It's wednesday. I'm still pretty sick with a chest throat infection. I tried working for a couple of hours today. I was able to get into the shop and then come home. I slept most of the day. Jill and i are going to watch Jason swim at one of the schools. Glad that Jill is driving. Have to leave right now. have a great day.

Dizzy

Hi All, Its Tuesday morning early. I'm not sleeping and am pretty dizzy. I'm having a hard time this session without the dexamethodone. My blood sugar has been all over the place and i'm trying to figure out how to stabalize it. MY blood sugar is normal when i'm off the steroids. But this time my head is spinning and i'm pretty dizzy. I hope ot make it thru today at work. Monica and Jack drove me to a couple of stops yesterday. I measured appartments for cornerstone and then went to the shop and put the paperwork together so the jobs could be done today and tomorrow. I am going to get some blood work done this morning. Hopefully I will be able to get the blood work results so that we can learn from them. I'm just not doing well right now with the change in dexamethone. I think the drugs are working really well. but it is taking it's toll on my body this time. Well enough complaining. I started reading a book yesterday. That has kept me occupied. I'm trying to do my bible study but am having a hard time with focus. Cant seem to keep focused on my verses this morning. Have a great day today see you later

Slept Saturday away

I woke up early on Saturday after 7 hours of sleep. Came down and did my normal routine which included breakfast at 5am, gave Molly and Ruby a snack at 5:30am, read my bible etc, I feel asleep at about 7 to 8. Jill and I went to take Jason to MT SAC for a swim meet. After that we went to breadfast at corner cafe in Glendora. I had the country scramble adn coffee. Then we came home to get ready for the swim meet. We arrived about 11:00 and were able to watch Jason do his thing. He swam the 100 back stroke and came in first in his heat at 1:22.08. A very good time for him. He also did the free style stroke and swam it in 1:18.38. Also a good time for him. At 1 pm we came home because Jill had a tea to attend with the women of our small group. She had a great time. I finally woke up from my slumber at 7 pm. JIll and I went to Applebees for our anniversary dinner. I was able to stay awake long enough to eat. Jill went into Bed Bath and Beyond with some birthday  burning a hole in her pocket. I slept in the car while she shopped. I came home and went right to bed. I slept 15 hours yesterday and last night. I hope to be awake for today.

sleeping better

I'ts saturday, I'm happy to report a strong day at work and rest. Seven hours sleep and i'm feeling very good. blood sugar is very high, as are my emotions. I was watching the bucket list and cried when the funeral started. Had to switch the movie. Not much new to report this morning, ate breakfast already, Jill and I have a date tonight. Out Twenth-eigth anniverary. Not sure where we will be going but we will be going out for dinner. Kevin and Alina are working to get all the details for the wedding done. Alina and her mom picked out a cake maker yesterday. The cake sounds like a winner. I got Jill a new tea pot and some cute mugs. Two smaller ones and Two larger mugs with hearts on them. very nice if I have to say so myself.

Im quoting a large wood job for a contractor in the area. its 1400 sf of wood and 115 sy cartpet with 340 sf of tile to install. hope to get this job.

Friday is here.. hurray

I'm donig okay. The dexamethone is giving me energy and I slept 7 hours last night plus multiple naps in the afternoon. I needed the rest. I has my teeth cleaned yesterday. My mouth sore has been an issue for the past 6 weeks. I have an appointment with a oral surgen regarding the mouth sore at 945 today. I want to make sure the insurance will cover this appointment. I noramlly dont have dental insurance. But since it requires removing some of the bone in my jaw im wondering if it will be covered by the insurance. My blood sugar was up yesterday afternoon. I'm trying to watch what I eat but it seems that on dexamethone my sugar is alway too high. So on these days i take a sugar pill twice a day. My oldest sister loaded me up with supplements for my immune systemn. I now take three times the supplements and 1/4 the chemo and related drugs. I suppose this will help keep my immune system stronger over the long run.

Prayer request - allow the chemo pills to do there job effectively and quickly. I seems to have more normal days now with fewer abnormal days. The drugs seem to be working.

