Friday, 7.18...back in KC

Today is classified as another good day. It wasn't a GREAT day, but definitely not one that will go down as remotely bad. Ganguly remarked this morning that she's doing very good, but they're not sending her home. That got a laugh out of him and her. The only real medical thing is a hit or miss fever that seems to fluctuate between being too warm or too cold.

WBC: 0.8
Hemoglobin: 6.7

The techie consultant in me is going to graph this data so we have visual evidence of how she's doing. Hopefully I'll get that done this weekend!

One thing a return to the hospital did was remind me again just how strong a woman my Mom is (not that I needed a 'reminder' per se). I don't know what I expected when I got here tonight as I'm trying to really manage those expectations. But man, she looks pretty damn good! She did say her hair doesn't really feel like hair so it's on the way out. Here are two specific examples that reminded me though:

1. I'm sitting here and in a very cheerful voice says, 'do you want to go with me to ride the bike?' Maybe some of the Tour de France talk has gotten to her b/c after 1.8 miles (you read that right - 1.8 after doing 1.0 just several days ago) she said, 'it ain't Lance, but it ain't bad.' Literally had the nurses in stitches and one said they were going to have to post that on the bike as an inspirational quote.

2. She was getting ready for bed and I look up from my laptop to see her playing with the breathing toy. Then I hear a little bit of a giggle coming from her so I look up. She noticed I was looking at her so she said, 'well I try to get it to the yellow line 5 times before I stop.' Hmmm...good goal I thought. But I asked her if she'd been able to do it the whole time or if that's what they asked her to do. Basically just trying to get a sense of what she was working towards and how she's been doing. Her response was priceless. 'They want me to breathe into it 5 times and stop.' I busted out a huge grin b/c I know she'd done it at least twice that many times! You go Mom!

Lastly, I'll post on a separate post sometime tomorrow some instructions for adding a comment to the blog. She's received several emails from people having difficulties with it. Clearly something we need to clear up so everyone can post! Btw, has anyone looked at the # of times this blog's been viewed? Needless to say she's popular. ;)

Mom / Cathi Request

Captain Cathi strikes again. She does not want anyone 'crossing that threshold' (of the door) who remotely thinks she's going to die. One of the challenges of having a lot of friends and family is one pessismistic thought turns into perceived reality. Well for Mom, it's already tough being in this room and not always feeling like you know everything. It often times feels to her like maybe the doctors / nurses have said something to family and not to her. Then when something gets to her, a lot of other thoughts start spinning - anger, deceit, and general inquisition.

These are very normal thoughts for someone in Mom's position to have. You want to have someone or something to blame. You're paranoid people are hiding information from you. Yada yada. I told her we do not need her honing in on those things and it truly is a case where you get knocked down a few times emotionally, but you get back up one more time than you got down. That's how we'll beat this emotionally. It's ok to have emotional challenges so long as the mental aspects are sharp and optimistic. Her insistence proves to me she's there.

So we're laying down the gauntlet so to speak. The power of the mind is very powerful, and doubting will get us nowhere. Reality is the medical professionals are happy, which is what matters. They're the ones with the project plan and we're working on one task at a time, one day at a time.

That's it for now. Hopefully everyone understands and no one is offended by my comments. But I needed to put it out there for her sake as our role in this is to be strong for her and help pick her up when times do get tough. God knows they're going to be a lot tougher as we progress.