9/24 Update On Stacey. She's Hanging In There And I'm Feeling Encouraged.

OPERATIONMINDCRIME

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Mon Sep-24-07 10:03 PM
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9/24 Update On Stacey. She's Hanging In There And I'm Feeling Encouraged.

She's still got a long way to go to get out of danger, but after the horrible day Saturday any signs at all have been positive, not negative. No one still knows whether she's going to make it through this or not, but I'm now FIRMLY of the belief that she will, and that we will have our miracle.

I reread my Saturday post and I had a moment of terror and weakness for sure. It was the end of a very long week in which I was also sick with the same virus (knocked me on my ass all week), had to take care of the kids by myself, travel to and from the city, had no sleep, almost no food for days, and still got some important projects for work done. After the unbelievably rapid deterioration of her health friday and continued deterioration Saturday, combined with the affects of all the prior things I listed, I just simply had no strength, physical or emotional, left to stand firm with. So I kinda regret the negative kind of tone in my Saturday post, as I usually do not break down like that. But it was a rough day, and I kind of needed the tears. But I'm back now to thinking only positive thoughts and will not freak out like that again. I refuse to accept any other circumstance right now than her healing fully and coming home; and she will.

As for the update, she's hanging in there well. After her complete loss of blood pressure from the septic shock on saturday, she has started to maintain it quite well again. They were able to remove one of the bp meds completely (levofed?) which was a huge accomplishment, and this afternoon they cut the other in half (vasopresin?). She's tolerating it well and her BP is great. They are going to try and continue to bring her down off the latter one and hopefully she can maintain her BP on her own again. We'll see tomorrow.

She has had no fever for 48 hours now. I consider that to be a huge positive. Her blood counts are still not where I want them to be, and are unchanged from yesterday (1.7). But on a positive note, they are still at least FINALLY high enough to be able to even begin to fight this virus and other infections off.

They said if she is starting to mount an attack back, that I shouldn't expect just tomorrow for the chest xrays to get better. Though they don't know for sure, and no one knows when things will be getting better, they don't expect even best case to see the chest xrays start looking better for another 2 or 3 days. Her xray results this morning were unchanged, and her lungs are pretty much consumed with pneumonia, obviously. But like I said, it will likely be a few more days, under any scenario, until we see that start clearing up.

The Doc also said they expect her (once again, no one knows anything for sure) to be on the ventilator at least for another week. Then after that, she'd need to remain in the hospital for at least an additional week after that. We still have no way of knowing if she's going to make it through this, but there's better reason to believe now she can, and will. I'm on the side of simply refusing to accept any other alternative, and know she's gonna pull through.

She's responding well to the Patti labelle song I brought for her (New attitude) that is her 'Rocky' kinda theme song. The nurses, who bring her lightly to consciousness each day to check her neurological signs, asked her in the morning if she wanted them to shut it off and she said no. Another nurse tonight told me they asked her last night if she wanted it to keep playing, and she said yes. That made me feel good, cause it made me know that she knows it's there, what it means, why it's playing, and must know that I brought it there for her.

Her kidney numbers were still a bit high (creatinine 1.7) but a point lower than yesterday (1.8). They are keeping an eye on it, but it's not really any huge sort of problem yet. With all the crap being pumped through her right now and all she's going through, it's not hugely unexpected that her numbers are that way. As long as they hold and don't get worse, she should be ok.

So all in all friends, we got a long way to go and there's been no technical improvement of the infection, but things are trending positive. The bp stabilizing and her not having a fever for 48 hours are hugely positive signs that in my opinion are signifying that she's fighting the septic shock and will start mounting a comeback. The docs won't confirm this for me, but that's my take on it and ain't no one gonna take that from me LOL.

One double edged sword kind of note, however, is that the doc I consulted with today was also her main medical oncologist that we're going through the chemo with. Though this will be discussed after this is all said and done, it seemed apparent that she was of the mindset that she did not want to continue with the chemo, and wanted to take her out of the trial. That's a relief in certain ways, but also sad. Though we right now just simply have to make it through this episode, I cannot forget that she still had a highly aggressive and dangerous breast cancer. It scares me that a big tool she had to help prevent it from coming back may now be off the table. Also, dropping out of the trial means she will no longer get an additional drug with promising hopes called lapatanib. Instead, she will just be limited to herceptin. But we'll worry about that when the time comes and it is up to her (Stacey) to make the call. For now, we have far more pressing matters to worry about.

So thank you for hanging in there with me and caring in the ways everyone has. It continues to help me to read all the comments and I'm grateful for each and every comment I've read.

I will continue to post her picture, for all those who are into visualization. Also feel free to let me know if you're sick of new threads and want me to just update via a post in one of the already existing threads. I don't know how people feel about that either way.

From the bottom of my heart thanks to all,

OMC