Friday, May 11th

Up and down.. up and down.. everytime things start looking up they go back down.

Kerrie’s white blood cell count is down again today and her face is swollen up again. Krystal, the BMT Nurse Practitioner,  pointed out that every time Kerrie’s white blood cell count goes back up the swelling goes down.. the blood cell count goes down and the swelling goes up.

Ups and downs everywhere she turns it seems.

They feel the drop in cell counts/swelling have everything to do with this infection they can’t seem to put thier finger on. It’s possible they are going to do a biopsy of the sinus, near the left ear, to see if they can figure out what’s causing it. Infectious disease wants the biopsy, the BMT team ( Bone Marrow Transplant Team.. for anyone whose forgotten 🙂 ) is concerned about her ability to heal if she has a biopsy. With her immune system down she may have difficulty healing.

Dr. Bartel, part of the BMT Team, wants to give her Nuepogin shots ( the same stuff I had prior to the transplant) to promote the growth of her immune system.. Dr. Jana says NO!  She doesn’t want to take the chance on stimulating the Luekemia. I am with Dr. Jana 5000% percent on that one.

She’s back on an Antifungal and all kinds of IV’s. This makes it difficult to get out of bed, do any kind of PT, sit in a chair, etc. Once the IV’s are hung, she’s pretty much confined to bed right now. Mom wanted to get her up, this morning, and have her eat breakfast at the table.. but one of the nurses hung all the IV’s, while she was out of the room, so it was breakfast in bed for Kerrie.

It’s believed this all goes back to the same Mucor Fungal infection she had to begin with. The most recent MRI shows it hasn’t spread. It’s contained.. but it’s still there.

The swelling, etc. has caused pain.. so she’s taking Dilauded again for the first time since she left Henry Ford to go to North Oakland. They’re going to put her on Oxycodon, so she won’t need so much. It’s absolute hell on her, to go through the withdrawals of the Dilauded.. so I’m hoping it’s cut off before she becomes too used to it and asking for it all the time.

Tonight is Relay for Life! I’ll be sure to take as many pictures as I can, before I head to Detroit.. I won’t get in before 2:00am, so I’m going to head straight to Mom’s and go to Henry Ford in the morning. No point in Driving to the Hospital, waking Kerrie up and then going to sleep myself.

Only a short 18 hours and I will be with Ker-Bear. I can’t wait!!

Jenn