Visitors at MD Anderson

Shawn had visitors this weekend.  Shawn’s friend Jared Robertson rode down to Houston with Noelle, Triniti, and Skylin.  They were here late Friday night and left at around noon today.  Last night we all piled into the room, hooked up Shawn Jr’s laptop and watched Pitch Perfect.  It was so nice to see everyone laughing.  

Yesterday we moved from the 21st floor to a smaller room on the 10th floor (which is dedicated to melanoma patients).  We loved the room on the 21st floor.  The room we are in now is older and much, much smaller.  However, the nurses and other healthcare professionals on the 10th floor have been great.  

The doctors are trying to position Shawn to leave the hospital early next week.  They switched him over from IV-based medicines to pill-based medicines yesterday.  Surprisingly the pill-based morphine (which is being used to help control the feeling of “air hunger”) actually worked better than the IV, which is very encouraging.  He continues to have in his IVs in case they are needed in an emergency.  

We are 4 days out from Shawn’s first chemotherapy treatment.  He seems to be tolerating that well.  We see no discernible side effects, so far.  He is still struggling with shortness of breath.  That is not going away until we start killing this cancer around his lungs.  Hopefully the combination of chemotherapy plus immunotherapy will attack those cancer tumors and give him some relief.  

Last night was Shawn’s best night of sleep.  He didn’t wake up short of breath.  We think that was because (1) he slept with oxygen on and (2) he reacted well to the pill-based morphine.  

Continue to pray for Shawn’s healing.  The immediate battle right now is the cancer around his lungs.  We need that cancer to be killed so Shawn can get back to normal lung functioning.