I haven’t driven much in 5 years because when we go on a trip Bill does all the driving, I guess he trusts his driving over mine and I can’t say that I blame him. People scare the daylights out of me because they are always talking on their cell phones and not paying attention to where they are going.

I’m usually okay driving a few miles here and there so when I left for Kentucky by myself I was a nervous wreck. I had directions from Bill to use the turnpike to New Stanton and then through Cincinnati down to Kentucky and I took along the Garmin GPS that the kids had gotten us for Christmas.

Apparently Miss Garmin had another route mapped out for me because she kept trying to make me turn off at every exit. When I got off at the New Stanton exit I thought she was okay and would get me the rest of the way there, but she apparently was going to have her way and since I didn’t know the roads before I knew what had happened she had me turned around on the turnpike going back the way I had just come.

Thank God There was an exit 16 miles down the road where I could turn around and go back to the point I wanted and it was only 32 miles out of the way instead of the 80 something to where she was taking me. When I got back to New Stanton I reset the address where I was going to my Son’s house and she finally started cooperating with me.

I really appreciated that tracking system because it finally got me to my destination without much hassle after that and she became my best friend taking me back and forth to the hospital on roads that I wasn’t familiar with. Of course after 2 weeks I became familiar with those roads except at night. Eric was in the hospital for 16 days and I’ve never seen anyone with as many doctors as he had.

They did MRI’s, Cat scans, and Pet scans, some of the scans didn’t pick up the masses while others did. They collapsed every vein in his arms and hands until they finally listened to his wife and put in the pick line which he took 3 chemo treatments through before he lost trust in the doctors there and finally had himself discharged so he could make arrangements to go the 5th ranked cancer institute in the Nation.

They had to remove the pick line so when he goes to Louisville they will either have to reinsert it or he was talking about getting the port, but he wants to make sure that it wont be harmful to his wife and baby first. They did the Chamberlain procedure, where they cut out a piece of cartilage and go in and take a section. See photo below of my son.

The doctor tried to match his tattoo up, but that was the least of Eric’s concerns. His Oncologist told me that it was a good thing that he has a lot of extra weight. I always worried about all his weight before, but now I’m grateful for it because he will have more to fight with. He has already lost 24 pounds in 3 weeks though, but a lot of that is connected to the gall bladder which he initially went in to have removed.

If they had removed that when they did the Chamberlain procedure he would have been healed before they started the chemo, but now he’s still in pain with the gallbladder and stones and needs to eat a very low protein diet so he doesn’t get sick from that. They also put him on Methadone for pain and nauseousness from the Chemo and he started having hallucinations and visions.

He actually left the hospital at one point on his own, walking, out of his head from all the crap they had been giving him, on a mission from God to save the world. Hospital security finally alerted the city police who eventually found him laying by the side of the road waiting for his wife to come find him. He had called me and every number in his phone to let everyone know that he loved them and had been saved by God and he was on a mission for God.

The police manhandled him causing injury to his ribs on top of everything else and took him to the emergency room in handcuffs and then shackled him to the bed. I knew that the Methadone had messed with my son’s mind because he was fine till they gave that to him and after he refused to take any more of it he slowly returned to himself. What a frigging nightmare. Below is a picture of Ethan and Dad, click for a larger view.