#Hismerciesareneweverymoment

March 16, 2013

This post comes to you today from Adrienne. I am so overwhelmed by His mercies that are new every day and every moment. Yes, this has this been difficult...more difficult and unexpected than imaginable - absolutely.  Is it over, no but we are half way through and for that we celebrate.  Today I went for a run around our lakes that was slow, but it was a run.  It was 3.3 miles and farther than I have run since we started chemo. On the first infusion I was in the hospital this, the 9th day after my infusion. I ran today and am not in the hospital and for that we celebrate. We had to do a shot this time that helps my bone marrow rebuild white blood cells (called Neulasta) and that shot was a $3,000 copay and for that we celebrate insurance. My husband has been and is simply A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. The care and concern, time and patience, love and selfless giving cannot be be measured, and I am eternally grateful for God's placement of him in my life. I am just amazed by the blessings in our life and one of biggest have been each of you that have rallied around us, brought us food, asked how we were doing, shared a laugh, called on the phone, sent texts, come to visit, sent cards, cleaned our home, sent gifts, done our laundry, prayed for us, pushed us to be better, provided owl pajamas, showed you cared, sent flowers, fixed my hair, financially given, bought flowers for my hair, encouraged my new looks, shaved their heads, exercised with us, created the most amazing workplace, and simply loved us.  With that in mind I thank you from the bottom of our hearts.  Cancer sucks, but you all are making the journey bearable....even, dare I say, fun.

One more day...

February 25, 2013

After a morning's worth of silence from doctors and nurses, we finally got to hear from the doc on call, who was great, that she talked with our oncologist in Denver and under no circumstances is she to be released until her neutrophyls are above 1.  They were measured at .44 this morning, and 11 yesterday.  We are less than halfway there, but went up hugely from yesterday to today.  Our oncologist said encouragingly however that once the improvement starts to happen with white blood cell counts and neutrophyls and such it improves exponentially, so that's good.

I have to reimburse you for your $150 after the biology lesson yesterday because it turns out I was wrong.  I told you that her neutrophyl count on Saturday morning was at 7 and yesterday morning was at 11...I was wrong it was not 7 and 11 absolute neutrophyl count as in actual neutrophyls, it was 7 and 11 percent.  Its so interesting to have 5-6 different health professionals throw different numbers and acronyms and names of stuff at you...one tends to get a bit confused.  Of the white blood cells that any one person has in their body, a portion of those cells are neutrophyls.  Neutrophyls are the actual fighter cells, they are the ones that kick the ass of any virus/bacteria etc and a normal range for those is 50-60%.  Now, that having been said, we've been told that her count needs to be above 1 before she can go home, and I actually interpret that to mean that the actual count is above 1000, not that she has to have 100% neutrophyl count.  That's what I mean about 5-6 different health professionals throwing information at you...they all use their own language.  Our oncologist is looking at a neutrophyl count of over 1000, which means that her percentage would have to be 50% based on her total white blood cell count as of this morning, which was 2100.  Make sense? Clear as mud?

Me too.

Boobies.

So...all this means that we are staying another night, which frustrated the girl quite a bit.  She reeeeeeally wants to be at home right now and in her own bed, having taken a shower in her own shower and eaten out of her own fridge.  It sucks royally, but its better this way because if we went home to early and she got reinfected, it would be far worse than what she and we have experienced already.  So...we stay.  Our nurses and the staff have been really great, we've gotten several flower deliveries and treats, I even got a canadian bacon/pineapple/jalapeno pizza delivered a few hours ago! We're spoiled, thanks for taking care of us :)

Please pray for her counts, that her body continues to rebound as it has been, pray for her heart because she just wants so badly to be better and be home.  Its been rough on her.  I'm doing ok, the bed I'm sleeping on is something akin to what I imagine it would be like to sleep on bubble wrap covered in cellophane - its less than exciting.  I scare myself awake every time I roll over.

I'll give a giant hug and a big, wet kiss to the first person to hit up a S-bux and bring me a Venti Pike Place, black, no room tomorrow morning.  I think I could lubricate the engine of my truck with the stuff they serve here. I've got another hug for the second person to do so.

We're good.  I actually mean that.  Her body is on the way up, there is a good chance we will be able to stop antibiotics tonight, she's had a 98 degree temp for almost 24 hours now which is one of their criteria for discharging a neutropenic patient. (Neutropenic = fever/infection due to extremely low white blood cell/neutrophyl levels) We aren't 100%, but man it is so much better than it was on Friday/Saturday/Sunday.  I refuse to blow smoke here, we've been finding out today that the place she was at was potentially pretty life-threatening in terms of the things that could have happened had we not gotten her into the ER when we did and started to get this stuff under control.  Her counts were low enough that she very literally had virtually no ability to fight anything off herself. She herself was not actually in any danger because she was in the hospital and receiving care in time, but had we not...it could have been much uglier.  

We are blessed.  In no sense do I intend to cheapen that statement with fluff or nonsense - I mean it, we are blessed.  We are blessed, it could have been much worse and we have been well loved and taken care of. It's been an awful weekend, and we need to be much more careful for the next 3 rounds of chemo. But we know now what to do, how to take precautions, how to keep her safe and what to do if something happens again. So, we just wont let any of this crap happen again.  Simple enough!

