Saturday +80 (11:30 PM)

Today was day 80. We are 4/5 of the way through the 100 day process. Another month passed today. I knew this not because it the July 1st, but rather because my electronic room key quit working. Of course it quit outside the 2nd floor security door with an armful of groceries. This meant that I had to leave the groceries, go down stairs, out the building, back through the main front door, up to the third floor office, deal with the key issue at the office, and then return to the second floor skyway security entrance and retrieve the groceries before returning to our seventh floor apartment. I hated to buy any more groceries, but Jackie can eat so few things and we were out of anything she likes. Really she doesn't like anything, but she tolerates a few things. I picked up a small watermelon, some cucumbers, and two six packs of Boost (a high calorie milk shake type drink).

We made the trip the the hospital this morning for the growth factor shot. By the time we had returned Jackie was out of energy again. She got back in bed and slept for another 1.5 hours. We then went to the Olive Garden for a late lunch. She was nauseated and ate almost none of the meal. Upon return to the apartment she became nauseated and had a great deal of stomach pain. She took a pain pill as well as some antacids and began to feel better about 7:00. We ended up watching Gone With The Wind for 5 hours. This was the first time either of us had ever seen the movie through to completion.

We will be back at the hospital at 9:00 AM for another growth factor shot. Fortunately she didn't have the excruciating headache. On Monday we will have more growth factor, blood tests, and early afternoon an appointment with the doctor. I suppose if her counts are improved she will have another decision to make with regard to a return home. I don't think either of us will get our hopes up for an early return. Even if we were to return home we would need to find a doctor (maybe her former doctor) to manage her 2 or 3 time per week blood tests. At present she gets her central line flushed with sodium citrate (SC) rather than the usual heparin. This, alone, would create problems. Even here at the Mayo Clinic it is difficult to get the SC flush. We always end up waiting for the pharmacy to mix it and send it to our area of the clinic. In Tulsa it would probably be non-existant. The switch was made from heparin to SC in the hopes that it would not decrease some of her counts. To be honest, I don't think it has made any difference. They have switched anything they could think of that might cause depleted blood counts to something else. For example, we just switched from Doxycycline to penicillin. There is a remote chance that Doxy could reduce white blood cell counts. Hopefully all these changes will result in increasing and steady blood counts.

So not much to report.

Until Later...

Bruce and Jackie
From Rochester, MN