It’s Been Gray in the Villa Household

With the rain coming down, the recent passing of Jason’s sister Lori, and Alyssa’s high fever which put her back in the hospital again, it has not been the best of days for us.

Being quarantined also has been hard. We have gone as far as car trip to the beach and brought some lunches to eat in the car while parked.

Looking over how 2020 has been, I am ready for it to fast forward. Alyssa has until July 31 when she is done with cancer treatments hopefully that is it.  Then she will spend the summer tutoring to catch up with her classmates.

It is going to be a hot summer so I imagine more days in the pool for Alyssa.  Please continue to pray for the Villa family with our trials and losses so far this year. We are a strong family but we still need prayers. This week in the hospital, Alyssa needed blood transfusions and have difficulty breathing. We don’t know what viral infection caused the fever but at least it wasn’t bacterial. 

Lord, we don’t know why you cause certain things to happen, you have your timing and reasons for everything. We just need to place our trust in you as we navigate this stormy weather.

Home away from Home

We are moving to the 4th cycle of chemo next week and will be completed by 6th cycle treatment 🤞.  Each cycle consists of 3 weeks back-to-back treatment with 1-2 week off. We are all looking forward to that day when the bell rings when her last treatment is completed.

Last week, Alyssa had three problems that surfaced during hospital stay including two small fractures and high blood sugar levels.  She hurt her wrist a couple weeks ago at home when she fell and then in the hospital just last week, she broke her little toe from standing on the weight machine and then losing balance as she was getting off of it. Doctors decided to get X-rays for both.  Both are minor fractures fortunately, but resulted from her inability to walk since surgery in March and now she needs casts to wear. Only one free arm remaining without a cast.

Hoping nothing more occurs. I am just glad to see her appetite return. Now that it has returned she is bummed that she had to go on a low sugar diet due to some medications the week before causing her blood level to spike and caused doctors concern.  Poor Alyssa.  She has been good at using the machine to test her own blood sugar. Proud of her. All seems well with the readings, thinking she should resume her normal diet.

So we would have been in the hospital 20 out of 30 days this month, including the week with fever. And of those weeks we have to see an Orthopedic surgeon, endocrinologist and a nephrologist (about her bone density levels). Apparently getting fractures easily is a cause for concern so Alyssa has to take supplements for that.

Her hospital is for sure her second home though she would be glad to be out of it for sure.  And for this particular chemo she has to take 20 of the glutamine capsules that helps to prevent mouth sores resulting from chemo treatment. She hated the powdered drinks and also the glutamine chews were awful. She’d rather take 20 of the capsules three times a day to meet the required dosage 😱  It is so unfair... But she is a fighter and will get through it.