Blah

That describes how I feel about driving around endlessly in this heat in a car with no air conditioning!

Yesterday was a big day for Brian. He got some encouraging news about possibly being on the fast track towards going home. But it all depended on how he'd respond to a skipped PLEX treatment yesterday. This morning he woke up and had his blood drawn to see where his platelets were.

Let me rewind a bit... Yesterday, while I was visiting Brian, I asked him if he knew what his platelet count was when he FIRST arrived at VGH. He asked the nurse that had been seeing to his vitals, and she gave us some interesting info. The normal range is 150-400 (thousand). When Brian came to the 10th floor, his platelet count was 77. She believed it had been somewhere in the 60's when he was in urgent care, and it was dropping fast. Basically, if your platelet count gets too low you can bleed out. Sometimes internally. (Which explains all the questions about nosebleeds, bruising, etc) Anyway, after some of his PLEX treatments, his count went up to 152. Low enough on the normal side to still be a concern. The following day it was in the 170's. And the next - 190. This morning, after skipping a PLEX, it was still 190. So it hadn't dropped, but if he didn't get a PLEX treatment today it might have and then he'd start crashing all over again.

So they gave him a PLEX treatment, and tomorrow they'll skip it again. And wait and see. The fact that he's getting PLEX every second day now is progress, and I hope the platelet numbers keep going up (even slowly!)

In other good news... The kidney doctors signed off on him yesterday!!! That mean's his kidneys are functioning well enough that they don't need to see him anymore! Now Brian is just dealing with hematology. His kidneys are functioning at 80%, which is okay. They may stay that way, or they may slowly get better. Either way, people have one kidney removed and function just fine at 50%, so he should be fine!

Well, that's the news of the day. I will try to see him again tomorrow but I've been SO busy taking care of everything on my end here that I don't know. I haven't even really spoken to him today yet - wierd.

Pray:
- That platelet levels keep going UP!
- For sleep - it's loud and his roommate has a machine that beeps a lot. He's complained that he doesn't get a decent sleep at night.
- For the kids and I, for God's continued provision. (We have been so blessed, and it's been such a lesson in trust)
- That his kidney function keeps picking up - the swollen feet thing, I'm sure, is getting old.