morrowlife

Here’s a closeup of one of the organ consoles from yesterday’s Great Art. Pretty fancy. I can’t decide whether it originally came from a movie theater or a funeral home. Any opinions, Loyal Readers? Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken in March, 2012 at the previously-mentioned Northlandz model train and organ extravaganza in New Jersey, and part of my famous Machinery series.

This one wasn’t in the Electronics series. Somehow I doubt there are very many electronic components in there.

Pretty good day for Shannon today. Not the best, but far from the worst. Her white cell count was down by a little. Her pneumonia seems a little bit better, but we really didn’t get any data in that area today. Her electrolyte depletion seems to be pretty well recovered by now.

Now for today’s challenges. Her sodium and protein levels are low. That’s what seems to be causing the terrible swelling she’s experiencing in her legs and feet. They’ve asked her to restrict her liquid intake for a while in hopes of helping her get the levels back under control. They also had a gastrointestinal guy come check her tummy out today. He says there’s a bunch of fluid in there, which was what I was suspecting. Apparently, they’re going to drain it tomorrow, which I hope will make her digestion better, which will in turn make it easier for her to eat well.

In the area of draining unwanted fluids, they got another 600 milliliters of fluid from outside her left lung again today. The doctor says if he keeps needing to empty her chest cavity out so frequently, he’s going to have a “pigtail” put in. That’s a thin tube that stays in her back and can be drained by a nurse any old time.

We were a bit worried about what the cause could be for all the swelling and accumulation of fluids in  various places. Could it be kidney failure? The answer: no. Her blood chemistry says her kidneys are working just fine. They think it’s the low protein level. So they’ll hopefully start addressing that tomorrow.

It’s always something lately, isn’t it, Loyal Readers? Challenges. But we’re equal to them and we’re pressing on regardless.

I got some work done today! I expect to be able to place some orders for promotional materials for the upcoming show tomorrow. I think we’re going to be where we need to be when we need to be there.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: rogue kangaroo!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a room in the same building as the world’s longest model railroad. Why organ consoles? Why not? I guess the guy likes model trains and organs. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken at Northlandz in Flemington, New Jersey, and part of my famous Electronics and Machinery series.

A close look at that organ console on the right will reveal that one’s made of a bunch of electronic keyboards. Sadly, we never heard it or any of the others being played. Maybe next time. We were so exhausted after walking through the model railroad for hours that I don’t think we could have listened to any music at that point.

Today was a very good day for Shannon. She reports that she woke up at 3:00 or 4:00 this morning and just felt . . . normal. It was amazing! No real pain, she could move her muscles the way she wanted to, her head was clear, she was just fine. She was as excited as I’ve seen her in a long time.

Sadly, it didn’t quite last all day, which left her kind of discouraged by this evening. I understand, but I still think there was significant progress. She looks noticeably better, she can move better, she has more stamina, she’s doing just fine on much less oxygen, she’s eating better, she’s just better in all ways. I don’t think she really saw that tonight, but I did.

We moved today. Apparently, they had somebody sicker than Shannon who needed closer monitoring, and he/she could only get that in Shannon’s room. So we’re now on the fifth floor – room 5221. Drop in and see us. This room is the “negative pressure” room, which means it’s a bit smaller than other rooms in order to leave space for an anteroom. I think they use it to isolate extremely sick people. That’s not the case with us, though, so we’re just living in a slightly smaller room for a while. Not a real problem, though.

Shannon had her stomach x-rayed from several angles today. They’re trying to figure out why it’s so distended. So far, they haven’t discovered anything seriously wrong, which is good. She just needs to get as much exercise as she can and let time pass by. That will hopefully fix her up. We were a bit worried that maybe there was a blockage (there isn’t) or maybe fluid had accumulated outside her guts like it did around her lungs and heart (it did, but it doesn’t appear to be very bad at this time). So we just press on and have confidence that it will resolve itself.

Her white cell count was down to 5.7 today. That’s down from 6.7 (or so) yesterday and 7.7 the day before. And correspondingly slightly higher numbers the days before that. That’s good progress and things are happening just as we expected, leukemia-wise. No cure yet, but moving steadily towards getting back into remission.

The pneumonia continues to improve. A few nurses have told us over the past few days that they couldn’t hear any rattling in her lungs. I told the Infectious Disease doctor about that today and he had a listen for himself. He can still hear a bit of rattling, so we’re not done. But her lungs are clearer than ever. She was on 6 liters/minute of oxygen yesterday. They turned it down to 4 this morning, 3 this afternoon, and 2 this evening, and her blood oxygen level is comfortably above 92%, which is their desired minimum. She’s been much higher than that. So I’m feeling good about that aspect of her recovery.

While I’m sure we’ll be here for several more days, I’m beginning to think maybe we’re halfway done with our current stay. That’s not an informed opinion – just an opinion. And maybe I’m right.

