A great day....

I talked to mom yesterday and Kara had a great day yesterday! She got a blood transfusion which seemed to give her a little more energy. She was able to get out of bed and walk some laps around the floor. Her mouth is still sore and she's not able to eat solids yet but she is making progress in the right direction!

Kara - update

Looks like mom has updated my sister's blog if you'd like to check it out... "Kara's Blog" in my blog list. She's still in the rough patch but the docs say she is right on track with her symptoms and labs.

The kids and I have an unexpected day at home today. We got about 2 inches of snow last night and of course the kids were thrilled to not have to go to school today. Harrison has been out in it half the day and Madison, Carter, and I have stayed in trying to stay warm! We are not much for cold weather...hahahahah. I have no pics since it's too darn cold to go out there!

Kara update

Sorry for the lack of updates......

Kara is doing ok. She's in the rough part right now (which was expected). She's on IV nutrition to give her digestive system a break. She also spiked a fever a couple of days ago but they've got her on IV antibiotics taking care of any infection she might have. They are keeping a close eye on her during the time that it takes for my cells to start working. It will probably be another week or two before she starts feeling any better.

Keep the prayers coming!

Infusion successful!

The infusion was a success today! They ran them in over 20 or 30 minutes and it was done! There were no side effects with the infusion so it was a breeze. Her counts will continue to drop until my cells kick in and do their thing which will be about 2weeks from now. The docs will continue to monitor her condition over the next couple of weeks to stay ahead of GVHD. Hopefully she'll start feeling better soon. Here are some pics:

Dr. Jagasia (transplant doc), Ann the NP, her nurse and the Hem/Onc fellow (whose name escapes me)

Hanging the stem cells

Going in!

Kara and Naomi (who stayed with her during the infusion)

My "Sisters By Heart" angels that Kara got for me

This is the poster that John and the kids made for me to welcome me home (and the house was clean too!)



I will post daily updates about Kara's progress so stay tuned! :)

Woohoo!

I just got a call from the lab. They collected 6.9 million cells and they only needed 4 million! YAY!! The prayers definitely worked! :)

They will infuse them into Kara sometime between 11:00 and 1:00 tomorrow!

My part is done....I will stay here in Nashville until after they do the infusion. It should only take 30 minutes or so. I'll head back to Memphis when that is done. It will probably take me a week to get my house and kids back in order...hahahhhaa.

I will update after the transplant tomorrow!

Collection day

Well the collection went fine today! I got there about 8:30 this morning for my last Neupogen shot. About an hour after that I had to fill out some more paperwork and then I was hooked up to the apheresis machine. Needles don't normally bother me but when I saw the size of these puppies, I got a little nervous. (For those of you that work in medicine/nursing it was a 17 guage needle.) The needles hurt quite a bit going in but I was a big girl. :) It wasn't too long before I started getting really cold. They said this would happen since they are pulling warm blood out of the body and putting it back in several degrees cooler. So they brought me a bunch of warm blankets and covered me up. It was important for me to stay warm because when you get cold it causes your veins to constrict. I also had some tingling in my hands and lips from the anti-coagulant (so my blood wouldn't clot). I've had pretty bad body aches and a headache for the past few days and the painkiller I took last night was wearing off so they gave me another. The collection was a long 3 1/2 hours...I was so glad when I finally got those needles out of my arms. They were starting to cramp from being in the same position for so long. We are waiting to hear from the lab if they collected enough...if not, we'll do it all again tomorrow! The nurses were super nice and they all gave me a hug when I was done.

Getting last Neupogen shot

Getting warmed up with blankets

The apheresis machine

Getting really cold now!

Stem Cells!

All hooked up (pardon the hair!)

The lovely apheresis nurses: Fran, Carol, and Carol

Today was Kara's rest day. She had her final dose of chemo yesterday. She was a little nauseous but tolerated it well. She is doing well today...just resting up for tomorrow!

Pain management team

A little more decorating

Blood sisters!

So far so good.....

Nothing too exciting going on here today (which is a good thing, ha!) Kara is tolerating the chemo well. She is having some nausea but it is being managed with medicines. I woke up with quite a bit of bone pain in my hips and back and I've had a killer headache since Thursday. I guess that means my bone marrow is working hard and making some stem cells! My mom had to go home to take care of Skylar so it is just me and Kara. We are catching up on some movies and just hanging out. I am making her get out of bed every day to walk laps around the floor so we can get some blood moving! They will collect my cells on Monday and she'll get them on Wednesday so that will be the big day!

I'll update more later!

Not much to report.....

