10/31/08 – Never a Dull Moment

Well, there has been a lot going on with the 'Evans Clan' in the last month, and most of it has nothing to do with me. As some of you know, my Dad went in for abdominal surgery on September 11^th (maybe that should have been the clue). Unfortunately the 5-7 day hospital stay has turned into over 7 weeks. I won't bore all of you with the many issues, but suffice to say, just about whatever could go wrong, did. Some of the details were; wounds not healing, leaks in the intestine, drains having to be surgically inserted, clots in the lung and leg, having to be intubated and placed on a breathing machine, and having a tracheostomy put in. So, after 4 weeks on a surgical floor, then 3 weeks in ICU, today he has finally moved to an Acute Care facility. It is kind of a rehabilitation facility for people that still have some major medical issues. The goal is to wean him off of the tracheostomy and get some of his strength back. The estimate is that he will be there 2-4 weeks and then he should be able to come home. You can imagine how weak you would be if you had to spend 7 weeks lying in a hospital bed. I know that he is going to get through this as I have never seen a more determined individual, and he knows that it is going to be a long road, but we are finally starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. He has a great support system, and the fact that my sister and her partner, Cherese, live up there has made this much easier to manage. My dad's wife Lois, has been a real trooper through all of this. Donna and I have made two trips up there so far, and we are going back up next week for a week. At various times, all of our four kids (Matt doesn't really count since he now lives up there) made the trip to Seattle during this ordeal, and were all able to visit my Dad when he was alert.

All of my issues right now seem to be minor compared to what has been going on with my Dad, but I have had some things happen. On Wednesday, the 29^th, I went down to La Jolla for my monthly IVIG (immunoglobulin) infusion, and of course they did the standard 8 vile blood test. I got most of the results back that day and my numbers are interesting. My white count is down to 2.9 from 6.9 (normal is 4-10), so now I am a little under normal, the first time that has ever happened, but not that uncommon. My hemoglobin has climbed up to 14.7 which is well in normal range, and a sign that my autoimmune anemia is on the run. My platelets are well in the normal range, but there are a couple of numbers that are not so good. My Absolute Neutrophil Count (a portion of what makes up the white count) is low, and my Absolute Lymphocyte count is high, which probably means that there is still CLL activity in the bone marrow. Now none of this has been evaluated by the doctor, so I am partially speculating here. On November 12^th I will be having another bone marrow biopsy which will be able to accurately tell what the activity is in the bone marrow. However, I won't get the results of that until two weeks later. I am also guessing that I will need another round of treatment (of a different kind). After talking to my case manager on Wednesday, she indicated that there is no immediate rush for any of this and an additional treatment could wait until after the first of the year.

Another item of interest is that I have been noticing that my right eye vision has become somewhat cloudy over the last several months. Today I went to the eye doctor and she confirmed that I have a cataract in my right eye, and will probably have to have cataract surgery in the future. It is not enough to make me not be able to see (I still have one good eye), but it is just a little blurry if I close my good eye. It is more than likely that the steroids that I have been taking accelerated the creation of the cataract that was slightly there last August. So just another wonderful side effect.

Did anyone catch the wretchedly bad misspelling (on purpose, but I thought it funny).

Terry