Tuesday Doctors Visit

Well Jill and I went To UCLA for dr Eradat's visit. The visit was very good and we received a lot of instruction and education about the Myeloma. The blood work markers that we are looking for are red blood tobe normal, The IGA, IGC, and IGG Hemoglobin antibodies tobe normal again. The disease is about the hemoglobin antibodies in my case IGC with are the cancer do not die. They multiple instead of dying. They take over the bone marrow and will not let the other antibodies grow and do their job. So I'm prone to alot of infections since my antibodies are not working correctly. I think I have 11% of my bone marrow affected. That has to be corrected and then I'll be in remission. At that point we can start the stem cell transplant process, It takes about a month to complete. The dexamethodone Steroid, is the drug that helps kill the bad cells. When the die it allows the good antibodies to grow again. My test show very few of the correct antibodies exist in my bone marrow and far too many of the bad. Prayer - That the continued high dose dexamthodone will quickly engage and distroy the bad antibodies allowing the good antibodies to grow.

tuesday Normal day

Tuesday was a normal day. I am thankful that it was a regular day as if I had no illness. I spent a couple of hours chasing down a linoleum in Long Beach and then had Lunch with my mom. I came back tothe shop for a few minutes, It was over 100 degrees inside the shop so I did not stay long. Came home and had a regular day. Jill's small group of girls took her to Disneyland and dinner. She had a great time with the girls. She came home about 9pm. I slept fairly well last night. about 7 hours. Thankful Thankful Thankful.

Prayer request - I have my Dr appt today at UCLA with the stem cell transplant doctor. I'm hoping to get some answers for possible timing of the transplant. I know I have to be in remission first before they can do the transplant. I would like to know what markers my blood work can provide or what to look at so I can tell if I'm getting better. My orginal starting point is cancer in 11% of my bone marrow and 41% of my blood being infected. So i'm trying to figure out how to read all he blood work results. Still seem to have very low red blood cells counts. 

Monday and "Tuesday

It's Tuesday April 21. Happy Birthday Jill.. It's finally here. Your officially 50 today. I'm sure your going to have a great day since I know what the kids have in store for you. Many Blessings on this Tuesday for you. Ive been up since 3 am which is par for the course. Started praying for Pastor Gene in the Phillippians. He is leading a group discussion on change in the church with Key pastors in the area. 

I took a nap about 5am outside in the lawn chair. The dogs wanted to play but I could not keep my eyes open enough to throw the ball. It's about 85 debrees outside at 5am. it was very comfortable for a nap. I'm doing ok. My blood sugar is all over place which makes me jittery. I'm still having headaches everyday. But am so glad that I'm not sick with the flu symtoms. It's now time to get into a routine of life. Tomorrow I start the 4 days of chemo again. So I'm trying to get used to and ready for the daily grind. Thanks for praying. All seems to be going well for me right now. See you soon.

Steve

Monday Morning

Hi Everyone. It's early Monday morning. I slept almost all day Sunday. I'm thankful to be getting the rest. I'm ready to go for today. I had breakfast, gave the dogs a treat, Sat outside for a few minutes. Its very warm this morning. Nice weather for a river trip. JIll and I were at Walmart yesterday and picked up a solor powered rock light. I put them in to shine on the queen palms. It looks very nice out there. Happy Birthday Jilly. This week is full of expectations. I have a doctors visit with the StemCell Transplant Dr. at UCLA. I hope all goes well and we can get into remission sooner than later. Prayer Requests - Tom Relph is going thru Chemo this week. Pray for his strength and courage. 

I'm feeling great compared to last week. I have not been sick for 5 days now. I'm very thankful about that. Hopefully I'm getting used to the medications. Thanks for praying for me.

Love you all Steve

Saturdays Party A HIT!!

Jill had her 50th birthday party Saturday. It was a hit. The food was from Speghitti Eddies, and family. The evening was warm and we had such a good time. Many many family and friends showed up and I count it a privilige to had seen each or you. Thanks so much for coming. Jill was very happy and really appreciated the toned down birthday party. It's hard for her to be reaching this age. Although, I have to say, I'm happy to have her and she looks better to me each year we live. I really don't know how I ended up with such a beautiful woman. I made it through the party without falling asleep. I nearly crashed but we moved to the video the kids made for Jill. That woke me up seeing how the kids love their mom. The decorations were done by Monica and Alina, Food by patty, Maria, Chrissy, Anne, Mom Steinbach. Thanks for all who participated in this fun event. If I have forgotten someone Please forgive me.  

I slept most of Saturday. That helped me make it thru the party. Today is day 2 without my steroids. I'm looking forward to being in Church today. Hope to see you there.

