Single Whip

3/5/10  Friday

Another good day, platelet count coming up – bone marrow recovering, lost a total 15 lbs of fluid (1 gallon yesterday) over the past 4 days – weight back to just below normal.

Dr. H. schedules the next bone marrow aspiration/biopsy for Monday or Tuesday.  Teri will need three rounds of chemotherapy.  She recognizes she is in for a battle.

Teri calls Dad (room to room) to say that he didn’t have to get sick to be closer to her.  As I talk to the medical team, it seems that it is more likely pneumonia, as his heart (echo and pacemaker) checks out, and he gets IV antibiotics.  I work on a plan to provide nursing, PT, OT and assistance for the first week or two after going home.  I go back and forth between the floors.

Clarice, a former neighbor, now in Colorado, sends a shawl that she knitted that has been blessed with positive thoughts by many of our current neighbors before being given to Teri.  Anita and Henry bring beef with noodles.  Yum!

Chuckles.  Two visitors from church came to visit Teri.  One washed her hands, couldn’t find a waste can, and asked a patient where the trash can was and he replied spontaneously with a straight face, that “you have to keep it for the rest of your life”.  We laughed and laughed.  It was existential, absurd and funny at the time.

Given Teri’s urgent need for a bone marrow match and donor, we need everyone’s help to increase the bone marrow donor pool by having friends and family enroll to give a buccal (mouth) swab (no blood).  It may be Teri’s or someone else’s life line.