Day 48

The kids made gingerbread houses. As I understand it, the boys' house collapsed. Funny, how the engineers of the group couldn't execute something magnificent. Karly and Zach's house is on the right. Konner, Kassidy, and Anna's house is on the left. Aunt Joanne and Grandma made spaghetti dinner last night. It is such a blessing to have Grandma around. She takes care of the food, laundry, and cares for the kids. She is my mommy, so she's a comfort also. Alan and Joanne took Konner back to Debbie's for two nights. They are all doing "horse". Konner has finally gotten comfortable with a horse called "Midnight". They will back up here tomorrow.

Kelsey was bleeding from several areas today, the blood bank didn't have any more platelets for her, so doing the lumbar puncture was postponed. She was given benadryl a couple times today which didn't allow for good food consumption; it made her tired. Her stomach has been hurting also. We have been fighting with the lower body temp since this afternoon. When her temp drops so does her mental abilities and reasoning. For the last several days the doctors have been watching her transplant numbers drop without much of a boost from anything. They knew that when they added the toxic drug to treat the brain virus this would most likely happen. It has been such a touchy deal to treat her. This is the drug that was started on the Monday before there wasn't much hope given by the doctors on Tuesday. They believe that since we saw an early response from it, it was the combination that has been improving her brain virus. The hope is that once this drug is removed, the first drug will continue to treat the virus, the lymphocytes and other transplant issues will be able to recover. This is critical for two reasons: there are no more cells available to add to her system that would match & if she doesn't continue to improve on just the one viral drug, they would add the other back and this wouldn't be good. It would really get complicated. The first virus-treating drug has yucky effects also, but they are better yucky than the other one. Need more prayers, more healing, more Lord. She is fighting. She is strong. For being in bed for 3 weeks, she is doing well with her legs and arms. Sometimes it gets fuzzy just knowing what to think. Did you all follow all of that? It is a conscious choice to live only in the day. I pray for you to be able to live fully in His presence each day. Kelsey still mostly knows where she is and still says that she wouldn't be any other place(if you have to be sick). She still knows that this place has given her a chance for the life she dreams of. Rejoice and be glad in it(all of it)!
Love,
Mom