Kara started her chemo yesterday which she will get over the next few days. She has updated her blog with all the details on that so feel free to jump over there for a more "technical" review. I stayed over at the apartment last night to see if I could get a good night's sleep since I didn't sleep very well the night before. I was all ready to go back over there and crank up the heat since I froze to death all day yesterday! The chemo makes her hot so she had the A/C cranked up. So anyway, I crank up the heat to 75 and it never kicks on! I was thinking that it might take a while for it to warm up but it never did! I still froze to death! I woke up this morning and it was 64 degrees (and yes folks, that is COLD for me!) So mom went over there this morning to take a nap and check on the heat while I went to my clinic appointment. She got it to work so apparently I don't know how to operate a thermostat! My clinic appointment was uneventful, just had another half gallon of blood drawn (seemed like it anyway!) and I had to get a pregnancy test (that I am happy to report was NEG) before I start the Neupogen. I got the shot in my belly which wasn't too bad (even though I've never had a shot there before!) One down and four to go!

Today we've just been hanging out in the room snacking (thanks Amy S. for the fabulous goody box...we have thoroghly enjoyed it so far!), watching tv, and playing on the computer. We had a visit from a lady from St. Paul Community Church here in Nashville. She was really nice and talked with us for a bit. I'm still trying to figure out my way around here...the clinic, the cafeteria, the apartment, the bathroom...ha!

I promised a few pictures today so I'll post what I've got so far!

Home for the next 30+ days

Kara's attachments..hahah

A little decoration

Dr. Karlekar, part of the pain mgt team

Clinic entrance where I'll be going for shots

The fountain in the middle of the clinic bldg

Settling in.....

Well I wasn't sure I'd be posting from the hospital room today! When we got here at 7:30 (as we were told), there was no computer record of Kara getting admitted today! Par for the course, I suppose! Admitting told us there may not be a room available on the transplant floor and she might have to go to another floor. I thought mom was going to come unglued when we told her over the phone (she was waiting with the car so we could unload our stuff.) Luckily everything worked out and we are now settled into a room on the transplant floor. We got some breakfast from McD's on the 2nd floor and I unpacked some of her stuff in the room...her digital picture frame, her Willow Tree angels, and some pictures of Skylar and the kitties. We met the doctor that's going to start her transplant and also one of the fellows on the team (who we liked better.) The transplant doc didn't have a very warm bedside manner but he rotates out of hospital duty this weekend. I'm going to walk over to the clinic in a bit and hopefully get my first Neupogen shot (though Kara's nurse said I probably wouldn't get it until tomorrow.)

I'll update more later. I'm going to go annoy some people with my camera so I'll have some pictures to post! :)

More waiting........

And I wait again......I got a call this morning from Kara as I was about to walk out the door. She said not to come today but be there early Wednesday morning. All of these schedule changes are about to drive me batty. The reason they gave today was that they cannot collect my cells on Sunday. Makes me wonder why they didn't think of that when they told me to be there today. So anyway.....more waiting.

Monday

Well, it looks like Monday is going to be the day pending any other roadblocks. Kara will not be getting any radiation and hopefully nothing will change between now and then!

And now I'm officially frustrated......

Well, it looks as if tomorrow might not be the day after all. The MRI that I mentioned in the previous entry never got overnighted in time so it is just now en route to Nashville with delivery by 3:00pm today. ARGH! So the transplant doc is now saying maybe we'll start on Monday. Double ARGH! These people apparently do not care that they've got people's lives on hold while we're supposed to be ready at any moment to drop everything and head to Nashville for 7 days. Kara is just sitting in the apartment to the tune of $2500 a month (that her insurance is thankfully paying for) waiting for them to get their stuff in order. It's just a CD being overnighted....could they not just email the file instead? Oh well, nobody asked me.

So anyway, I guess my rant is over. It's just frustrating not knowing what I'm doing. Will update when I know more!

So we probably have a new schedule.....

So Kara went to Vanderbilt this morning not knowing if she was going to stay a day or 3 months. She had her port taken out and met with Rad/Onc doc to see about the possibility of radiation. After getting her history, he is thinking she probably doesn't need it. Her Onc in Knoxville is going to overnight her original MRI when she was diagnosed to see exactly where the tumor was on her spine. If it didn't look like it penetrated into the spinal fluid, then no radiation. If it did, then she'll have 3 weeks of daily radiation. So I was told to PROBABLY come Friday....the Rad/Onc wants to look at the MRI before making a final decision. They are going to take a day off tomorrow and get their ducks in a row and I think she'll do pre-admit stuff on Thursday. Friday she'll start chemo. They were in the process of moving into a furnished apartment across the street from the hospital when I last talked to her. She'll be in Nashville for the duration.

So that's what I know so far! I'm not packing my bags until they tell me FOR SURE that I'm needed!

Change of plans

Well, it doesn't look like I'm heading to Nashville after all tomorrow. Kara's docs have decided they want to do full body radiation on her before the transplant. For now I am on "stand-by." They should know the final schedule tomorrow. I'm glad I hadn't packed yet! Will update as soon as I know something!

PET scan results......

Are clear!!!! No sign of cancer so all systems are go for the transplant next week! I'll be heading over there next Tuesday to start injections!

Thanks for all the prayers!