Our Day at UVA

We are finally home after our long day of traveling to get to and from UVA.  The best news of the day is that his Creatinine is holding steady at .8, his blood pressure was perfect at 90/50, his weight was good, and there was no protein in his urine.  Basically his labs were very similar to last month's labs which means that he is stable. 

Our day on our road trip started at David's favorite breakfast spot-IHOP!  He loves their chocolate chip pancakes and last year we went often after his radiation sessions in Charlottesville.  We hit the Roanoke one this morning to break up our trip a little.  Silly boy.

We had a little drama at the restaurant where we visited the restroom to go potty while we waited on our food.  Some poor soul was throwing up big time in the bathroom and as we were washing our hands we realized it was our waitress who had brought us our drinks already....yikes!  That stressed this germ freak momma out but as one of my friends pointed out  that hopefully she is pregnant and not sick was some highly contagious disease!  Needless to say my breakfast went pretty much untouched:) 

A little further down the road we stopped for gas and I opened the door and saw that David was reading a Magic Tree House book to himself!  Be still my beating heart....

So apparently the rest of the world realized that Afton mountain has some major construction going on where traffic is stopped on the interstate six times/day for 45 minutes.  I had no clue.  People stopped their cars, got out and walked around, and visited with others nearby we were sitting so long.  As we started going finally a huge truck in front of me threw off a large rock that hit my windshield.  It cracked it about the size of a quarter.  This is a terrible picture of it, but by the time I got home it was a huge crack that was getting bigger by the minute.  I joked on the phone with one of my friends that we may end up driving home in our SUV convertible because I was worried it would shatter. 

David's favorite two people at clinic (Dr. Belyea and Ms. Meghan) were not there today.  David was determined to leave them both a note.  He had me write: Dear Dr. Belyea, I love you.  I missed you today.  Lets go to Lane Stadium to see the Hokies play.  Lets have a playdate.  Then he signed it Dave  Robinson,  I love you in his own handwriting:)

David always loves to see Nurse Pat.  They realized that they were dressed in the same colors so of course David had to have his picture with the famous Nurse Pat.  She is a veteran nurse who has the most outgoing personality and truly has seen it all. 

Here is silly David drafting his letter to MS. Meghan.  It basically says the same things that Dr. Belyea's did and I got so tickled that he signed it Dave.  Our baby is growing up. 

 

While we waited for labs we ate a late lunch int he cafeteria.  We ran into two beloved nurses from 7 Central (Lisa and Donna) and David insisted that they eat with us.  Bless their sweet hearts they did sit and visit with us.  David then announced that he wanted to see "the ladies upstairs" so up to 7 Central we went.  He went right to Hayley's room which is now filled with new occupants of course, and right beside her old room was our old room.  This is a terrible picture of the room where we were brought after he graduated out of the PICU post-op with his kidney surgery.  I can still picture all the balloons, the banners, the cards, and bible verses that filled the walls of this sacred room.  This is the room that we fondly called Party Central.  Two doors down is the bad room which is the first room we were brought to and heard all the bad and scary news.  I walked quickly by that room and could not bring myself to even peek in. 

 

Today was a great visit with the oncologist (Dr. Druzgal whom we adore) and Dr. Barcia the kidney specialist.  Dr. Barcia is always informative and we typically only see him every six months.  He said in terms of David's kidney that he is not concerned at all about his kidney now because his blood pressure, urine, weight, and labs are all stable and fine.  He is; however, concerned about David down the road in terms of this kidney.  That poor little kidney is working solo and it has taken a beating between the chemo, radiation, and antibiotics.  I cannot stress about something that could happen 15-20 years down the road.  I am just thrilled that we are talking about David's future.  Several times last year when he was in the thick of chemo and his port got so infected I often wondered if he would make it until the end of his chemo protocol.  I simply cannot stress about possible renal failure in a decade or two. 

 

We stopped off in Radford to pick up Hope and we found her spoon feeding my grandmother!  She spent the day with my Mom and grandmother.  I hear that she had candy for breakfast thanks to my grandmother:) 

 

David and I had a great day roadtripping together and visiting with all our favorite folks at UVA.  That place is so amazing that it truly feels like visiting a relative's house when you walk in.  The traffic was terrible, I could have done without hearing our waitress hurl, and I don't even want to think about how much a new windshield is going to be, but overall it was a great day because we left UVA with good news and thanksgiving in our hearts that David for today looked great to his doctors.  To God be the Glory.