Day 44 - September 6,2007

Still a quiet night last night. They have written orders to turn Kathryn from her back to her tummy and vice versa every shift. That's a big deal for her because there are times when they just rotated her head last week and she would drop her oxygen sats and take a day and a half to recover from it. So needless to say, it makes me nervous when they are going to turn her.

They turned her yesterday around 5:30 and she tolerated it just fine. They turn up her oxygen to 100% when they do it and within half an hour, she was back down to 30%. (remember, room air that we breathe is 21%, so 30% is not much artificial oxygen over what we breathe). Last night she looked so peaceful again on her tummy and she actually doesn't look as swollen that way either. Madelyn and I sang to her and spent some time, "just the girls," since Greg was in Florida last night for his final trip to Naples!! I missed my 3am "appointment" with nurse Heather this morning. I guess I finally had a somewhat restful night of sleep for the first time in over a week that I just slept right through. I did check on her at 5:30 this morning when I got up for work. Heather said that she stayed stable and had a good night. Dr. Strange has to remind us that she is still sick, but she is having some good days!!

I talked this morning to Kathryn's nurse for the day, Christie. She told me that they have now moved her Pavulon (the paralyzer) to every 4 hours (another ween). That's a good step in the right direction. They have also changed her labs to every 6 hours instead of every 3 hours. Another good step - this should mean transfusions are a little less frequent too - maybe back to every 3-4 days instead of every 2-3 days. They also said that she was at 21% oxygen at the time that I called. Course she does go up and down on her oxygen (or her O's as the nurses call it), but I'll take 21% even if it's only for a little while!!

I also checked to see how we are doing on directed blood donations for her and I think we are great for the moment, but they are going to let me know this afternoon when we may need more. So all you blood donors out there that offered to give for Kathryn, just hang on, we may need you soon!!!

Please continue to pray for Kathryn, Dr. Strange, Dr. Mena, Dr. Dicarlo, all of our nurses, me, Greg and Madelyn. I actually saw Dr. Strange smile about Kathryn last night with a very small sign of relief that Kathryn is just starting to act like she feels a little better (did you catch all of the cautiousness in my words?). Right after she smiled, she said that she did not want to jinx anything by bragging on her, because right after we bragged about her last week, Kathryn had her second downturn last Thursday night. So, Dr. Strange said last night that she is NOT bragging on Kathryn, but is just stating FACTS about some of the positive things going on with her right now. So I too am stating positive facts and I am certainly not bragging about my little fighter.

Isn't this such a roller coaster? Wow, they told us this is possible. I thought that they meant good days and not so good days. I had no idea that they meant this much of swing changes in just a moment's notice. So it seems as if we may be starting to head up the next hill of the coaster. Let's all pray that if we have more dips, they are a lot smaller (and I certainly don't want any upside down loops or corkscrew turns).

I always hated roller coasters anyway - they frighten me!! (Except for the one time in high school that I pretended that I liked them so that Donald Butler would hold my hand when I "acted" scared. Little did he know, I was petrified, but at the time, it was worth it.) I already have the guy this time and he holds my hand even when things aren't scary to me and I like that a lot better!!

Kelly