Monday (Labor Day)

After a long week at Sparrow, Bonnie was discharged yesterday, which we were all thankful for. It was a week of highs and lows, but overall we saw several answers to prayer. First of all, the infection from the positive blood culture was identified as MRSA, which is a common staph infection found primarily in hospitals. Out of all the blood cultures they did on Bonnie, only one came back as positive and the staph is treated with a strong antibiotic, which Bonnie was already receiving due to the infection in her toe. Bonnie was discharged with a home IV so that she can continue to receive the antibiotic for 7 more days.

Bonnie’s white blood cell count started to slowly come back on Wednesday and was 1500yesterday. Her neutrophils were 750 of the 1500 so she is still neutropenic and has to wear a mask at home and cannot eat most fresh fruits and vegetables unless they are cooked thoroughly. As the WBC continue to increase, Bonnie’s strength also goes up, which is important in preparation for the pending bone marrow transplant.
In addition to being discharged yesterday, we had two other answers to prayer this past week. We received another call from Karmanos on Thursday informing us that the other two potential perfect matches that provided blood samples also came back as perfect matches, eight out of eight genes. So Bonnie now has three perfect matches, so there are options, should one of the three change their mind or have a scheduling issue. Now that there is a perfect match, Karmanos is preparing for final insurance approval, which will take a couple of weeks. Once this has been satisfied, then Karmanos will go back to the National Bone Marrow Registry to inform one of the three that they are a perfect match and ask them to have a comprehensive physical completed. Assuming the physical is satisfactory, a date for transplant will be set. Best case scenario would be six weeks from now. Please continue to pray that everything will fall into place.

The other answer to prayer was the results of my (Steve) PET Scan. It came back with good results with no more chemotherapy required. Tomorrow I go back to radiation planning and measurement to set new parameters for my radiation treatment which will most likely start next week and run for three weeks.

Thank you for all your prayers.

Steve & Bonnie