I wrote Shannon a bit of a mushy email this evening. Normally, I wouldn’t share this kind of thing, but today I want my Loyal Readers to know how I feel about my wife. It ought to be edited for some awkward prose, but I’m copying it exactly as I wrote it. I hope my Loyal Readers will forgive my self-indulgence. Here it is:

Dear Shannon,

Today was a good day. I’m feeling so, so encouraged. Please stay courageous and strong. I feel like the right things are happening, albeit more slowly than we would like.

A familiar and wonderful thing happened on my way home. “Laughter in the Rain” came on and, as has happened so many times before, I was instantly 17 years old again and experiencing the giddy happiness of meeting and falling in love with the girl who would soon become the very center of my life. It is such a wonderful feeling, I just can’t help falling in love all over again. I played the song over and over and felt warm, young, happy, and in love.

Then something new happened. Suddenly, 38 years passed and it was 2013 and we were living in the Village. As we took our daily walks to the clinic, through the rose garden, or just around the campus, I fell in love again, over and over, every single day as we walked hand in hand. And it keeps happening.

I’m so happy we’re still together after all these years. You’re still that cute, happy, loving, mysterious girl I fell in love with all those years ago. You’re still the one I want to hold hands and walk with for the rest of my life. I love you more than I can possibly express.

Love,

Michael

Shannon’s college roommate Debbie and her husband came to see us on Sunday! It was great seeing her again and meeting her husband. She has commented here on the blog a couple of times and was planning to come see us, so it wasn’t a total surprise, but it was still a treat. Thanks, Debbie!

Not much work got done. I don’t know why. Shannon and I are both planning to get our noses to the grindstone tomorrow. I have several things that need some lead time before the conference, so I’m really running up against a pretty hard deadline soon. We’ll make it, though.

Mark appears to be doing well without us at home. I hope he doesn’t get to liking it too much. We’ll be back.

And that’s it for tonight. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: basketball-player deer!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s the worst of the weather we saw last winter in Pennsylvania. Mere child’s play compared to what they’re going through right now. Current temperature in Newtown, PA as I write this: 16 degrees. Tomorrow’s weather: 18 and snow showers. Tomorrow night’s low: 6 degrees. No thank you for that. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken from my former office window, and part of my famous Garden series.

That view was very nice, by the way. There were frequent deer sightings throughout the year, and four beautiful seasons of green (leaves and grass), red (leaves), yellow (leaves), brown (leaves and grass), and white (snow, duh). I spent many happy hours looking out that window when I should probably have been working.

Let’s look at the latest Shannon news, shall we? Yes we shall. She continues to improve. While yesterday’s post reported that the bronchoscopy didn’t reveal anything in her lungs, today’s report is a bit more detailed. Also more correct. It turns out they did find a bit of pneumonia. I asked one of her doctors exactly what kind of pneumonia they found. He checked and reported that it was H1N1 virus and a smidgen of fungus. Apparently, there are no bacteria to speak of in there. So she would have never gotten better in Las Vegas, since they were essentially treating her only with antibiotics. So I’m glad we’re here.

She continues to get stronger and better. She spent pretty much the whole day sitting up, which was a bit of a stretch. She also got up for a shower. It feels so good to be clean, doesn’t it, Loyal Readers? So that’s all good.

Shortly before dinner, we went down to get Shannon’s other lung area drained.  This time they got a liter of fluid out from the area outside her left lung. That’s a lot of fluid. They tell us it takes a little while for everything to rearrange itself and start working properly, but she reports that it’s already much easier to breathe. And no wonder. With 1.6 liters out of there, there’s just a whole lot more room for her lungs to expand. Optimism reigns.

Didn’t get an update on her white cell count today. I do know her platelets were at a nice healthy level, though. So there’s that.

Nothing else new today. I really need to get some work done and it’s quite the struggle with my pathetic internet situation both at the hospital and at my cousin’s house. I’ve got to get things working somewhere pretty soon and get some stuff done. Decision: I will.

Mark reports that he got his Nevada driver’s license today. Hooray, Mark! Good on ya, mate.

And that’s about it for today. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: pot-belly pig terrorist!

See you on Monday.

Here’s Andy back in March 2012 with his shiny new Ford Raptor. At least he wishes it were his truck. Itu might have other ideas about that. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken in Canton, Michigan during our March 2012 visit there, and part of my famous Machinery and Vacation series.

Boy, has a lot of water flowed under the bridge since then.

No post yesterday. My cousin’s Internet connection was on the fritz. That’s why I’m blogging from the hospital this afternoon, just in case. They’re paying good money for Internet service and absolutely not getting their money’s worth. Betsy tells me they’re switching providers soon. Couldn’t be soon enough for me.

Shannon’s having a pretty good day today. Her strength continues to increase. It’s still not great, but it’s improving. She was able to get up this afternoon to take an actual shower for the first time in a few days. That makes her feel a whole lot better. She’s currently sitting up in the chair and watching HGTV – also a significant step. The sitting up part, not the HGTV part, that is. Although I’m guessing my Loyal Readers had already figured that out. We live for clarity.

