Friday
It’s hard to believe it’s only been three days since we arrived here at Sparrow. It was a long night for Bonnie. What started out great – we made arrangements to eliminate the 2:00 a.m. tech checking vital signs so the last visit by nurses and techs to the room would be midnight with no disturbances until 6:00 a.m. Unfortunately the IV pumps (4 of them hooked to Bonnie) periodically started beeping about every two hours due to various reasons. While I (Steve) would leave the room to hunt down our nurse, the continual beeping would wake Bonnie up. Needless to say, she was exhausted this morning and napped on and off until 11:00 and didn’t eat much. She did convince herself to go on a walk around the floor as the room is already closing in on her.

At noon, they started the first of two chemo medicines (this one is a single syringe injection for the next four days) and watched carefully to see if Bonnie had any symptoms of allergic reactions – thankfully there were none including nausea. After a half hour or so they commenced part two which runs 24 hours a day for seven days. The first chemo medicine will change her tears, sweat and other bodily fluids to an orange color.

Bonnie’s doctor stopped by this afternoon for an update on the cytogenetics study the lab was performing on the bone marrow biopsy. This is the determinate of which subcategory of the AML Bonnie’s Leukemia falls under. The synopsis was referred to as an Intermediate Group which isn’t the best case they had hoped for but also it isn’t the worst case. They like to see abnormalities in the cytogenetics (why? I’ll have to ask again…Biology was a long time ago and it wasn’t molecular biology). Bonnie’s situation has normal aspects to the leukemia. Bottom line – on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being a good synopsis and 1 a bad synopsis, the doctor placed Bonnie at a 5. I won’t get into all the statistical data that the cancer unit uses to assess what is considered a success. He said he is going back for further cytogenetic studies to refine the results, but it would only push it to either a 4 or a 6. Not what we hoped for, but the doctor says Bonnie is young and it pushes the percentages up.

Bonnie seemed to have more energy this afternoon and went for several walks around the floor. She is tired now and resting comfortably. Still no nausea or pain from the chemo which is good.

Again we are overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from so many people in so many places….as far as Arizona. Thank you for all your prayers and many offers to assist in this difficult time for our family.