More Halloween Fun

Well the bad news is that Greg only got four doses this past week due to a series of complications and reactions to the IL-2 which finally caused the doctors to discontinue treatment for the week.  The first complication (Tuesday night) was extremely unstable blood pressure (too low) that almost had him transferred to the ICU.  The second (Wednesday) was that his kidney stopped processing fluids, thus the toxicity levels shot way too high for treatment.  The third and final issue was one that we are still not sure they figured out completely.  While severe muscle and joint aches are considered a "normal" symptom, late Wednesday, Greg started to exhibit extreme joint pain which only got worse on Thursday.  They started running blood tests and finally determined that he was having some sort of immune reaction that was actually starting to break down his tissue.  So that was that.

The good news is that the docs did not seem too concerned/surprised that he only got four doses and as a consolation prize, the finally let us go home on Friday - a whole day earlier than usual!  In addition to the normal recovery issues, he still has severe pain in his joints, especially his arms for some reason.  But he slowly improves each day.

In the meantime we have been gearing up for Halloween of course.  After several years of attempting, this year all of our pumpkins came from our garden.  Avalon gets the credit for diligently checking on them, rotating them so that they didn't get warts, and helping the "pumpkin patch" take over both garden beds, climb over the garden fence, and have plenty of room to spread all over the hillside

Trunk or treat is always a big hit.  Who are these mysterious characters?

Fun party at the Hamiltons

The twins had two championship games  - they finished first in basketball:

but were disappointed to head home with second place in flag football:

Cousin Forrest Baird had his farewell today and all of the cousins sang.  It was a great choir (thanks Michelle Jones).  Mason also gave a talk in church and did a great job.  

Halloween is one of Greg's favorite holidays so I am glad that we have had a few more days to enjoy being together as a family.  He even invited Granny Meredith to join us for the holiday.  In case anyone was thinking about heading up our lonely road to trick or treat tomorrow - don't bother.  She'll be the only one home.