The Long Weekend

It turned out pretty well that I took Thursday and Friday off as these were days for sitting in the hospital. As predicted, there were some tough moments, but also some bright spots. The single hardest thing for Rosina has been a rash on her skin that is just painful, swelling her wrists and ankles and making it extremely difficult to get out of the bed. I mean painful just to get her feet on the floor, and a few times having to give up on that. She has been very strong during all this. I don't mean "I'll show 'em", she's just had a composed, practical strength. The kind of strength that lets you pick up a car when your kid's trapped under it. Although sometimes, you just gotta ask for the meds, go to sleep and ride it out. Today, Sunday, she was doing much better, but it's not all gone.

Here's her IV rack with Maxipime, Vanconycin, 0.9 Sodium Chloride Solution, (that mixes with a unit of) Whole Blood, and then more hydration with the bigger bag of Sodium Chloride Solution. When the blood was finished, they hooked up a unit of Platelets. Your blood is made up of red cells, white cells and platelets (a little 9th grade bio). The red cells carry oxygen, and not enough makes you anemic (measured by your hemoglobin count); white cells are your immune system, fighting bacteria etc.; and platelets clot your blood so it doesn't spill out all over the place. If you donate platelets they draw your blood, spin out the platelets in a centrifuge and then return the blood to your body. A bag of just platelets is yellow. Like a frozen magarita. She can feel the difference when she has a transfusion. She was hoping one of the first ones was from our friend Sandra, a Brazilian "Bahiana" (from Bahia) which promises heat and some crazy energy. Especially during Canival. They don't list the donor's name on the blood, but I can tell you that today's blood came from number W0505 07 000812. When you give blood, they give you a number, so if you happen to know that this is yours, contact us for your free prize!

Rosina wasn't eating much for the last few days, mainly just chicken soup, but for some reason she latched onto the idea of a roasted chicken, and today, our friend Amy brought one in. A whole chicken. Rosina just started eating it right there out of the Pyrex dish. That's it sitting in front of her in the picture to the left. That was good. We followed that up with a successful video chat with our friend Zélia in Rio de Janeiro which was a big success and a great boost. It's pretty amazing you can do that - and for free.
Our nephew Dan has been here for a few days and that's been great. His main job has been to keep Willie entertained, or maybe I should say con-tained. They went with Jake to ride roller coasters at Magic Mountain. Nina leaves tomorrow for three weeks at camp, and then after that, she's off to Ireland, Spain and Italy with her friends. She'll be home for two days in the middle. I don't think I ever went on a trip like that until I had a job. And then I couldn't go because I had a job.
From this point, it's about continuing the recuperation. Tuesday, she'll have another bone marrow biopsy to see how it's going with the "blast" cells in the bone marrow. You want to see as little as possible, preferably none.
I want everyone to know that my previous comment about soft sheets got more of a response than any other thing mentioned here, so I want follow up and let you know that the sheet problem has been solved. Thank you all for the kind words, emails, posts, calls, pictures, food, advice on sheets, driving and babysitting. xo ph
Joshua Tree xmas 2006