Tuesday, March 26, 2013

A passing era

My sister reminded me today that not all of you are friends with me on fb, so I should probably fill those of you in that category in on recent events.
Last week, Glenn's 95 year old mother, Martha, passed away after living with Alzheimer's disease for about 10 or so years. Her body just gave up. We were so glad for her to enter her rest, although on this side of it, we are missing her a lot, all of us. We had many wonderful years with her, since she lived with us for 23 years, all the years of our kids' growing up. We moved in together when Andy was 8 months old, she moved with us wherever we moved, and she went into a nursing home the summer that Anne-Marie graduated from high school. The kids' lives are so much more enriched for having their grandma live with them and help them grow up. She was one of the three constants in their lives, and they are missing her now as much as Glenn and I are. For Glenn, Mom is irreplaceable. For me, she made it possible to be able to do things that without her I couldn't have. We couldn't discuss our  finances in her presence because if we did, she would offer us all the money she had. As I eluded to at her funeral, she was without a doubt "The Wind Beneath My Wings", in my shadow making me look good. For the kids growing up, they loved to go into Grandma's room with her, shut the door and do whatever grandmas and grandkids do together. I was a little jealous of the relationship she had with them.When the Grandma they knew faded away, it was too hard for them to go visit her and see her not being herself. It's still hard for us to talk about her in the past tense. But so happy for her that she has laid down this weary life of hers, having fought the battle and won.

As far as Glenn's stuff: the oncologist here said he can't figure out why Glenn's platelets are staying down. He doesn't fit the typical reasons for platelets to be low. So he said he has to just shrug his shoulders and say, "I don't know." I guess we just wait and see if anything happens. I punched him in the arm the other day and he didn't bleed or get a bruise, so that's a good sign. (He deserved that punch, by the way.) The pulmonologist in G'ville said the nodules that were on Glenn's lungs are not there anymore, and we don't have to see him again unless something else comes up. One up for God! And since we won't see the oncologist in G'ville for several more weeks, there is nothing to report there. As  far as the kidneys and dialysis, it's going well, although lately his legs have been swelling, and he may have to add a short dialysis once during the day. And the nephrologist changed one of the blood pressure meds, and started Glenn on another one, a fifth one. His bp is ok,  but not where the Dr. would like to see it. All in all, he is doing well enough that I let him drive places by himself.  (Yes, I get the reigns!)
So now you are all updated on Glenn's stuff.

















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Saturday, March 2, 2013

Just rolling along

Since the last entry, Glenn has been doing well. He had some moles shaved off and biopsied and one was basal cell so that one was cut out. He goes Monday for the six stitches to be removed. He was such a brave boy, I took him for ice cream again.
Dialysis is going well. His labs stay in normal ranges. It has become pretty routine for him now to get set up on the "cycler", which is the machine that does the exchanges for him for 9 hours during the night.  He sleeps well with that going on with hardly any discomfort. It has made planning activities during the day so much easier than when he was doing it manually 4 times during the day. He can always go back to that at times if we want to go somewhere overnight and don't want to take the cycler with us.
At his 6 week check up in G'ville this week, all his blood work had good results. Even the Kappa Light Chain, the disease in his blood, had gone down some. The Dr. was pleased with  how Glenn is doing. He said we could make the next appointment for 3 months, but we miss the crew there so he said we could make it for 10 weeks. We still don't have an answer to why his platelets stay so low, but the blood cancer group here in town is doing the follow up on that. I guess if it's not cancer, the Dr. in G'ville doesn't deal with it.
We had three Dr. appointments last week, so I was thinking we had a clear week next week, but it turns out he has 4 appointments next week. They are all pretty much follow ups: Monday the stitches from the mole under his nose come out, Wednesday he goes to the local blood cancer Dr.,  and he gets labs done at the renal clinic, and Thursday he has an appointment with the pulmonologist in G'ville to check the nodules that showed up on his lungs when he was being worked up for the stem cell transplant. He will have to have those checked I think every six months to make sure they aren't changing. 
So, prayfully all is stable for a while, barring anything rogue happening, (like that TIA a few weeks ago).