Blood battles

Hi everyone:

Kathleen's battles with her blood continue. She received two units of whole blood overnight Monday. Her platelet and hemoglobin levels increased somewhat when measured yesterday, but have dropped again by this morning. The inability to make these levels climb and stay up remains a troubling concern.

A surgeon will be visiting her sometime today to discuss/schedule the insertion of a port in her chest for the administration of chemo. Before that procedure, she will need a platelet transfusion, which will hopefully boost her platelet levels enough to make the surgery possible and safe. If all goes according to plan, she should have the port inserted and start chemo within the next day or so.

Patty stayed with Kathleen Monday night, and her good friend Cindy stayed with her last night; I may stay with her tonight or tomorrow night. Having someone with Kathleen has proved to be important, because the hospital hasn't been entirely consistent about making sure they stay on top of her pain medication. When Kathleen is at her best, she's like a somewhat weakened version of the Kathleen we all know so well--for example, Neil, Patty and I watched the flick Zathura with her yesterday afternoon and had a great time. She also has her rough moments, though, mostly with getting comfortable in bed, with pain and with sudden bouts of nausea.

In spite of all this, she's been pretty funny at times. We brought her Brown's Chicken yesterday because she was craving it (steroids tend to give one a ravenous appetite), and Kathleen was complaining that eating so much was going to make her fat. We laughed, because she's now in XS pajamas and must weigh about as much as a bigger housecat. Yesterday afternoon, she said to me, "Okay, Brian, we're starting a 'When's Kathleen going to lose all her hair again' pool. What's your guess?" I asked her how long it took last time, and she said, "After the second round of chemo." I said, "Okay, I'll take that."

Kathleen is handling all of this remarkably well. She's a tough cookie. If anyone can defy the odds and turn this around, I believe she can do it. But the next few days are not going to be a picnic. Please keep the positive thoughts and prayers heading her way.

Love,
Brian