sunday - Starbucks & the Star

Hello,


This is Cathi reporting in. Conor spent the night with me and sister Mari showed up early with starbucks and the kc star. I enjoyed the starbucks, but haven't read a single word of the star. Too many more interesting things going on.

I'm beginning the feel the effects of the chemo, nausea. They gave me something for anti-nausea and that resulted in sleeping in the wheelchair down to x-ray. I'm sure I slobbered too. However I still have my hair so hopefully nobody will send me to the geriatric unit yet.

I feel better today. I've been pumped full of red blood cells and platelets. I got a little help sleeping last night which was much appreciated. and the white cell count is down to 21,000.

I have 2 doctors, Abhyankar. and Ganguly. Scouters, think about that name! I haven't sung it for him yet, but it could happen any minute.


Keep the messages coming, they remind me what's waiting for me when I get out.

Cathi

Conor Update

Day 3 is now complete. Well they are calling it Day +2 since it's technically 11 PM that we complete the 2nd day. It's just the 3rd day in the hospital. There's a dry erase board in the room with all the status-related information. Here's the update...

There was lab work twice today. The first time was during the night last night as that appears to be a regular measure. Dr. Ganguly came in to briefly examine (all was good) and give us the readout, which was also positive. For those interested, the white blood cell count was at 77 when she was admitted (extremely high). It was down to 21 this morning and 11 midday. This is good. The goal is to kill them all before the rest of the stay and then transplant.

Ganguly and company said this is the 'boring' time. Or that's what they want. I told Mom when they left it may have been the first time anything she's associated with was 'boring'. LOL. It was the first time I'd met either of the doctors, and she's in great hands. I will say this about Ganguly. The guy is wound tight. Definitely business. I went to shake his hand and he said, 'we don't shake hands here.' Annie saw him later in passing and said that looked to be his style - very regimented. We're talking high starch shirt to say the least. :)

We did ask questions regarding the bone marrow transplant this morning while he was there. As most know, Annie and I are expecting a boy in November. So we're especially cognizant of the topic of cord blood. Apparently this is not an option to use his (baby's) cord blood as they estimate it would be a 25% match. The priority for the transplant is: 100% sibling, 100% open network, then potentially cord blood / other. We'll know more when the hospital's transplant coordinator visits.

They're encouraging her to exercise / walk around as much as possible, and she did get out to walk the halls today with Carly. This was good as she attempted yoga but the pick line got slightly ajar as she was starting. That's always going to be something we have to watch.

The reason we had lab work the 2nd time today is Mom developed a very slight fever in the early afternoon. There was also some slight nausea, which got them to install a Benadryl drip with a clicker that only mom can initiate...and she's quick to remind us of that fact! It has helped her with keeping food down though.

Additionally, she had a CT scan and chest X-Ray as there was some fluid / slight build-up in her chest. There was a little fluid in her lungs from the X-Ray, but nothing they seem to be alarmed about at this writing.

Overall it's a patient process taking things one day at a time and understanding that every slight thing they notice will be treated as big. The night nurse last night, Lauren, said if she even had a slight cut they would be all over it. It's good to have that level of attention as anyone can understand.

I did save the best for last on the day though. The family was very positively recognized among the nurses today for many things (including just pure niceness and caring), but Annie put together a gift basket for them with lots of sweets and Life Savers. I told her we had to include plenty of those! But we wanted to let them know how much we appreciate them taking care of our Mom / Daughter / Sister / Friend. It's the least we could do, and great to see their reactions. I'm pretty sure we heard about 10 - 20 'Thank Yous' today. Now the one potential gap is we're going to have to restock for the night crew since most all of it was consumed by the day staff. :)

Alright, off to email the link to this blog as Mom got the initial distribution together. Please forward the link to anyone else that would like to see updates or know what's going on. And as Mom said - keep the comments coming!