5 Mar 2007

Once Again - Hello to All,

Well, here it is now another Monday, two weeks of being in the hospital. I wish I could say that they have made great progress and I am about to get out, but that isn't the case.

As I had mentioned previously, due to my excessive diarrhea, they started feeding me by IV (Steak in a Bag, as the nurses call it). The IV feeding in combination with the steroid they have me on has thrown my blood sugar all out of whack and as a result they now have me on daily insulin injections (I believe that this is only temporary).

The team of Doctors have now concluded that the steroid, first line drug of choice in combating Graft Vs Host (GVH), is clearly not helping. Today they are going to change my medications over to another drug regimen, second line defense against GVH, called Inflixamab which is an Anti TNF (sorry I can't explain the TNF).

In addition, my platelets have continued to drop, I was down to 9,000, I received another infusion on Sunday, so they are considering the continuous drip method (they used this in preparation for the other procedures they performed in the past weeks).

I was blessed on Sunday by a visit from my beautiful daughter, Emily. She rode up with Gene and I am certain he appreciated the company on the drive up. Michael received a wonderful invitation from a friend to come over for the day, that was great. He will come up during the week with Gene.

Clearly the main thing keeping me in right now is the diarrhea as well as the digestive tract problems / pain. They are keeping my pain level under control through the use of oxycodone and tincture of opium. I think that one or both of these makes me a bit forgetful, but I am thankful for the pain relief. They also give me other medications to numerous to list.

Please pray for the following:
Praise for allowing me to see Emily.
Praise for the support Gene has been able to provide.
Praise for all the cards / e-mails / phone calls I have received in the past few days - all these have truly brightened my day.
Praise for the diligence of the doctors - they have yet to give up on me.
Pray that the Lord God will either place his hand of healing on me or provide the doctors with insight so that I may be cured.
Pray for continued physical and mental strength - I need all that I can get right now.
Pray that my out-put becomes much less - this would possibly allow me to go home.
Your prayers and kindness to me and my family have been so great. Thank you one and all for hanging in there with us and not giving up.

P.S. For those of you who may not have gotten the last update, I am now in a different room and thus a different telephone number:

Room # B6/### Telephone number (608) ###-####

Love in Christ

Cheryl