Don: I am sorry that we have kept you in suspense for so long. A week ago yesterday Karen was admitted to Shands again at an unscheduled time. Turned out that she had blood clots around her picc line. Like many other things that don’t seem to go our way, this can be seen as one more blessing. This set up a chain of events that include Karen deciding that I needed to take a leave of absence from work and her still being in the hospital after more than a week.

How are those blessings? I was able to give 4 days notice of needing the leave. She has had fevers since late Friday afternoon, all day Saturday and resting peacefully now on Sunday night. The highest fever was today @ 104. We don’t think the fevers are over yet but will know for sure by tomorrow morning. If she does have a fever in the morning she will have to get a bunch of cat scans. I would have had to take leave starting now because of this weekend’s run of fever but it would have been with no notice.

Karen’s blood counts are taking forever to return to normal. If she had not been in the hospital already there is no telling what kind of bug she might have picked up and then we would have been in here by now anyway but battling who knows what. The fever she has now has not had any source bug associated with it. There has not been anything identified in any of the blood cultures they have done and they have done them often. It appears to be something that can just happen from having such low counts for so long. Like she has said all week, “At least I am not out there being exposed to the germs.” Her counts seem to be on the rise today.

I feel compelled to ask for a specific prayer tonight. “Dear God, please help Karen’s counts rise by morning so that the fever will stay gone. If things are not improved by tomorrow she would need to have a new picc line placed and that is what caused the trouble to begin with this time. Karen needs the next 4 weeks as time to build her strength before the bone marrow transplant. Please Lord let that healing begin now so that she can be as strong as possible before May 1st. Continue to watch over her and heal her during that time. Amen”