What a baby brings

We have been enjoying having Andrea and Lily here with us. Lily is getting to know her grandparents and it is so much fun to see Tim light up when he holds her. I was hoping to get a video of him singing to her, like he did when our daughters were just babies. He looks 20 years younger when he does that. Sarah's girls saw a photo I posted of Tim holding Lily and told the mom that "Grandpa doesn't look sick anymore, are they coming home?" She was right,he does not look sick. This week Bella came with Sarah to bring Andrea and Lily back and it felt so good to hug her and hear her voice. Apparently the day before she told her sisters one too many times that she was going to see Grandma and Grandpa. Their response, "WE KNOW, WE KNOW". Lily can be fussy and lets us know when she is unhappy, but she can be very content and loves to be snuggled, bounced, or fatoodled, a term my Grandmother used to describe how my dad would jiggle us on his knee. Mostly she bring a new perspective on living. The saying "today is the first day of the rest of your life" gives everyone the chance to start new. Even when we have an old body.

I love to be with my babies', babies, I love seeing the pride and joy I had as a parent, in my daughters as they watch their children. It is the mix of awe and agony that comes with parenting. It is a pearl of great worth that comes from a constant irritation, as you try to keep your sanity.

Taking an aggressive approach

This has been another long week. The Hemotology doctors have done their best and have decided that the best approach to his anemia by increasing the amount of predinosone - steroids that he is taking. They did the marrow biopsy, and the good news is that the marrow was producing new blood cells, just at a suppressed rate. We do know that he still is producing an antibody that is killing off his blood cells, just at a slower rate. The goal of the steroids is to stop his body from producing the antibody. We have spent the last several days testing, transfusions and tomorrow morning we start again. There are some times we just get tired of being there. That seems to be when we meet someone that is going through the things we are, but they do not have the same prognosis. We know we have a very good chance of beating this and being home, maybe even before the end of the month. Some patients do not get good news. Every day people struggle with some event, usually they are small things, but they can feel huge. We like to plan our lives and live them in nice neat units. Andrea and I were talking about this, the desire to have perfection in our living. We always strive for it, and really, it would be foolish to want chaos in our lives, but what is perfection? Growing up I told my daughters that they did not have to be perfect, that perfection was boring, and believe me, they took my word for it. I do not regret telling them that, because it is looking for the positive in the ups and downs in our living that makes the unexpected some of the rich experiences we have. It is after all, a matter of perspective. When we complain of not having enough to meet our needs, we only need to look at the homeless among us. Yes some are there through choices, and others because of a twist. When we are upset by a bad cold or the 24 hr flu, we only have to visit the hospital. When you are in the hospital tired of the pokes, prods, and endless tests, you only have to see a family with a child that is doing this and yet they know what waits for them. So for us it is hard, and it has been a long week, and the aggressive approach does mean Tim could get moody, hallucinate, get nauseated, be super sensitive to touch or light, but it also means that it give him a better chance of getting home and putting much of this behind him. That is really a pretty positive outcome.

Oh one more thing, Tim says if you feel compelled you can send money or stronger drugs, and he hopes maybe for a pleasant hallucination if he has one. Good to see the steroids have not blocked his sense of humor.

Two months since the Liver Tansplant

Saturday Tim will be one week without a blood transfusion, his Red Blood Cell count is holding at 28, his white blood cell went down some what. That is a bit of a concern. We go in again on Monday to check and see if he needs a fluids top off!

We are loving having Andrea and Lily here. She is 5 weeks old and she feels so very tiny.

Hope everyone in Washington is safe and dry. Whatcom county has had several mud slides to go with their floods. It makes it easier to understand why the Transplant Team wants people to be close to the hospital when you get a transplant.

Lily comes to visit Grandpa, Grandma and Aunt Leah

Today Lily and Andrea flew in from San Diego. She is testing our grandparent skills, we still have a few. We have been looking forward to this for quite a while. We all had to smile at Leah who is not sure of how to hold a baby. We will send more photos and more information tomorrow after Tim gets another blood draw.

Its good to have new life in our home.

Back at the apartment

Yesterday was a bit rough, I got the 24 hr flu, realistically food poisoning. So I was only with Tim for about 2 hrs. Today though was good news, the hematologist said his WBC count was up. It one week ago it was 80 when it should have been 1500. Today it was at 600. His rbc count was a bit down from 30 to 28, but they worry when it is 23. So if on Friday his rbc is close to 25 they feel that he will be able to get past this phase without Steroid treatment, but it might mean more transfusions. So now we are in a waiting game, but the really good thing is that Tim came back to the apartment tonight. After another week in the hospital, it feels sometimes like we have spent as much time in hospitals as out since the 28th of August. Tim is still uncomfortable but things have started moving in his intestines. Ok that is maybe more information than some of you want, but really I leave the gross stuff out. So now we are back together and on our own until Thursday when Andrea and Lily come to visit. Lily is 5 weeks old and we will get to see her for the first time.

What happens when you just don't want to eat?

After 10 hours of blood transfusions Friday night and Saturday morning, Tim was exhausted.
Today the goal is to void, walk, and eat. They are counting his calories, keeping tack of his fluids intake and output.
He is voiding after the nurse came in and said they were going to cath him. He negotiated to drink more water and void into the container so they could measure it. The problems have been that he is not having any solid movement and his stomach is hurting. That makes food unappealing and he is not eating. The only really good news today is that his blood levels are up, 30 today. I got him some chocolate boost, the hospital only has strawberry ensure, this is a easy way to get some calories. Dr Dick came in and asked him how much he is walking and gave him some boxes to check off each time he walks, we have one left to go tonight then I will let him get some sleep. We had hoped things would be better today. He is not exhausted but moving, eating, breathing, it all hurts. He is 10 pounds heavier today than yesterday. Some of that is blood, the rest is fluid retention and any solids he has not passed. They are working on getting everything moving again, so if they are successful tonight he will be feeling much better tomorrow.