May 13th

Today was actually a pretty good day overall! She spent the morning with Dad - they had breakfast in the cafeteria. I arrived around 12 for the "lunch shift" and hung out until 2pm when Grammy Pat arrived to spend the afternoon with her. Grammy Pat kindly bought Christine and her friend Laura dinner too! Christine says that the three of them had a good time chatting and that Laura and Grammy Pat really seemed to hit it off. Christine is now with Mom, ready for bed and wearing her new pink jonny, courtesy of Grandpa George and Linda! She really likes wearing these, and was excited when two new pink ones arrived in the mail today. She wanted to be sure that I gave a specific shout out to Grandpa and Linda for the johnnys! 

Medically, Christine is another 5mg down on the steroids, at 50mg now. They were going down 5mg every three days, but because of swelling and the risk of Cushings they are now decreasing 5mg every two days. The swelling in Christine's ankles and feet is essentially gone, which is really good. Christine unfortunately has noticed a few new sores on her lips (they haven't erupted through the skin so not as bad as last time) and a few in her mouth - we really hope that those don't flare up into something worse.   Her one knee is still very swollen and she can't bend it on her own or have anyone bend it for her, so they actually ordered an MRI today to have it checked out. She is probably having this done as I type, because they apparently can happen at all times of the night 'd I heard at 10:45 that she'd be getting it done soon. 

Also, a new set of pain docs came by today and actually told Christine she was on a lot of morphine and they were concerned that it no longer seemed to be able to mange her pain. They also said while pain meds themselves don't lower O2 in the blood, they do lower your respiration rate which in turn lowers your O2 levels. Really? We have to get that technical with our questioning? Anyway, they switched her fast acting morphine to dilaudid, a synthetic morphine. The advantage of this is that it is a new pain medication her body won't be "used to", and so she can take significantly lower doses. To our excitement, it has worked better to manage her pain today and her O2 sats have been between 93 and 96 without extra oxygen! 

There has been lots of new talk of discharge today. First we heard Friday or Saturday, but Christine just told me that Wednesday is now being s. While she still has a lot of apprehension about finally going home, I think she is much more ready at this point. Oh, related to this she wanted me to tell you all that she is walking with just the aid of arm crutches now (the ones with cuffs on your arms)! She actually went for several walks today, with the help of the crutches and a knee brace.