Day 25 - More Better News

It was far from good, but it was a better day. Except for the lack of sleep. I only got to spend an hour and a half with her today, but from what I could tell and what she could tell me, she’s improving – ever so slightly.

The not so good news: Her hair continues to fall out. When I arrived this afternoon, she was wearing a hat for the first time. She looked really cute in it, especially since it was a Spurs hat. Thank you, Susan. – She’s still puffy from the edema. This seems to be caused by low albumin in her blood, likely due to her lack of protein consumption. They can give her albumin intravenously to help, but haven’t. I’m sure they have their reasons, but I don’t know what they are. – She still doesn’t like to eat, since everything tastes ‘crappy.’ Unfortunately, this is a side effect of the chemotherapy, and we’re not sure when the effect reverses. – Like I mentioned above, she hasn’t slept much the past 24 hours. Tracy said she woke up every hour last night, and didn’t sleep at all today. Hopefully she’ll rest well tonight. – It’s been ten days since she’s seen her children. This is really starting to take its toll on Courtney. Fortunately, she’s been fairly out of it for most of the past week, but during moments of lucidity she misses the kids more than anything else.

The better news: She’s experiencing less intestinal pain. This has been really bad the past week, but seems to be improving slightly each day. This helps her to have a better appetite, but it’s still hard for her to eat because of the ‘crappy’ reason stated above. – She was more alert today than she had been the past few days. This is an indication that she’s having to rely less on some of the medications that mentally impair her. Although, I’m not sure how alert she wants to be. If she could sleep through all of this, she would.

The more better news: Her CBC.
WBC = 600 (Doubled)
%Neutrophils = 44% (44% of 600 is better than 46% of 300)
Absolute Neutrophils = 300 (three times better); goal is 1000

Good news: Kids are all healthy.

Other news: Courtney is scheduled for an ultrasound on her abdomen, specifically her gall bladder (I think) tomorrow. This is to check to make sure there are no infections. They’re doing this because her blood work showed high levels of bilirubin. This could be a side effect of the chemotherapy, but they want to make sure it’s not due to problems with her gall bladder. Blockage of the bile ducts can be a cause of high bilirubin levels. They want to rule that out with the ultrasound.

Let’s pray that tomorrow’s ultrasound turns up nothing and the new day brings with it even better news.