Saturday, January 21, 2017

Still bumpy but still at home -for now

I asked Abby if I could take a picture of her but she declined. I guess she doesn't want me to post pictures of her in her current state. Teenagers.

Actually I wouldn't have posted it anyway, she looks miserable, because she is. And at the same time I do think she is getting better, slowly better.

Fever is still up there but it is staying below 101.5 (we got to 101.4 at the clinic yesterday). Our big goal is to keep her hydrated and keep her taking her meds. If we can do that then we can stay home, if not, we'll need to admit her. We also have the option to go down to the hospital this weekend to get fluids and we may end up doing that tomorrow since she hasn't kept much down today.

Monday they will do more fluids and we'll have an appointment with a GI doc and then an endoscopy in the afternoon. It's probably going to be a long day but maybe we'll have some answers from the scope. It could just be the major fungal infection in her mouth and throat (actually her whole GI probably) or it could be a return of GVHD (graft vs. host disease) that was triggered by this sickness. It could be that a virus in her body re-activated (like the mono virus, or some other one that she had as a kid). Right now the jury is still out. We'll just have to wait and see.

Right now she is sleeping and we are praying that all of this rest will give her body a chance to catch up and kick out this virus as well as rebalance the fungus in her body.

Thanks again for all of your support and prayers.  -Mark


Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Bumpy Road- No News Was Good News

Well, It's been a while since I updated everyone.  And that's been a good thing. "No news is good news" right? But now I'm giving you news again, nothing huge but it's definitely been a bumpy road lately.

Basically Abby is feeling pretty bad. It all started as a cold but when you don't have much of an immunity a cold can be a pretty miserable thing. She's had this cold for about 3 to 4 weeks now and it wore down her defenses so much that she got a systemic fungal infection and maybe a sinus infection too.

She's now on antibiotics, a big-gun anti-fungal, and back to doing lots of rinses to try to get rid of the sores in her mouth and throat. She has also recently developed joint and muscle pain that has pretty much kept her in bed or on pain medication.

We are going back down to Denver on Friday to check with the clinic but right now they think it is just a virus that her weaken immune system will fight off, it'll just take extra time. I never knew the common cold, left unchecked by a healthy immunity, could get so bad. Poor kiddo.

So, please pray for her, as she once again walks through these painful symptoms. Pray that her joints/muscles will feel better soon, that her mouth sores will continue to improve, and that her nausea and cough will subside quickly as well.

Pray for her heart too. She is a trooper but she's also really tired of feeling so bad.

Thanks everyone, we really appreciate it!