Her white blood cell count is down to 8.8 today, which is another good number. It continues to slowly decrease, exactly as we hope and expect.

Today’s big news: they did the bronchoscopy yesterday! It went very well. She has had zero pain and no problems at all as a result. The tentative report this morning was that they didn’t find anything in there. I’m not sure what that means yet – I wasn’t here when the doctor came over to talk about it and Shannon doesn’t remember exactly what he said. But any data is good data. We’ll probably know more about it tomorrow.

Anyway. Her lungs are increasingly clear. One of the nurses was listening to them through her stethoscope this afternoon and said she didn’t hear any crackling! That’s the first we’ve heard that report in about a month. And it was music to my ears.

They also did the procedure where they suck out the fluid outside her lungs yesterday. At least they did half the procedure – the right side. They got about 600 ml of fluid. I asked how much fluid a healthy person would have there. The answer: a tablespoon or two. So she was a bit high. They’ll drain the other side tomorrow, if the schedule maintains.

So we have good news on all fronts today. Nothing negative to report at all. Yea!

Happy birthday to Katy! I’ll leave it to her to reveal her age. I just want to say she’s been a major light in my life since the day she was born and she’s grown up to be a brilliant, witty, loving, gifted, wonderful woman and a fantastic mom. I love you, Katy!

And that’s about all I have to say about this wonderful day. I’m really feeling happy and optimistic today. The future looks bright! I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this combination exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity and shocking food violence news: crime-fighting cucumber!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s my lunch from yesterday – sushi and a smoothie. Now what could be better than that? The nurse commended me for my bravery, but I ain’t scared. It was avocado and fake crab. Nothing raw in there at all. I may be brave enough to eat hospital sushi, but I’m not stupid. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken in Shannon’s hospital room yesterday at lunchtime, and part of my famous Food and Medical series.

I think it’s time to take a few new pictures, don’t you, Loyal Readers? Let’s not all speak up at once, now.

Okay, now for the reason my Loyal Readers are all here. Shannon had a pretty good day today. I believe the electrolyte replenishment project is going well, although slowly. Her arms aren’t shaking anymore, so she can hold her own drinks. She’s able to speak a bit more clearly. She stood up on her own this evening. So those are some good signs. Her electrolyte numbers were looking better as well. I’m assuming her recovery from that little episode has been slower than we expected due to her generally sick condition at the moment.

In other good news, her white cell count was down to about 10 today. That’s down from 13 yesterday and 15 the day before. That’s the direction we want it to go for now. She’s been getting a lot of platelets this week, which is also typical and expected. So we’re doing well on the leukemia front.

On the pneumonia/pleurisy front, there’s also some progress. The results of a nasal swab they did the other day are back and she definitely still has H1N1 influenza running around inside her. They treated her for that the first week or so in the hospital in Nevada, but then they shifted entirely to giving her antibiotics. So I think I understand why she wasn’t getting better after the first week.

They didn’t do the bronchoscopy today. Instead, they did an ultrasound of her guts to try to figure out if her intestines were causing problems. We haven’t heard the results, but she’s probably okay gut-wise, which is good. The bronchoscopy is now scheduled for Wednesday. They’ve scheduled and canceled it five times now between the two hospitals, so it will be quite a thing if it actually happens tomorrow.

Her infectious disease guy says that even though we know she still has the flu, he wants to do the bronchoscopy anyway, just in case there’s something else in there too. They really need to identify it so they can figure out how to treat it. They’re also working on whether it makes sense to stick a needle through her back to get some of the fluid from the outside of her lungs too. We’ll know soon whether they’re doing that one.

While we’re waiting for the bronchoscopy, they’re not letting the grass grow beneath their feet. They’ve started Tamiflu at a dosage twice what she got before, and they plan to continue it for quite some time – weeks or months – until the virus is well and truly dead. They’ve also kicked up the antifungals. In addition, they’ve given her something I didn’t know existed: intravenous immunoglobulin, or IVIG. It’s a blood product that contains antibodies from donor blood. It has several uses, but the apparent use here is to give Shannon yet another tool to fight off the bacteria/virus/fungus that’s ailing her. Check out the Wikipedia article – it’s pretty interesting.

I asked the infectious disease guy how long he expects Shannon will need to stay in the hospital. He said he never predicts. I said I respect that, but we would certainly appreciate some kind of guideline we could use to plan. He said to expect to be in the hospital longer than days but shorter than months. So weeks, I guess. Not fun, but doable.

Had a phone call with John this afternoon. We continue to get closer to having a releasable product and all the materials we need for the show next month. But there’s still so much to do! I think we’ll get there, but we’re starting to scramble.

Man, do I hope we sell a few copies of this thing. Please, forensic doctors and dentists, buy, buy, buy!

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this rare combination food violence and Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: kidnapped pig!

See you tomorrow.