Thursday

This morning we received encouraging news from the most recent blood draw. Bonnie is now down to 100 WBC and only 1% of those are the Blast (leukemia) cells – down from 12% yesterday. The Neutrophils held firm at 12%. Bonnie started the last bag of chemo this afternoon for her initial treatment. The bag should run dry by 3:00 tomorrow afternoon. It has been such an answer to prayer that she has had no nausea or pain with the treatment. She really looks great (except for the fashionless hospital gown, the face mask and the IV tree that is her walking partner.

Her platelets continue to drop below where the physicians want them so she received another unit of platelets earlier today. It’s amazing how easily she bruises and how intense the bruise appears with a low level of platelets. The hemoglobin has remained constant over the past several days.

They will continue to do blood draws over the extended weekend and are planning the bone marrow biopsy on Tuesday. The prayer is that the marrow is clear of any of the Blast cells where they are initially produced. Assuming it’s clear, Bonnie will start the arm injections that promote the rapid growth of the good WBC. How long this treatment is depends on how well the accelerated growth of good WBC responds to the medication Neupogen, which is a protein that stimulates the growth of the WBC. I may have mentioned this in an earlier post, but the doctor estimates this process to take 10 to 20 days. Once her levels reach a certain point, she will be discharged after the surgical implant of a permanent port. Her first stay at home will be one to two weeks and then she returns for the first of three additional chemo treatments.

Bonnie’s spirit has been incredible and the result of so many prayers. The physicians have told her that she will lose her hair, eyebrows and eyelashes…..my guess is that she probably won’t have the nuisance of shaving her legs for a while either…..all this is suppose to start about 10 days after the commencement of the chemo….so probably early next week. Other than repeating the facts that I just mentioned to others, the only thing Bonnie has expressed about it is that we will have to have a hair cutting party and that I should go out and shop for some hats. I found some hats yesterday and she was upbeat the entire time I showed her what I found and even tried one on to ask how it looked. She has shed a lot of tears, but not on this and not on her condition or unknown outcomes.

The tears have centered on the outpouring of love from so many and on God’s faithfulness. She is sitting next to me right now listening to some praise songs on her MP3 player and the words are so encouraging and touching ….well needless to say she asked me to go get a box of tissue!

One thing I failed to mention yesterday, our doctors determined that Bonnie could have a two hour leave of absence on Saturday to attend part of Cassandra’s commencement....to hear Cassandra’s speech and see her receive her diploma. Bonnie labored over whether it is wise to expose herself to possible infection, even though she would be masked. To help her make a decision, I shared with her the surprise of a possible video connection so she could view it here at Sparrow. That helped her to decide quickly to stay put. Today we tested it out and it was seamless. She was able to see the video and hear the audio simultaneously over the internet. I was on my cell phone speaking with a technician at South Church (the location of the commencement) while the video was running on my laptop. He could zoom in and the picture was very clear and when he spoke into the microphone the audio was also clear. The hospital staff have been great as well. They are letting us use their conference room on Bonnie’s floor that has a computer projector and screen with wall speakers. I hooked up my computer to it and the enhancement on the video/audio in a larger format is incredible. For Bonnie it will be the next best thing to being there. This is truly a blessing and answer to prayer.

I know we have concluded each post with similar comments, but thank you again for caring so much about our family. Please continue to pray. Being on the receiving end of so many people lifting our situation up to a holy God is not being taken lightly. We believe God has the power to heal Bonnie if He so chooses to do so, but we trust that his perfect will is what’s best for us.
Have a blessed evening (or day depending on when you view this!)