Update for 6/29/11

Mary had some good news today we finally got an "ANC" number of 100 today. If that gets to 500 we can go home at least for awhile. We could get out by early next week, Saturday if we are real lucky.
 
Windford

Mary's Update 6/28/11

It has been a week since the last update.  In that last one I mentioned about the rash and swelling with her white count going down to 0.4, but some people thought it might go lower. They were right. The white count dropped to 0.2 on 6/23 and 6/24, but it has now started a steady rise. It went back to 0.4 then 0.5, 0.7 and today was at 0.8. The good news about this is that the white blood cell count carries different types of cells, the cells that are the most abundant in humans that fight infections mostly are called Neutrophils. The "ANC" or "Absolute Neutrophil Count" is what the doctors are waiting to rise before she can be released. They are seeing some activity in the "ANC" from the blood samples,but no acctual number yet. They think we could go home for awhile maybe next week if the numbers keep coming up.
 
Neutrophils are key components in the system of defense against infection. An absence or scarcity of neutrophils (a condition called neutropenia) makes a person vulnerable to infection. After chemotherapy, radiation, or a blood or marrow transplant, the ANC is usually depressed and then slowly rises, reflecting the fact that the bone marrow is recovering and new blood cells are beginning to grow and mature.
 
Some good news is that her rash is slowly improving, but she still has some bad swelling in her lower legs and feet. We also made it through our 36th wedding anniversary today and the staff and nurses here did a lot of nice things for us today to help us celebarte as much as we could.
 
Windford

An anniversary from the staff...

This is the door to Mom's room today. The nurses and staff here are wonderful! They signed cards, brought balloons and candy, and just celebrated the day with Mom and Dad!!

Happy Anniversary!!

I am once again hijacking the blog….this time to wish a very HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to our Mom and Dad!  We all love you very much!!  You are wonderful examples of love and commitment.  You definitely have the “in sickness and in health” part down.  We hope you enjoy the day as best you can and we will celebrate all things June when you get out of the hospital Mom.

Love from all of us!

Melissa and Steven;

Joe, Kim, Dominic, and Andrew;

Amanda and Curt;

James, Malari, and Jackson

A visit from BLUE!!

Today the Colts Mascot, Blue came to visit patients and boost their spirits. In addition to a poster and some goodies, Blue was taking pictures. Here's a good one of Mom and Blue!

Mary's Update 6/21/11

Sorry for the delay since the last update. After the last round of Chemo Mary has developed a severe rash again. This time however the areas all over her arms have severe itching that she did not experience the first time. Her arms and hands are swollen as well, this morning she can not even pickup her water cup so I will be helping her today with that. We are waiting for the counts to go up, but yesterday the white count dropped to it's lowest point at 0.4. This was disappoiniting to Mary as you can imagine, but some schools of thought around here seem to be that the count needed to get as low as possible before going up. Many patients go down to 0.2 or 0.3, but not everyone. Right now our main concern is getting the rash resolved. Mary thanks you all for your cards and prayers, keep them coming.
 
Windford
 
 

Happy Father's Day!!

I'm briefly hijacking the blog to wish a Happy Father's Day to the great dads in our family. Dad, Joe,and James--you are all awesome and set great examples for your kids! Dad, you've done an exceptional job and are dealing with this stress amazingly!
~Melissa

(for those of you looking for an update...Mom is still waiting for her counts to rise! Keep those prayers, comments, cards, and calls coming...30+ days of the hospital is getting pretty long)

Update on Mary 6/12/11

Yesterday (Saturday) Mary's white count had went up for the first time since about May 26th. This was a good sign. It has fallen a few points this morning, but still is higher than it has been in over a week. However her platelet's and red blood cells had dropped enough that she will get transfusions for both of those today.
Her hair had began to shed and come out in larger and more frequent occasions so she decided to have Melissa and Amanda finish shaving her hair off yesterday. Now I just have to figure out how to tie the scarfs properly. Overall she is doing pretty good and it is just a matter of her counts getting high enough and stabilized to get her a break from here at the hospital.
 
Windford

Mary's update 6/8/11

Mary finished the second round of chemo on Tuesday morning. She seems to be doing very well as of this Wednesday morning. She has hardly any side effects up to now and the very bad rash she had after the first round seems to be drying and curing up very well. Now they will just monitor her and try to get her bone marrow bulit back up. They probably won't do another bone marrow biopsy for 4 weeks, but if she gets built up enough we might be able to go home for a short time before that.
Thank You all for your prayers and thoughts.
 
Don't worry bout me I am doing fine. I woke up this morning and had turned 59.
 
Windford

Mary's Update 6-2-11

The doctor came back a few minutes ago with the preliminary results of the bone marrow biopsy they took this morning.  It was not what we were praying for unfortunately.  According to Dr. Sayar he sees about 20-25% leukemia cells out of the cells still in the marrow. Mary will start her next round of chemo tomorrow (probably) which will involve 3 or 4 more days of twice a day chemo (same drug as before but 15X stronger).  We hope she can handle the 4^th day so I guess that's what we pray for now…strength to get through this really disappointing setback.  This also means that the original 4-6 weeks is probably 6-8 weeks stay in the hospital.

 

Windford