Day 1

Hello everyone, thank you for your calls, prayers and best wishes. Because dad can't receive any visitors, we'll be posting updates here, and you should be able to sign up for email updates too. FaceTime is available by trying woodtoys@gmail.com, dad would love to see you all! FaceTime should ring the iPad, but we can also try Skype with a username of carllwood. That won't ring though so we have to have a heads up. Here's the latest update: dad is feeling "real good" this morning. Chemo started yesterday at 4pm, and will run 7 full days. After that, he'll be in a recovery mode where he'll be on antibiotics since his immune system will be, and already is, quite weak. That lasts for 2 weeks then they take another bone marrow biopsy to see what to do next. His white blood cell count has gone from 1,000 yesterday to 500. This is expected by the staff here, who by the way, are awesome. We have a full-time nurse just allocated to dad, and dad is connecting and joking with all of them so far. After Jon and Steven aggressively lit a fire under their butts (we are now the talk of the floor, according to one nurse who we were friends with prior to getting here), we are getting top notch treatment, heads of nursing and staff come by probably too much to see if we need anything. Friends and family have helped us so much, and we are particularly thankful of the Weil's and Bolotte's efforts. A friend of Jon's has given us some meditations that have had profound effects on his father and plenty of other users. We are doing 2 chemo tracks and the Fight Cancer track from this website: http://www.healthjourneys.com/product_detail.aspx?id=4 If anyone has any neat suggestions, please email them to steven.d.wood@gmail.com. From the prayer circles that our friends and family have put dad in, I think over 1,000 people are praying for dad- this is great and please keep it up!!! Wheezie brought some water from Lourdes and we'll be putting it on dad when the going gets tough. But we are all ready and in great spirits. In fact, everyone calling is taking it harder than we are, rest assured dad is gearing up for a big fight and is ready to kick some AML tail!! We spent the whole afternoon and evening yesterday laughing and shooting the bull as if we had just killed a magnum of dad's favorite wine. (is there even a favorite? He is Omnibenevolent towards red wine). We'll write more soon, thanks for your thoughts and prayers!!!