Would someone please do me a favor?  Go outside, make a huge juicy snowball and throw it as hard as you can at the nearest innocent bystander?  Not because I have pent up anger and need to take it out on someone or anything, just because there's 6 inches of snow on the ground and I've been stuck in a damn hospital room for 3 days.  It would just be a shame to waste all that snow, ya know? I just need a little vicarious living.

Thanks folks, have a great evening!  I'll letcha know what the plan is tomorrow!

Much love,

Jeydrienne

We digress...just a little

February 24th, 2013

Howdy,

Quick note, she started to slip a little this afternoon, got the shakes worse than I've seen at all in this process.  They have given her a pain pump, with an itty bitty little dose of Fentanyl, (a narcotic) because of the pain in her mouth. She has this nasty sore throat that they can't seem to identify the cause of and started to get flem(ier) like I mentioned.

Oh there it is...I just realized why "flem" looked weird...its p-h-l-e-g-m.  I'm an idiot.

ANYway...the sore throat thing really sucks, hence the pain pump.  She has not however had to use it which is nice because narcotics and her get along like ___ and ___.

Becasue of the extra p-h-l-e-g-m, and some difficulty keeping her oxygen levels up they decided to do a chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia, which they were able to do - chest is clear!  The blood cultures from yesterday morning were also clear, so that means that so far they have found no existence of a bacterial infection.  Which is great.  That does not however remove the fact that something is infected and the general belief right now is that its viral.  Which sucks. Antibiotics don't take care of that.  However, I still stand that we are headed in the right direction and our doc was supremely confident of that as well.  We've had for the most part superb care here (I had to take one nurse out back and have a "win one for the Gipper" with her, and we actually ended up politely requesting a new nurse - we got the nurse from yesterday though and she is great!) and we're pretty happy with how they are choosing to tackle her care.

Please, please continue to pray for her health.  Specifically for white blood cells and neutrophyls to come up.  Quick biology lesson here: of the white blood cells that one normally has, a safe range is 4,000-10,000/15,000 white blood cells per cubic milligram (or milliliter, can't remember) of blood. Of those white blood cells, 50%-60% of them are neutrophyls.  Don't ask me what the heck a neutrophyl actually is, we just know they are the footsoldiers of the immune system.  Adrienne started out yesterday morning with 700 white blood cells and 7 neutrophyls.  Yes, 7.  This morning she was up to 1,100 WBC, and 11 neutrophyls.  Make sense? That's why we are concerned, this is an extremely low number obviously.  A doable neutrophyl count is 500, according to our doc.

That will be $150 bucks please. 

She is better now than when I started this email.  The chills are gone for now, she is warm enough, had a few M&Ms which if you've ever met my wife the sugar-Nazi, you know THAT"S a big deal.  For now we are good.  A scare this afternoon, but we focus on this minute and the movie thats on and the comfort she is currently in.

The prayer at this moment is for her body to strengthen what we have been told is probably viral.  Since all the cultures and swabs (that measure bacterial infections) have come back negative, the next most likely suspect is a virus.  Unfortunately, antibiotics don't work on viruses.  Ya just gotta tough it out.

So...that's that.  Hope you a reading this while sitting in front of a nice fireplace with a cup of cocoa or something in your hands.  Take a swig for us.

Love, love, love!

J

Slighty Brighter Days...

February 24th, 2013

Howdy campers,

So - here's the scoop.  We are now halfway through day 2 of what will be at least a 3 day hospital stay.  She slept fairly well last night, at least as compared to the last 3-4 nights anyway.  She actually slept, so that's the first qualifier!  Her temp fluctuated overnight, anywhere between 99-101, which is...well, ok.  She did however turn in a thermometer reading this morning of 98.7, praise the LORD! All of her symptoms are still there; the achy, tired, hot/chill combo, lethargy, blah blah blah, BUT the positive thing is that they are all less than they were yesterday.  So that's good.  

Her white blood cell count was at 700 (.7 is what I reported yesterday...same thing) when checked at some unholy hour on Saturday morning, and as of this morning they were up to 1100 (1.1).  We're shooting for a minimum of 2000 before they will consider sending her home.  We just learned that white blood cells will replenish themselves at 99 degrees or below, which she just got her temp taken a few moments ago (about 1:15) and it was still 98.5, so its been there since 8-ish this morning.  Getting there folks, getting there!

She is having a super rough time right now just with having to be here, she's really tired of how hard this is and its making her super emotional.  She's just really having a hard time right now.  This sucks.  Her throat REALLY hurts, so swallowing is hard, which makes eating hard, which makes her attitude suffer a bit.  We call that "hangry" around these parts.  I have the same issue. Occasionally.

So...that's the news.  We are keeping on with the keepin on, about to start a movie, enjoying the puke-fest that's going on outside (snow-wise) its a pretty thing to watch.  Little less pretty to drive in, so be safe out there kids!

Thanks for praying and for checking in with us, it's so very appreciated.

Much love,

Jeydrienne

Sign My Guestbook | Read Tributes