I GUESS WE NEED SOME MORE!!!

I have come under some heat for failing to post, mostly from my adoring patient, who is taking most of my time these days. When I last wrote we had been admitted to the hospital with Pneumonia. Sharon was well cared for during the week by Greg and Stephanie while I took the youth of the ward to Lake Powell for a youth conference/super activity. This was a leap of faith for us all, but we felt good that the Lord would look after things for the week. Sharon had a couple of scary days, but began to feel better toward the end of the week although the x-rays still showed a lot of pneumonia. The first of this last week, she and I began to scheme as to how we could get her home and finally convinced all the doctors to let her come home on Wednesday night so she was able to have a great couple of days with Greg and his family before they had to return to Hawaii on Saturday. She did however come home on 6 liters of oxygen, 3 IV antibiotics and 4-6 respiratory treatments a day. Boy are my skills ever getting up there, soon I will be challenging the RN Boards for my license. We still struggle with the pneumonia although she seems to be feeling better. Our next little obstacle is her white count which continues to climb. On Thursday it was up to 37 which is not good. On Monday we are meeting with the Doctors to see where we might go from here. We have a real dilemma in that we probably need more aggressive chemotherapy, but with the pneumonia we're not sure if she can handle it health wise. We continue to look for some sort of miracle to take us to the next step.

We are continually grateful for your faith and prayers and need them more than ever. As for us, "WE CONTINUE TO MOVE FORWARD WITH FAITH."

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH ALREADY!!!

A very quick update for everyone is in order. We have completed our first week of Chemotherapy. The week went pretty much without incident until Friday. Friday we had a big day scheduled. We had to be at the infusion center at 8:00 in the morning to receive 2 units of blood which takes about 4 hours to deliver. We were then scheduled to receive Chemo at 1:00. While they were giving her her Chemo, they noticed that she had a couple of black eyes and so ran labs and immediately sent us back to the infusion center for platelets. We finished up the platelets about 5:30 and when they checked her temperature she was running a fever of about 100 degrees and so we had to wait and see if it went down or if it was a platelet reaction. By 6:30 it was down to 99 and so they called the Doctor and he OK ed us to go home if we would carefully monitor her temperature through the night and if it went up would go to the hospital. She did pretty good with it hovering between 99 and 100 but when she woke up at 6;30 the fever was up to 102.3. I called the Doctor and he sent us to the ER where they ran blood tests and took x-rays and determined that she had pneumonia in her left lung and so she is now back in Eisenhower receiving heavy doses of antibiotics to try and knock down the pneumonia. As of this evening she is doing pretty good. They are able to keep the fever in check and she continues to receive about 4 different antibiotics. Her spirits are good and she continues to fight. Hopefully we will be able to get things under control and get her back home before the end of the week.
We continue to believe that we will ultimately whip this stuff and be able to move forward with our lives. As always we appreciate all of your faith and prayers and "CONTINUE TO MOVE FORWARD WITH FAITH."

A NEW BEGINNING

Yesterday was a new beginning in our war against Leukemia. We began 5 days of Chemotherapy. Sharon is receiving a drug call Dacogen, which we received just before we were admitted for our first bone marrow transplant. She receives it as an outpatient basis at her doctors office here in the desert. It takes about an hour and a half to deliver. After the 5 days we will wait 3 weeks and then have another bone marrow test to see if the cancer is being slowed down or put into remission. We can then repeat that process two our three times and if we get below 20% Leukemic cells she will qualify for another transplant. There is also some possibility that the Dacogen could stimulate the donor cells that she has to become more active and create a GVH that could attack the cancer cells and get the original transplant back on track. That possibility is small but could happen. We go in twice a week for lab tests which usually trigger the need for platelets, blood or both. Yesterday we had to have platelets. Sharon's spirits remain high and she is confident that she can beat this stuff. She is really an example of how "Hendricksons never say can't." Greg and his family will be coming on Saturday for a short stay and a week at Aviara. Sharon plans on spending the week with them while I take the youth to Lake Powell for a week of Fun and Youth Conference. Shalaine and Cort will be joining me with the youth.
We continue to appreciate all of your kind notes and especially your faith and prayers and as always "WE CONTINUE TO MOVE FORWARD WITH FAITH."