Wading through the antibiotics...not fun at all

Dear Family and Friends,
Its 10:23 and Nan is settling in with her TPN going full blast, antibiotic just finishing up and the need for sleep overtaking her. I'm sitting in the front of my office air conditioner enjoying cool breezes. I tend to sort of get tense and warm when I am working with the medical stuff for Nan, always have, I think its the fear of doing something wrong for her care.
Terry Hall came at 8 this morning and for the first time ever Nan was not downstairs in her recliner when Terry came in. She found Nan mostly asleep and not very verbal but the vitals very very good, good blood pressure for Nan, normal heart rate, no temperature. She was concerned about Nan's overall condition. She took blood so we will get results sometime tomorrow or the next day from the blood work.
We did our second hydration today around noon after doing both antibiotics and changing her dressings. John Muir Home Health Care was supposed to send a nurse today but after many phone calls we discovered that they messed up and did not assign anyone for today after all. The wound has been putting out a lot less fluid lately, probably because Nan's body is not so over hydrated like it was before. We could always hope that the wound was healing itself and would dry up.
We heard back from Dr. Morgan at Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. After reviewing the scans he said that there has been some grown, not a lot but some. He suggests that it might be time to switch to a different medicine as the Gleevec has failed to hold the tumors at bay. He says his first choice would be AMN107 which he thought was available at City of Hope but Dr. Chow at City of Hope says they do not have that trial there. So we need to pursue where the trial is and if Nan can qualify with the creatin levels she has. He also suggested another drug to try but says people on it don't like its effects very much.
Nan slept until about 1:30 today and then asked to come downstairs. we made the move down and she settled in her chair with a blanket. It was a warm afternoon and she watched TV, talked on the phone, read cards and sorted the mail but in general felt pretty rough all afternoon. She tried some greek olives but after an hour or so lost them along with the water she had been sipping. At 4 I had to leave for Stockton to do a job and she felt she would be fine right there in her chair. While I was out I found a burger king and brought home a icee but later in the evening she lost some of the icee too.
As I got home Nikki and Keanna were in the driveway with food and smiles. They brought joy to Nan as Keanna worked on her food and of course about a 100 other things too. Hide and Seek, play the piano, do puppet shows, you name it. She is enjoying being 4 very much. Nan smiles when Keanna is here, how could you not smile, she is such joy. Nikki got a shock. She was going off a clock we have near the wet bar, well we have not set that clock for the new time and Nikki thought it was 7 and it was 8, Keanna's bedtime. Oops, I changed the clock so no more mishaps like that. After Nikki left we watched a little TV, got a new colostomy bag for nan to put on, a new nightgown and then she decided she wanted to go up to bed. After she settled in upstairs she suddenly felt much better and relaxed. Nice way to end the day.
She is so looking forward to Jan's visit which will start Wednesday afternoon at 4 when I pick her up at the Oakland Airport. Tomorrow Barbara from our church in Tracy is coming to spend the afternoon with Nan and I'm heading out to do an appraisal that the nice owners have waited three weeks for me to do.
Please pray for Nan's GI tract to settle down and for much less nausea. She is so beat down with fatigue and nausea that she can hardly make it through the day, much less enjoy the day. Tomorrow morning is the last of one of the antibiotics and then there are only 4 days more of the other one. We hope, we pray that when the antibiotics end that infection does not rear its ugly head again, we also pray that she will begin to feel much better at that point as well.
Thank you for your prayers. We are happy to report that Troy's back surgery seems to have gone well in Texas this morning.
love

tim and nan