Friday not much energy

HI It's 330 am. I'm up writing enstead of sleeping. Yesterday was an uneventful day. Drove to La Canada to take pictures of a job. The job was still in process. Drove to the county court house and retrieved small claims court docutmentation for filing two suits. Went to Monrovia to give Monica Z. a starbuck gift card. She rode her bike for me in the marathon. I was very thankful that she took me as a cancer patient and rode for me. It was nice to meet her. She is Anne's friend at work. Then I took Jill and Anne to lunch at Mimi's. Jill's birthday choice. I tried working some more but by body was too tired. I came home after 3 day suit broker visit. Collasped the rest of the day with no energy and slept most of the afternoon away. Glad to sleep. Of course that makes it had for the night sleep. Thus I'm up at the blog. Mr Holt placed and order for carpet yesterday. It is a nice order. Thank you Jesus. It was a referral from Dr Gary and Paula Miller. So thank you Millers for the confidence in our shops ability to help put carpet and flooring into your friends homes. Blessings on your home and transition. Prayer request - I make it thru the party tonight.

Steve

Thursday

It's Friday 5 am. I'm happy to report that I am rested. Thursday 4 hours of sleep at night but it was followed up by 5 hours of sleep throughtout the day. I could not keep my eyes open yesterday. Not much was achieved yesterday. Today, I will be going to Small Claims court to file two claims for jobs that have been unpaid by customers. This is a very difficult process for me to complete. But it's 9,000 in revenue. The company is a small company that can not afford to absorb this type of loss. In sales it represents 450,000 on sales effort. Tomorrow is Jill's 50th birthday party at Patty Schramms. I'm expecting about 60 people to come and hope to have a great time. It's my first day off the Dexamethodone. So please pray that i can have the energy to make the day and evening without crashing. I really want to be part of the party from 5 to 9. We ordered food from Spighetti Eddies. They have very good food. We are planning to eat at 6 pm. Since yesterday was so uneventful I don't have much to write about. But Pray for my strength since I'm on the steroid and should have much more energy than I did yersterday. Love you

Steve at rietze6@roadrunner.com 

Wednesday April 15th

Good morning, Sleep evades me again. I slept about 4 hours last night. I'm tired and trying to make it thru Thursday. I'm looking forward to day. Ill try to go into work about 12 of so. I'll rest up so I can make it to the end of the day. I;m getting good help from David Herman. I have transfered much of my work load to him. H will be following up my open pending orders and trying to close the orders. I still have to work at this point. I tried filing for Social Security for but this was denied due to the large income that I make monthly thru my business. You can only make 200.oo per month in order to recieve benefits. Not exactly, enough or keep up with the spending habits of people. I'm choosing to work as long as I can so we can get thru 2009.  Jill is still working at Contractors Carpet Center as the book keeper for her dad. Taxes were very high this year. So we transfered money from savings to help out make ends meet. I'm happy to get this done for Dad. 

Doctors visit- we saw Dr Vakil yesterday and talked about my progress. So far we are keeping on track for the treatments. Next month we will have a full blood panel done on my blood. I'm still taking the zomeda bone strengther at the end of the month. I'm hoping my calcium levels will be high enough to accept the treatment with out too much reaction.

It seems I just need to get used to all the different drugs I'm taking. It causes me problems with flu like systoms. 

Prayer request - Tom Relph is now undergoing Chemo teatements. Half the days he feels okay but after 2 pm he becomes ill. Please pray he gets used to the shift and can tolerate it day after day. 

Wednesday April 15th

Molly my yellow lab is in heat. Patty my sister noticed the spotting and so I invited Alina's buddy for a sleep over. I hope Molly will not be an old maid about is little venture. They are both yellow labs and are healthy. Patty do you need another romeo in your life?

Tuesday I started up on the steroids again. The days went well. Worked until 12:30 and then went home to see the Social security administration about my disability. Not a good visit. seems they dont want the people that pay in to get anything back. They want to give it to people that did not pay into the system. 

I have to start the process all over again with the disability claim. So Im thinking of not doing it because it would be a hardship taking such a large cut in income for the month. I'll have to do it when and if I can drive or see clearly.

Easter we were at my Moms for lunch. what a great day for easter. Sunny and warm. lots of family around. I was not feeling well. had flu type systoms. TMI too much information. The food was good and we had a great time. Monica, Jason, Brian Kristine, kevin, alina, Jill and I were there. It was good. We watched Kenny Perry choke at the masters. 

came home at 8 pm so we could see Jack Monicas boyfriend. He came over with gifts from his trip to colorado. 

Monday was a very quite recovery day for me. spent it resting.

Tuesday morning at work. and afternoon resting again. not much energy these days.

More to come.

steve

back up and running??

I'm starting the blog again, Not sure what happend at the last site, it disappeared