Happy Birthday Update

Trish's first present for her birthday was a continuing drop in her liver function enzymes today. Dr. Meade says that is great news, but two days does not a trend make....if it continues through Monday he will be very happy.

Trish is scheduled to get her first dose of growth factor today to help her counts come back faster.

She was also scolded by the doctors today. Her weight is down to 74.9 pounds (which is actually up from the day before - so maybe we are starting a good trend there too). Last night I bought her a bottle of green tabasco to spike her foods. I have rice and beans for her and as a birthday treat we ordered a Marburg meal. Marburg is the exclusive wing of the hospital where all the rich folks stay. They have a private kitchen staff and there food is supposed to be better. Dr. Meade says he doesn't know that it will be better, but he is sure it will be more expensive.....

After we have our Marburg lunch, I will head out to pick up a Carvel ice cream cake. Everyone (here and at home) is suggesting that Trish eat the whole cake herself and I only wish she would. I promised her because of the Marburg meal and cake and stuff, I wouldn't ply her with Carnation Instant breakfasts between meals like in previous days.

I have been spiking her Carnation instant breakfasts with whole milk, Health shakes (300 calories), and Scandi Shakes (600 calories)....Carnation Instant Breakfasts only have about 200 calories on their own. She usually drinks about half of it twice a day.

Trish is not quite the lap queen this time. We try to walk three times a day, but now she is usually only able to make it around the nurses station 2-3 times. She used to walk on her own 20 laps at a time. Now I walk closely behind her either holding her or walking with my arm nervously behind her to catch her if she gets to weak. While she still is the hygiene queen, she is taking sponge baths instead of showers every morning. Her skin is still pretty sore and most done peeling, but some areas dry out and flake off. After the sponge bath we slather on skin creams to keep her skin moist. We usually sponge bath after the rounds, but this morning we did it before rounds and I gave Trish her cat pants -- I figured Dr. Meade would get a kick out of it after yesterdays comments. But Trish forgot to tease him about it and he didn't look at her skin today. So, no reward for my efforts on that front.

Trish remains in fairly good spirits, thanks to your renewed efforts, please continue them. While she is expecting a lot of calls today, please don't hesitate to be one of them.

She hasn't gotten out of bed yet and we usually would have tried a walk by now. Her Hematacrit (red cell level) is around 20 today - which is very low and conributing to her being very tired. We are waiting till after she gets her red cells to walk today. They should be transfusing her soon.

The hospital just brought her a birthday cake! That would surely help her if she ate cake multiple times today.