Saturday, May 14, 2016

Apartment Life, Day 28 Test, and C-diff.



The task sounds simple. Come live in Denver, in a posh apartment with your 14 year old daughter and just take care of her. She mostly wants to just sit in her bed and watch Chopped, or River Monsters episodes so you would think it would be fairly easy. I thought I might even get some work done while I'm here. Abby watches movies, I work and the girls get some quality time with Tiffany in Fort Collins... 

But things don't always match up with my delusions of future realities.


The truth is that living 5 minutes from the hospital is kind of like being at the hospital but without all of the help. We get to be a nurse, cook and housekeeper and more. I'm not complaining (much) because I do get to get a full 6 hours of sleep without any beeping or people coming into the room to check on me. But to have those full 6 hours, I also get to clean, give meds, and be a short order cook. I don't think I'll be changing to any of those careers anytime soon.

To top off the normal workload around here, Abby now has C-diff again ;(  So, I'm trying to keep her hydrated and out of the hospital. If she can drink enough, keep food down, and keep the fevers away, we can stay here. She is a trooper and really does take this all seriously. She drinks when I tell her to, even is she isn't feeling well. Pray that her nausea will go away soon though, that would make things much easier.

On the trooper note, Abby really is a pretty amazing kid. I know I'm biased, but to me she really does embody the verse in Philippians, "Do all things without complaining or arguing". Sure she has her moments, but it is relatively easy to turn her around. I listen to her pain with a sympathetic ear, and then call her back into the trenches... and she does it with that big Abby smile that we all know. It's crazy to me. I'm struggling just being at the apartment alone for just a few day and I don't even have to take all of the meds that I give her!  So, she's a trooper, point made.

Oh ya, she also had a minor surgery/procedure on Thursday too.  It seems so weird that these have become some normal that I forget to post about them.

Thursday was her day 28 bone marrow test. She's still pretty sore from it so I don't know what all they took to test but it was not the norm. They will be checking for 3 things. Chimerism, how full the marrow is as it starts to repopulate, and if they detect any cancer still (the MRD test). I think we'll have some of the results back late next week or so.

Oh ya, and Lily and Anna are fighting colds (Tiffany maybe too) so they can't visit until they are symptom free. I asked the BMT nurses if they could come and visit just in case... they said no. I understand, we want to keep Abby healthy too so we will keep on keeping on! Probably don't wat to expose the girls to C-diff anyway. Hopefully that little pesky gut-bug will go away and stay away too. Please pray for that.

Here's some pics of life in the apartment.



2 comments:

VITA DVDs said...

Hi Mark,
Thanks for your posts and keeping the Abby/Team Schreiber Fans in the loop. We will continue to pray that things improve each and every day for all of you. And, if it's any consolation, you are also a rock star in our book! Keep the faith, and Happy Pentecost. Take care of yourself.
Kathi

Peyton Avia said...

Dear Abby,
You are such an inspiration! Abby, you are one of the most strong, beautiful, amazing, precious, awesome, persevering, and courageous teenager ever! I just want you to know that through this extremely hard time that you are loved and prayed for! I think you are amazing Abby! This Wednesday is superhero day for spirit week and I am going to dress up as you because you and all the kids struggling with leukimia are my superheroes!

Much Love,
Peyton Kaiser