Nothin' happening but Christmas stuff

Like I told you, I would check in now and then to let you know there's nothing going on here. Glenn is doing well and enjoying the kids thinking he's Santa when he goes out in public with his bushy beard and his Santa hat on.We have been busy with Christmas events this month: Children's Christmas program at church, visited the winter land in St. Augustine, attended a beautiful Christmas concert and dinner some friends were a part of, a cookie exchange with some women from church, a dinner given for us residents at Cecil Pines, (our little community), "Thankmas" that our son and his girlfriend originated last year, a wonderful  and long anticipated wedding of the son of some friends, will be having Christmas dinner with Glenn's sisters and family this weekend, hoping to go caroling at a nursing home this week, and we'll be fixing breakfast Christmas morning for our kids and granddaughter when we will have our own family Christmas.
We don't go back to G'ville until after the first of the year. The nephrologist is checking Glenn's platelet count every week for a while to see what it's doing. So far it's still low but up a smidgen from the last time. And he gets shots every week to keep his red blood count up, (to fight off anemia). Dialysis is going well.
So Merry Christmas everyone and hopefully you won't hear from me until after Christmas.

A week of medical appointments, but no solutions

Today was the last of four medical appointments this week. Monday, Glenn had a procedure to move the tip of the catheter in his abdomen to see if that would alleviate the pain he has on the initial drain of dialysis each night. The Dr. said it was positioned well and wasn't blocked so he didn't see the need to move it. We did find out that morning that Glenn's platelet count is still very low, but not until after the procedure was done. I think if they had know about the low platelets they probably wouldn't have done the procedure because of the high risk of bleeding. Tuesday, we went to the renal clinic for Glenn's appointment with the nephrologist. He still is stumped as to why Glenn is having blood in his drainage bag each morning after finishing the nightly dialysis. He was not pleased that the Dr. who did the procedure Monday didn't move the tip of the catheter anyway because it is clearly causing pain and probably being sucked up against something in the peritoneum and possibly irritating and causing the bleeding. He suggested that Glenn see the Dr. who did the catheter placement to see if he has any idea why the bleeding. That visit was scheduled for today. Wednesday we went to G'ville for his appointment with the oncologist. He also is at a loss as to why the platelets stay low. The bone marrow is producing adequate amounts, so it must be a problem with them being used up somehow. It's a mystery for now. But Glenn doesn't need to go back to G'ville for another six weeks. Today we saw the surgeon who did the catheter placement. His opinion is that the reason for the bleeding is the low platelets and warned us that Glenn needs to be very careful not to fall or have any injury because he could bleed easily and too much. He seemed sure that the oncologist would come up with a reason for the low platelets. He said those guys always do eventually figure those things out, (the hematologists).

So that was our busy week with medical stuff. This weekend we are going to two Christmas parties: one is a fancy dinner with the old folks here where we live, and the other is what our family started last year called "Thankmas". Last year Andy and his girlfriend had a turkey they wanted to fix so they came up with that idea. We didn't get to go last year but we do this year. It will include our family and Andy's girlfriend's family. Always fun and entertaining.

We don't have any appointments soon so I won't be on here unless something comes up. I'll just check in once in a while to let you know that there's nothing happening. 

Working out the painful little detail.

Hello all, Hope your Thanksgiving was a good one. We had a full house with all three kids, significant others, and an extended family member. Love it!
Still pretty quiet here. Glenn's abdominal scan didn't answer the mystery about the blood in his drainage bag every day. One day there was a lot more than normal so we took it to the nurse at the clinic so she could see how much it was. Since then it has been what it normally has been. Tomorrow Glenn will have a simple procedure done at the hospital to move the tip of the catheter that is in the bottom of his abdomen that drains the fluid during his dialysis. With his initial drain each night it has been painful so hopefully repositioning it will alleviate the discomfort for him. We are also curious to see if it has any effect on the blood in the drainage. He some how acquired a "black eye" We were at breakfast Saturday with the kids, and Joey asked him what was wrong with his eye: it looked like there was a broken blood vessel on the inside corner of his eyelid, (but not the eye itself). Throughout the day it continued to spread across the eyelid like eyeliner would  look. This morning it was all the way across the eyelid and starting to move down a little below that. It doesn't hurt or itch, is not swollen. He doesn't even know it's there unless he looks in a mirror. We have NO CLUE how it got there. We haven't done anything about it because it doesn't bother him in any way and it isn't on the eyeball itself. We can have it looked at tomorrow when he is at the hospital.
This will be a week of medical appointments: he has the procedure tomorrow, nephrologist appt. Tuesday, and oncologist appt  Wednesday. Hopefully he will not have any problems arise from any of those. I'll report to you after all that takes place.

Closing in on Thanksgiving 2012

Hello everyone! We've had a quiet week, as you probably figured out by the silence on the blog. That hospital loaded Glenn up so well with blood and platelets that he has felt pretty good since then. He's been able to go to church and  wherever he wants to go. Not much else to report. He does have a scan scheduled for Monday to try to identify the source of the blood in the drainage bag every day when it is emptied. Of course, I will fill you in when we find out. Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I am looking forward to having all the kids here plus a couple other guests. It's been a long time since we've had a good gathering for Thanksgiving. Family for holidays makes me happy. :-)

4th and final update

Glenn was discharged this afternoon. His red blood count is staying stable, his platelets aren't, so we will follow up with the Dr. in G'ville ASAP. We already voted last week so we got that done. Thanks again for all your prayers and encouragement.  :-)

# 3 update

Glenn has had no more bleeding, and the blood levels are staying steady. And if everything stays that way he may be discharged tomorrow. He feels fine and is just hoping everything stays stable.

update # 2

Glenn is looking pinker today. He got a seventh unit of blood in the wee hours, plus a huge amount of platelets. The surgeon  ordered that in hopes that it would make the blood thicken up and stop bleeding. Today he still had some bleeding, but not as much. Still not slowed down enough to say it has stopped. At this point he isn't looking at surgery, we are going to continue to wait and see how it goes, or doesn't go, as the case may be.  ;-) The murse, (male nurse) had trouble getting blood out of Glenn's port to type for the unit of blood, and after a couple tries, he finally had to do a stick. All that, and getting the platelets, took all night, so we were up much of the night. So as you can imagine we are hoping for a better night of sleep tonight. Plus we get that extra hour, (thank you, God).
We have had several visitors this weekend which were so encouraging. Also got some calls from people checking on Glenn, (one at 6:30AM from a friend whose name will go unmentioned, but her name begins with P and ends with atti.) We feel so loved around the clock!  Glenn won't be going home tomorrow. We'll try for Monday.   tbc