I am sorry for the delay in my email update I spent the night at the hospital so that Brent could get a good night sleep and Valerie has had a rough day today.
To fill you in on yesterday first, we had great news! Her wbc's were down to 4,000 and her red blood cells were a little bit low but safe with platelets holding steady. The amazing part was the doctor walked in almost laughing because her ldh (ratio of dying cells basically) was 17,600! A normal high for chemo is 600! She was killing the leukemia 29.3 times the normal high. Her oncology hematologist said he has never seen a kill rate as high as hers! She is avoiding any of the major complications that could happen from loosing this many cells this fast, so far! She is cautiously optimistic and is terrified that people are going to stop praying. I know you are not going to but because I am a good big sister I will make sure. Everyone needs to keep praying, we are not out of the woods yet and although we are thrilled to celebrate the small victories we are still in a marathon not a sprint! :)
Today's update:
About 4am Valerie woke up with pain creeping up her legs which is how the really bad pain started a couple of days ago. I was already at a "4" which her nurse does not want her pain to get above a 3 so it scared her but they gave her meds right away and she was able to sleep for a little bit longer. (to fill you in the nurses like to use 1-5 with Valerie on the pain scale not the traditional 1-10, a couple mornings ago she hit 10) The doctors are saying that the "bone pain" is the bad cells leaving her bones and it is probably because it is happening so fast. To compare it to something, She was pretty sick this morning which they treated and per usual by this afternoon she was feeling better physically. We had our doctor visits today and the numbers are encouraging. Her WBC's are at 1 so basically she has no immune system and we have to be very very careful with her getting sick. Her red cells were still holding but are low so they will be doing her first blood transfusion tomorrow. Her platelets were 16,000 but he is going to go ahead and give her the "bag of beer" today which usually makes her feel a lot better. The rest of the visit upset her quite a lot. For the first time the doctor started talking to her about the longer term plan which to us we great because it was a good sign. On the other hand he told her that she will need at least one more if not 2 more rounds of chemo and or a bone marrow transplant. There is nothing wrong with her treatment, this is normal procedure but it means this nightmare will not be over any time soon and it is hard to think past this week. Her nurse made some suggestions to help her bring some of her normal life into the hospital while still being safe and we are going to put those into place. It is a process for sure! Keep the notes and prayers coming! If you would like to send a card or something you can send it to Valerie's apartment at Valerie Seastrom 4445 Fanuel Street #5, San Diego, CA 92109 (her roommate can bring it to the hospital) or Brent's apartment at Brent Faville 2032 Cypress Ave. #19, San Diego, CA 92104 (he lives really close to the hospital and goes home every once in a while. If you would like to send her an email, as always just send it to me at mwilson16@hotmail.com I read her a bunch of them today and it put a smile on her sweet face!
I would like to take a moment to mention Valerie's boyfriend, Brent. Nettie and Jessa Faville are on this distro and are Brent's mom and sister and forgive me, I am a little tired and not as eloquent as I would like. I adored Brent the second I met him months ago but I had no idea how truly amazing he was. He has been Valerie's rock the entire time and is the person she looks to for everything. I realize this is a lot for him but he is so quick with the right words, consistent with his facial expressions when the doctor talks and unbelievably wonderful. I feel truly blessed to have him as part of our family and grateful beyond words that my baby sister has him to lean on. Thank you, Nettie, he is truly a gift!
I will be continuing my updates from Colorado for a few days and then back in San Diego next week so until tomorrow, good nite.
No comments:
Post a Comment