started rapidly declining right before Thanksgiving. We took a trip to North Carolina to visit his mother, and he had to be admitted in the hospital there and stay for 5 days. They said he had pneumonia. Once he was a little better, we returned back home and checked in with doctors regularly. He was at home for his last couple of weeks of his life, where he was at peace.


I want to thank you for all of your support, thoughts and prayers. Tony has been an inspiration to all of us and will be truly missed! I plan to keep this website up and running, so you are welcome to continue to write comments here and share with others. Our direct email is ddicwebdesigns@aol.com if you want to contact me directly. May God bless and keep you all!

Good News For My Mexican Friend

I just received an e-mail from my friend who has Leukemia and lives in Mexico. She was having a tough time with her treatments. Now, after a little over 6 months she is cancer free! She is not in remission--which indicates there is a very low amount cancer in your system- She is cancer free. That means the doctors cannot find any trace of cancer in her body. I am so happy for her! At the end of her e-mail she wrote "Thanks Lord!"

Every Day is a New Experience

My wife and I cannot plan too far ahead for anything, because we never know what is going to happen each day. We can plan a week ahead but not much longer than that. That is because you never know what might change these days. We try to keep a normal lifestyle though. I guess I say that to mention how sure I am that God answers prayers. I had a couple of things all going on at the same time. There seemed to be no solutions. I was provided different medicines. It did not seem like anything was going to work. I was loosing hope. I prayed about these things over and over again. I did not know what else I could do. Suddenly, things changed for the better all at the same time.

This experience is much like the stock market. I am not talking about our current stock market that it is in a crisis but the stock market in a good economy. One day the Dow is up, another day it is down. Sometimes it is up 100 points and other times it is 50 points down. I am up 100 points today. I feel better physically and emotionally. I am happy and full of joy.

I still have a throat issue. However, my doctor gave me a temporary solution for that, and it worked. Now I have graduated from sandwiches and water to anything I want. Now I can start getting my weight back on.

I am feeling OK today. Working, school, and coming to the doctor is keeping me very busy. I feel much better. It used to be hard to stand or walk.

My throat issue has not changed. It is still extremely painful after swallowing food. There is one exception. I can eat peanut butter sandwiches, and I can drink water. I have tried other things but then I had to experience the pain.

Puzzled

I had an appointment to visit the outpatient center at the hospital. I had to get a transfusion so I knew it would be a long day. I have to get those every so often. I took a nap because they always give you Tylenol and Benadryl so you do not have an allergic reaction. Benadryl wipes me out.

Just as the transfusion was about to finish I woke up, but I kept my eyes closed. It was later so there was a different CA (nurses that generally check your temperature and blood pressure) sitting about 10 feet behind me. There was a young guy, who appeared to be in his early 20's cleaning off the bed and taking out the trash.

The CA (mind you my eyes are closed and they think I am sleep) gestured to the guy who was working on the bed. I do not know exactly what she did. Anyway, the guy said "He is a little thin" in a sarcastic and funny way. Then to electrify the brief joke session he said "Where did his parents go wrong." His finale was saying "He's a grown man there is no excuse for him being that skinny." He said it like he was outraged to make the joke more effective. The CA gave a light-hearted laugh and said "you crazy."

A few seconds later I opened my eyes. He was behind me changing a pillow case when he was cutting the jokes. He did not know whether my eyes were open or closed the whole time. When he passed he looked at me and noticed my eyes were open he left. By this time the CA got on the phone to call somebody. Just then one of the nurses came by and I asked her for the supervisor's name. I heard the conversation break between the CA and whoever she was talking to on her cell phone. About 30 seconds later she got up and left the area for about 10 minutes. Fortunately, for them I am not going to tell the supervisor about this. I do have all her information if I decide to change my mind.

I am puzzled. You have two adults who work in the cancer center. All kinds of cancer patients come through there everyday, and many of the cancer patients look different from the rest of us. After seeing all these different people wouldn't you be a little sensitive or at least numb to how people look?

I know why I have lost weight in the last couple weeks. I want to gain it back and eventually I will. I am glad that I am not so thin-skinned that I let it really get to me. I just found the whole situation puzzling.

Sunday Prayer

On Sunday, my cousin Eve came by to spend some time with me. I was a little energy drained, but happy that she came to visit. We talked about this and that (We usually talk about christian politics, national politics and christian rappers amongst other things) and then we prayed. Even though it was my cousin visiting I was concerned about my image, but there was nothing I could do about it. I knew it was obvious that I lost a lot of weight, and this was before Ayanna's great haircut and mustache trim. Therefore, you could see all these little scraggly, uneven hairs poking out of my head.

Anyway, Eve prayed. It was different than some of the other prayers. She first prayed for healing, then she prayed that I feel better and that my family would be able to cope with my illness. It was a strong prayer. The prayer was so strong that when I came into the clinic today I got some interesting news. I found out that my condition (the leukemia) has improved. Suddenly, things changed in my favor for the first time in months. The doctors say it is the medicine I was taking. It finally began to really work after 5 weeks.

My obstacle now, is that my throat hurts. It hurts so much that it is hard to eat and drink. This is a side effect of the medicine. This is obviously not good for a skinny cancer survivor trying to gain lots of weight. Hopefully, we can get a solution to this as soon as possible. Unfortunately, I will have to add high calorie stuff to my diet until I get my weight back up.