Monday, September 28, 2009

Update & Request for Prayer: September 28, 2009

When my Inbox begins filling with e-mails from family and friends who are checking to see (1) if I am in the hospital; or (2) if I have died, I realize it has been too long since posting an update. Thank you for your concern and prayers and reminders to update my Blog!

This makes me think about one of my good friends. If she calls our home telephone and no one answers, she calls my cell phone. And if she calls my cell phone and no one answers, she calls the hospital to see if I am there. I kid you not about this. She will finally reach me and tell me that she had checked at the hospital and I was or wasn't there. Then I say, "O, ye of little faith!" (You know who you are, Shelly!)

I completed the 21 day cycle of the IV antifungal on Thursday. My veins truly needed a break. my forearms from wrists to elbows are badly bruised and need time to recover. However, now we are playing the waiting game - the Identification and Sensitivities from the two positive lung fungal cultures still have not arrived from Texas. Without this vital information, I am in a holding pattern. Until we have these results, we will not know if the recent 21 day cycle of IV's was effective against these fungal menaces and we will not know until we have these answers if additional treatment is going to be required.

Unfortunately, my spleen, liver and lymph nodes have begun enlarging once again. My WBC is increasing and my Beta-2 Microglobulin level (which can be an indicator of the tumor load in my body) increased by 50 percent since June. These are disturbing signs and symptoms to report. I am attempting to determine if all or any of these apparent indicators of the leukemia progressing again could be attributed to underlying fungal infections. I do not know which would be the lesser of two evils.

I continue to have twice weekly blood draws as I teeter near neutropenia most of the time. I anticipate that I will require a Neupogen injection again this week.

I would like to be able to run and escape from leukemia for a year or a month or at this point, even a week or a day. Today that dream seems impossible, however, I must continue to trust God. My strength is gone, evaporated, zapped - so I will cry out for His strength, once again.

Don't take your good health for granted today. Treasure it. Guard it. Thank God each and everyday for your good health. Good health is worth far more than any worldly riches you will ever possess. You will not realize this until good health is gone.

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