ZackSaint.com

There will be a time of prayer for Zack and the Saint family on Wednesday, November 30th. Anyone who can make it, please come to Community Evangelical Free Church in Elverson tomorrow at 7:00 PM. We will be praying from 7:00 – 8:00. Some people are also taking tomorrow to fast as well as pray for Zack and his family.

Tuesday, November 29

Zack just left to go have a CAT scan done on his chest. They need to
look at his lungs and see what is going on in there. He has been having
heart palpitations and they are trying to figure out why.

The last couple of days Zack has been having more trouble and it’s not
good. He can barely walk right now and needs assistance just to get to
the bathroom. Getting in and out of bed is really painful. Last night
it was just in his legs. I got here this morning around 9:30 am and
they were hooking him up to a morphine drip because this morning he
started having pain in his side. They had taken him for a CAT scan last
night on his stomach area and found that his spleen is enlarged. He has
started to have pain this morning because of the swelling.

His doctor ordered a bone marrow test to be done today because they need
to see if the leukemia is back already or never went away with the last
round of chemo. The leg pain he is having right now is too much like it
was when they found out last time that the leukemia was still there.
However, because his spleen is enlarged, that means he has an infection.
The doctor can not take him to transplant with an infection so they are
trying to figure out what the infection is and treat it right away.

We need strength right now to face what is next. Pray that they will
know what is causing his spleen to be enlarged and they can treat the
infection. It is really important to get him to the point that he can
go to transplant. They can do that even if there is leukemia but he can
not go into it with other problems going on.

Sunday, November 27

I got to the hospital around 12 today. Zack was still sleeping and was pretty out of it. He didn’t get up till 3:00. He has been more tired the past few days as this round of chemo is starting to catch up with him. He wanted to get out of bed and take a walk, but his muscles were really sore. The past few nights he has been having uncontrollable shakes. It comes from having fevers and then getting cold. There is a medicine that the nurses can give him for it, but it has to be given to him quickly otherwise it doesn’t work. He said he spent about 2 hours one night shaking. All of his muscles are extremely sore because of this. He said it is worse than any preseason he has ever been through (and anyone who has gone through preseason knows how that feels). He couldn’t even walk to the bathroom without holding onto my shoulder. I stretched his leg muscles out for a while and then we took a short walk. He is going to try and keep walking a little bit each day so his muscles start to loosen up.

He also sat in a chair while he ate a little bit of dinner. He doesn’t have much of an appetite these days. It was good for him to be sitting up instead of lying in bed, but it only lasted about 2 hours.

He is going to be getting a new antibiotic, as they think something is causing the fevers. This is pretty normal and he has had this antibiotic before. They are also going to be giving him an anti-nausea medicine so that hopefully he will have more of an appetite.

Overall I would say he is doing pretty well. The tiredness is just a side effect of the chemo that they expect. He also had a lot of visitors over the holidays so he wasn’t taking as many naps as usual.

Thanks to anyone who came so see Zack in the past few days. He had a lot of visitors each day and he really appreciated them. Although it wiped him out physically, he said that he really needed it mentally. He was in very good spirits yesterday and I know that the visits, phone calls and cards had a lot to do with that.

We hope you all had a good Holiday. We packed up our dinner Thursday morning and headed into Philly to spend Thanksgiving with Zack. The first picture is of us heading in with all the fixings from the parking garage. We brought a table and a few of our soccer chairs so we could all sit down at a table for dinner in his room. You can see in the third picture we used Zack’s bed as the food table. Worked Ok.

We had a good day together, but Zack did start feeling sick towards the end of the day. We packed everything up and I stayed at the hospital with Zack as the rest of the gang headed home that evening. After about an hour his fever showed up and so that meant more blood work and a chest x-ray. Once the fever showed up they did give him some medicine and it broke before I left. He is feeling the effects of the second round of chemo now and is tiring faster than after the first round.

We are into the 5th week in the hospital now, day 34. With the weather being cold now Zack is not going outside for walks and so more confined to the hospital buildings for his exercise. Back to waiting for bone marrow tests and their results to see if this last chemo round put him into remission. Also waiting now for his marrow to produce blood cells so his immune system starts to work and he can come home for a few weeks before he will have to head back in for the transplant. We are very thankful for the bigger room and view of downtown Philly. It all helps so much, but the walls still tend to close in on a person.

Overall Zack does handle the chemo treatments well, but that does not mean he has no side effects from it. We are very thankful for how well this round has been going. So far when he does get a fever it only seems to last around 3 days before it is gone. It has been much better than last time when it was spiking to 103 every night for over a week.

Pray for:
-Continued endurance for Zack and staying infection free.
-Continued safety for us as we travel back and forth.
-Patience for us as we wait to find out if he is in remission.
-Zack’s bone marrow would start working soon.
-Zack could be home for Christmas!
-Our friends who are helping us each week with house cleaning, calls of encouragement and other things they are doing for us. We hope we are not wearing them out!

Monday, November 21.

Mr. Culbert and I got to Zack’s room at around 5. When we got there Zack was feeling a little sick because he needed to eat something. Once he had some food in him he felt a lot better. He was having a good day. We had some dinner and sat around and talked til about 10. The guys mostly talked about cars and guns. So I wasn’t too involved in the coversation, but that
was fine with me. While we were there Zack got one bag of Chemo and some medicine to help his immune system. We watched a little bit of Napolean Dynamite to finish off the night. Jackie stopped in to make sure he was feeling well and to see if he needed anything. She really spoils him with attention. We left around 10 and Zack was still feeling good.

Wednesday, November 23.

I went in again on Wednesday. Everyone else was busy getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner. We had to get all the food ready ahead of time. I went in with Allan Day, one of Zack’s and my best friends. We got to his room at around 5. The boys hung out and talked about guns, cars, and motorcycles, of course. Zack is still feeling well. He is a lot stronger than last time he was in the hospital and he is feeling better. He also hasn’t gotten as many fevers. And when he does get them, they seem to go down a lot quicker than his last stay. He had a good time with Allan talking about guy stuff. Zack really appreciates it when his friends come to visit him. Derek King was also there at morning. We couldnt stay very long but I think Zack enjoyed the distraction from the boring hospital.