Another Update

I'd barely gotten one update up, and now I've got another. Please continue to pray for my aunt. Thank you.

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Howdy, all.

I have mixed news to report today. When I asked B***'s oncologist, Dr. J***, how to summarize the current status he said that she was “hanging in there”.

Her fever went away for a couple of days but was back this morning. On Sunday they performed an ultrasound and cat scan, and found one blood clot in her left leg and two in her lungs. At that point she was put on medication to reduce clotting.

Dr. J*** said that the lung clots themselves can cause fever but that B**** is a prime candidate for both infection and clots because of the cancer treatment’s effect on her blood, so we can’t rule out the infection.

Her oxygen saturation has been low. They’re giving her oxygen via a plastic tube that squirts it into her nose, but they’ve had to increase the oxygen flow rate a couple of times to keep the saturation level above 90%. That could be from either clots or infection.

There is a possibility that she has a type of pneumonia that is sometimes found on people who’ve been on steroids. The only way to determine this for sure is to snake a probe down into her lungs and “wash out” a lobe, but this would be risky for someone in B***'s condition. Dr. J*** thinks the lung guys would not want to do it; he may decide to just embark on the treatment, in case it’s the cause of the problem. I think he wants to hold off on making this decision for a day or so, just to see how she’s doing tomorrow.

Mentally, she seems to be half way between sleep and being awake. This could be medication or something else. Dr. J*** doesn’t think it’s a matter of the tumor having suddenly grown, but it may be related to a recent reduction in her steroid level. To deal with this possibility, her steroid level is being increased starting today.

On the plus side, she’s been getting lots of sleep. Also, her white blood cell count is coming back, having increased from 0.8 (where it sat for a few days) to 1.2 this morning. If the problem is an infection, hopefully the increase in her immune system will work in concert with the antibiotics she’s been getting to knock it out.

That’s it for now. I will keep you posted as things develop, or even if they stay the same. Love one another.

B******




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