Sun, 8.10 - Pre-Biopsy Day

Today was another pretty uneventful day in a good way. Mom got a great night's sleep last night - a whole 8 hours! She did accidentally remove the mask again though. The past couple of nights with the other mask (difference is the former one had an annoying bag on the front of it - loud and awkward) weren't nearly as pleasant even when she managed some shut-eye.

Sarah (Nurse Practitioner) came in this morning and was again very pleased with how she was doing. She liked mom slept, had not gotten sick, and proceeded to write the blood counts on Mom's dry erase board. It was pretty funny. She wrote the platelets. Then she wrote the RBCs. The WBCs were obviously missing. We had a little drumroll...6.0! Mom's face lit up like a kid in a candy store. Sarah mentioned she's happy we had that much improvement with the Neupogen stopping when it did.

Tomorrow we'll find out if there's any reason to be concerned. Mom's prepared yet a little scared of the bone marrow biopsy that's likely to take place in the afternoon. Needless to say we're all hoping for positive confirmation the Leukemic cells were killed by the round of chemo. If not, we'll go back through chemo again. This time knowing more of what to expect, and having the Pneumonia Brothers expelled from her body!

She proclaimed today's goal was to walk to the bathroom and back. Apparently she didn't make it there, but did do some trucking around the hallways. That's honestly probably a greater hike than to the bathroom and back. So good stuff.

I just realized I have forgotten to talk about her funny arm exercises. She's got this band that's almost out of a tough balloon-like material. She sits in bed raising her arms above her head, directly in front of her, then at almost an 'X' angle in front of her - both directions. They told her to do it 10 times at all 4 positions and ideally she's working towards three iterations. Yesterday I think she got to 1 full round of 10 then another round of 5. It's kind of funny to see the exercise commercials on TV then have her bust out the exercises. Very similar...ha ha. She continued these today though.

They also cutback on another antibiotic, leaving one more for her. That tells me they're pretty close to being comfortable with where she is although I think they'll need to be comfortable with all of her counts too.

Lastly today she did some blog reading and sent 2 emails. I don't think she read emails, opting for the blog. But it did get a quote out of her similar to things she's said before about how she can't believe we're all going through this. She says that a lot, but not in a negative 'woe is me' way. It's more of an amazement than anything.

Tomorrow's the test so let's all rally around and think good thoughts in the Central time zone PM timeframe!