Wednesday, November 15th

Talked to Mom a little while ago… Kerrie is doing fine and has been active today.

Physical Therapy was in to do some work with her and are working on ways to get her sitting in a chair. Her bed is too high to lift up and out of it, and into a chair, so they are working on some ideas. I’m hoping they come up with something as I am sure sitting in a chair will be more comfortable than trying to sit up on the edge of the bed!! It’s good for building up her strength, but she can’t do it very long and I am sure it hurts.

She lucked out.. again.. and ENT did not need to come do their horrid suctioning on the nasal passages today. They must wait until I’m there, because they know it’s absolute torture for me to have her go through this.

She asked one of the nurses when she will be able to get out of there… and I’m sure she knows that if things had gone well she would probably have been getting out of the hospital this week or next.. As of this Friday we will be one month out from transplant and she would be coming home soon.

We have no doubt Kerrie knows what is wrong with her body right now, we know she doesn’t remember being in ICU because she has told us this, we know she is aware she is really sick because we have told her this, but we don’t know if she actually knows exactly how bad things really are. The first time I have heard anyone actually tell her about the infection in her brain, and the blood clot, was when Dr. Jana spoke with her the other day. She still was not as coherent as she is now.. so have no idea if it sank in at that time.

Mom has started talking to her about this, but I don’t know how detailed she has been. I have only heard her tell Kerrie she is very sick. Tonight Mom told her that she would not be able to go home as soon as we hoped and she would have a lot of work to do before she could get out of the hospital.

Kerrie didn’t want to do her excersizes with Mom tonight and kept pulling away from her… I said she should have told her that if she wants to get out of the hospital any time soon she damn well better do the excersizes whether she wants to or not 🙂 We need to get it in her head that the more she does these things, the stronger she will get and the sooner she can get out of there.. of course we are talking periods of time in months.. not the weeks or days Kerrie might want it to be. But if you know Kerrie, you know she’ll set some record for getting out of the hospital quickly ( still talking months here.. don’t want anyone thinking she’s going to walk out of there next week). Mom said Kerrie’s been pretty fiesty tonight.. ( No.. NOT Kerrie!), so maybe if she realizes that working her butt off could get her out of there sooner she may put some of her fiesty energy to great use and work twice as hard!

I’ve received a few e-mails, and responded to a few comments in the gallery/blog but I will repeat a few things here so that everyone can get the answers to these questions.. I am sure several people want to know the same thing.

1. The reason no one answers the phone in Kerrie’s room is because I put it on “Privacy” within 2 seconds of moving her into the room on P2. She can’t answer it and it would, no doubt, be riniging off the hook at all hours of the day at night. Her first week there she was continuosly sleeping, and we were always busy with the doctors, or trying to listen to messages/return calls we had gotten on our cell phones ( I had a record 22 calls in 2 hours when she was in ICU).. so I made sure no one could call the room. Sorry to frustrate everyone who has been trying to call.

2. Can Kerrie have visitors yet… not sure about this and it would need to be very limited.

Every person that walks into that room, including the doctors and our family, could be putting Kerrie at risk. We have no idea what we could have been exposed to standing next to someone in a grocery store… Ron, Alisa and the kids were even banned for a few days ( and we were banned from seeing them.. sorry about having to delay the shopping trip Robyn) because one of Alisa’s students had the chicken pox.

There are a few people who will be in town, from out of state, next week and we are going to see about letting them visit but were not sure about anyone else yet. I will try to ask about this tomorrow.

The other issue is that Kerrie may not want anyone to see her. We’ll have to ask her about this. Although she probably doesn’t remember, she didn’t want visitors when she first went to ICU.. this was while she could still move and had the ability to speak, but she didn’t want people to see the way she looked then. I don’t know if she’s been given a mirror.. and, to be honest, I’m not sure I want her to. Her swelling, etc. has gone down and she is looking more like Kerrie, but she may not want many people to see her right now. This also answers the questions I’ve gotten on why we haven’t put pictures of Kerrie in the Gallery since the transplant….

Mom, Dad and Ron would probably agree that we’ll leave this one up to the Doctors and to Kerrie. We know people are anxious to see her… we’ll let you know about this as soon as we can.

I’ve been told a few people have planned different fundraisers at NOMC!! Please send me an e-mail at Jenn@kast2006.com so that I can let everyone know what you are up to. I’ve heard about one with a basket of stuff from Bath & Body Works and want to know how to get my hands on a ticket.. or twelve 🙂 plus I want to let everyone else know what great efforts you have all been going to and how much our family appreciates it!

Hopefully more good news tomorrow!

Jenn