Don: Tomorrow Karen will have her Day 14 bone marrow biopsy to see if she is in remission and the cancer cells are gone again. We will get the results on Tuesday or Wednesday and then maybe they can tell us what the next step will be. We found out from the endoscopy that she has a little something growing in her esophogus. They have given her some liquid medicine to take care of that. She takes it 4 times a day. On top of that we are still waiting for the counts to start coming up, focusing most on the white blood cells. Basically, we are doing what we are supposed to do; hurry up and wait. Thanks for all your notes of support.

Don: Karen has been having pains in the throat and esophagus for quite a while. It got worse with chemo. She had chemo on the 1st-3rd this month. Her pain has increased in the last few days. The doctor said he did not believe that it is just the chemo causing her discomfort. She has gone for an endoscopy and we may have some idea later today what is going on. It will be Monday or Tuesday before we have the full picture.

Don: I sure am glad it is morning. Karen had just a rotten night last night. She was very sleepy but the pain medicine, or more specifically her ability to push the button on the pain pump, was not really working. She has a pump programmed to give her small doses for medicine when she pushes the button and she can push it every ten minutes. If she pushes it before that it won’t work. Between the pain she would feel if she forgot to push the button or fell asleep and the anxiety she was experiencing for being afraid of the pain she might feel if she didn’t get to push the button, she did not get much sleep. We had visitors most of the day which she dearly loves but that means less (or no) naps throughout the day. Add to that, what Karen thought perceived to be, a nurse who hurt her feelings and you have an upset, anxious and in pain Karen.

On the bright side, they have adjusted the pain medicine normal, regular delivery so that she does not have to push the button as much. This gives her longer periods that she can doze and not wake up hurting. So we are expecting a better day and especially a better night. Sometimes our prayers are for something as simple as a peaceful night so she can sleep while her body continues to recover from the chemo.

Karen got platelets last night and they are giving her blood now. Counts are down to 120 and will need to hit zero brfore they come back up. It’s all part of the plan though. Just watching and waiting for 11-15-2010 so that we can get the next Bone Marrow Biopsy that will tell us if she is in remission from the luekemia. She has eaten a little bit today. That beats not eating, which is what she has done the last few day. Now that she is on the pain pump she is much more comfortable. Guess what she is talking about, even in her sleep. FOOD! Not just any food. She keeps talking about how we have to get some nice food. That we need to go to a nice. In her current state she doesn’t mean to go later. She means right now! It is going to be a little while before we can even get a day pass. It gives her a nice goal to shoot for though.

Don: Karen has been uncomfortable for a few days. If she got some pain medicine she would be able to sleep but then by the time she woke up she was hurting so much that it was hard to get relief very quickly and she would hurt for a while. This was really taking a toll on her mental ability to keep up the fight. Camille suggested that it might be time for a pain pump. Not a pump to give you pain but one to give you pain medicine. These things are computerized so they can give any amount that is programmed in continuously and also a little extra on demand by pushing a button. She made that happen for Karen last night. It really has made a difference. She slept through the night. This morning she ate some breakfast. Now she is resting again. It is going to be a better day. Thanks Camille.

Don: This seems like we are climbing a mountain. A mountain that disappears into the clouds as you look up. It makes it very hard to judge how far you have to go to reach the top. People try to explain to you how tall it is. You know that there really is a top up there somewhere but you have a rough time getting it into perspective. You don’t know how far you will climb each day either. So now you don’t know how far you must go and you don’t know the speed you are going. Each day you keep going and sometimes you see an obstacle or barrier that you must get over. When you do get passed it, you feel a little sense of accomplishment but then you realize that you still don’t know where you really are in your journey. You just know that you must keep going.

We completed Karen’s 36 hours of chemo yesterday (Thursday) at about 2:00. All of her counts are coming down. There is a number that they give us each day based on a math formula of some of those individual counts. Today it is 360. Anything below 500 means she can’t eat anything that is not cooked or processed. This is exactly like how her very first month and treatment started out last year on Oct 14, 2009. You can read from the beginning by going to https://karensday.com/?paged=17. That is pretty close to the beginning of our stay in Gainesville. You can back up to older messages than that if you like. I direct you there because we really are starting over now and we explained the process in more depth back then. For now we just want to end this note with a request for continued prayers.

Don: When you are going through something like this, you tend to mark off every little step you take. It is almost 1:00am at the end of Day 3. The night time bag of chemo is a very slow bag though. We won’t be done until around 2:00 in the afternoon. The chemo will continue to work on her body for a few days and then her body should start trying to recouperate from what it has been through. The blood work they do daily indicates that things are going very well in regards to cancer cells lowering in number. The real measurement is still 11 days away though. She still faces a lot once we reach that point but we must first get into remission!

Thanks for coming by and the notes you all send her.

Don: Night number two went much smoother than the first night. No high fever and the blood pressure stayed acceptable. Blood work results indicate that the bad cells are already going down. We won’t really know any exact numbers until the bone marrow biopsy on 11-15-2010. We are taking things one day at a time while keeping our eye on that biopsy. Results will probably take two days after that.

Thank you God for the easier night that Karen has last night. We pray for even more peace for her as we continue down this path. Amen

Don: Karen has just been hooked up to her first bag of chemo. We have 3 days of chemo. In fact we will have 4 different chemotherapy drugs this round. We used 2 drugs during the first induction a year ago and they were given over 7 days. So things are different this time. There is also less chance of things working the way we want so lets continue to pray and let God know exactly what we want. “Dear God, please bring Karen through this relapse of Leukemia. We love her and need her in our lives for many more years to come. Remove the cancer cells and keep control of the fungus in the lungs until her bloodwork counts return to normal so that it can then be cured also. That will only be the first steps of the needed treatments. You know that we will be praying everyday for the needs we have now and then we will have new needs and new prayers soon. There are many of the steps that will be challenging to the doctors and Karen’s body. We will only make it through this with your healing hand and ask that you take care of her. Amen”

Don: It did not take long for me to fall in love with Gainesville. That might seem strange on the surface. It doesn’t have a beach. My family doesn’t live here. Karen’s family doesn’t live here. Our horses aren’t here. I really could go on and on about how this place is not Panama City! No matter what PC has though, it does not have a few things that Gainesville has.

1. Shands. Nurses, doctors, PAs and all support staff.
2. Pastor Calvin Carr at the North Central Baptist of Gainesville. www.GatorChurch.com

The first gave us this whole last year of memories and the second has really helped keep us in God’s hands. Pastor Calvin was here today with his son, Jerre. Now that was uplifting!