This is so sad,

Dear Family and Friends,
How can I begin to convey this day to you for Nan. We slept soundly from 4:30 to 8:30 this morning and when I heard Nan move then I climbed out from under my blanket. We took pills. She was somewhat alert but had been having some mental wanderings during the night. Nan is very low, her chest moves rapidly with short breathing, her eyes look different. Word came from two sources that the latest, last Wednesday, blood cultures grew nothing indicating no infection. Yet Nan's behavior is the same as when she has had blood infection several times over the past few months.
Terry came this afternoon and drew blood for our weekly normal assessment. Her reading of nan's condition was pretty grim, indicating that we could lose Nan at any time now. Early this evening I was rubbing Nan's knee and decided to change the fistula bandage, as I began to open it up I found it was full of blood, a small abrasion at the upper end of the incision wound that has healed and located right next to the tumor had opened up into a bleeding area. When I took off the bandages the blood flowed freely. Marilyn came and repacked the entire area with gauze, layer and layer and then covered it with abd pad and taped it in place. That was several hours ago and we have been watching it to see if the blood flow has been curtailed. We are getting a little bit of leakage below the bandage and we are not sure whether the bleeding has mostly stopped or not. So we have been waffling, do we call 911 and have her transported to the hospital or not. So far I've not been willing to begin that process which will be brutal to her as she is shuffled from bed to bed and waits for hours for care. However if the flow continues we may still have to call 911 and go through the process. Marilyn just came in to tell me that the wound is continuing to ooze blood and the flow has not been stopped. How I wish it would stop bleeding, Nan has had a tough impossible day already and I'm not sure what to do. I also know how confusing Nan's condition is to those in the ER where they try to solve everything which in Nan's case they can't do. We do not feel we can just take her in the car because she cannot stand up anymore and moving her under these conditions would be very dangerous to her and foolish.
Nikki and Keanna came this evening to visit Nan and it was so precious to see Nikki helping her mom sip water and just being with her.
I have talked to the family about Nan's current condition and now the bleeding just compounds our concerns more. One unfortunate thing is that if we use 911 they will only transport her to the nearest hospital which in this case is Antioch, our least favorite place for care. Some things are not really up to us though.
Now its hours later. We have talked to the doctor and we are trying to just control the bleeding as much as possible tonight and at 8 am Terry, our nurse, will call the doctor to get some special medical glue that can patch up leaking spots like Nan has. However we now have a grave new concern. When we emptied the colostomy bag a few minutes ago both Marilyn and I are pretty sure that what we saw as we emptied the beeker into the toilet was blood, large amounts of it. I had thought that was what I saw the other day when I emptied the colostomy. We could easily be wrong. Todays blood work becomes even more important as I would not be surprised to see a huge drop in the hemoglobin due to this blood loss and the possible blood loss in the colostomy. I would not be surprised at all if Nan is in the hospital by tomorrow at some point. In many ways she is in God's hands. I will get up every couple hours tonight to check to see how much blood is seeping out. We can only hope and pray that she does not lose too much tonight. Nan is in severe danger from several fronts right now but she is not aware of the blood that is leaking out tonight.
Pam has been here for several hours and just left. She held Nan's hand, rubbed her feet and let her know of her love once again. Pam has been a loyal and caring friend for many years and her visit tonight in spite of a very full day today and an even fuller schedule tomorrow is vintage Pam. I had planned to travel for several hours to do an appraisal tomorrow. I am now going to have to reschedule as I don't dare be out of town with Nan is this condition.
Nan was very lucid this evening with Nikki, Pam and Marilyn and I but you could see a look of concern in her precious eyes.
The title of tonights blog is words that Nikki spoke as we walked out to her car this evening and they really sum it all up. Why Nan should be struck with this horrid disease is beyond understanding. It is so sad indeed.
I know that many of you have experienced times like this in your lives, the suffering of a precious loved one, the grief at not being able to help or restore, the terrible weight of defeat.
I want to pay tribute to our children, Jason and Nikki who have given us nothing but joy, have been totally loyal to their mom and have demonstrated real genuine love to us both. I thank God for their love, their stability, their thoughtfulness over and over again. I'm thankful that God granted us the honor of having such outstanding people as our children.
You can tell our hearts are breaking tonight, Mom is getting hit so hard from so many different directions right now and its almost impossible to stand.
Please pray when you read this, pray that God will do what is right for Nan, we know He can do miracles and we know He knows what is best. I seek His arms of love around her holding her close.
Its hard to let you go tonight, you are so precious to us all.

love
nan and marilyn and tim