A Change of Course

• WBC is 3440 (4500-11000)
• Neutrophil count is 3280 (1500-7800)
• Hematocrit is 23.8 (36-46)
• Platelets count is 12 (150-350)
• Transfusion scorecard: platelets (56); blood (27).

Tonight is the last scheduled dose of the $12K bottle of Cytagam. Denise spent most of the night playing solitaire, sleeping only between 2AM and 6AM. There is a reason for her restlessness.

We have come to the end of the current treatment for her breathing, which has been a gradual reduction of steroids. Once again, we have returned to the point where her breathing issues become more problematic and she requires more oxygen.

Yesterday we spoke to a lot of doctors/specialists/surgeons, and we have to go at this lung issue some other way that poses great risks to Denise. She is tentatively scheduled to have surgery tomorrow (Monday) so that they can get some tissue samples from one of her lungs to better help determine the cause of her difficulties. Besides all the normal risks from any surgery, Denise's condition makes her more vulnerable to those risks, and one of her lungs will be collapsed. The biggest challenge here is she will have to go back on the ventilator, and there could be issues with getting her off of it. We have 3 possible outcomes to this:

• they find something in the biopsy they can fix, and they can get her off the ventilator successfully,
• they find something in the biopsy they can fix, but unable to get her off the ventilator, or
• they find something in the biopsy they cannot fix, whereby the ventilator issue becomes moot.

Now, the doctors say her chances are greater than 50% of getting through this. For a healthy person, for this type of surgery, most people would come off the ventilator right after surgery. No predictions how long it will take to get her off the ventilator.

We don't have much choice here. If she elected not to have the surgery, we would be headed to hospice. Her spirits are good, and we visited with Sarah yesterday and gave her the info I presented above.

So, I imagine my next update will be whenever she goes into surgery. As I mentioned earlier, it is TENTATIVELY set for tomorrow at no specific time, but could push out another day or two. Will take 24-48 hours to get the biopsy results back from pathology, and then we will know our new course on this journey.

Right before I was about to post this entry to the blog, Denise specifically wanted me to tell all of you how much she appreciates all of your support, cards, letters and prayers these past 82 days. I do too.

I will keep you posted.