Bear in Heber

Blaine spent Monday night through Friday afternoon in the hospital. He spiked that fever, at first refused to go in (is anyone surprised?), went in growling, then spiked a good, high fever in-patient. He stopped growling. His blood counts were shot. He has required two units of whole blood and three units of platelets since Tuesday. His white counts were about as low as they can get without reading 0.0. His reds were up a little bit yesterday, as were his platelets. His whites only came up marginally, but were none-the-less up a hair. He was treated with high-dose IV antibiotics, and will continue that at home for the next week. His fevers are gone, but he is very neutrapenic, and therefore will stay home except to get his blood checked, until his counts recover. He had a bacterial infection in one of his ports. This came because his of the low white counts, which happens after high-dose chemo which he has recently had.

His face and mouth are exceedingly sore from radiation. He has been in a great deal of pain and could use your prayers. Needless to say, he is NOT getting on an airplane today. The plan is for us to fly out the 24th. Pray that we can! Or that the right things will happen. It will be a joy to see everyone we can, but what we can do is a big question mark right now. I will do what he needs, and that's it. If we can make it to NH, we will. If not, it's for very good reason. Remember we love you, and are DYING to see you, but can only do what health will allow.

We are so very grateful for all of you who have prayed and fasted for us, especially Blaine, and we gain great strength from it. We really do, it is no imagined thing. It is very real. We also thank all of you who send their love through comments on this blog. It also lifts us. We check almost daily to see what people say. We know we don't communicate back as well as we would like, and pray that you will understand. We hardly see or talk to anyone out west who isn't very close either! Thank you. We love you, and pray you will all have your needs met, and joy and laughter in every day.

Speaking of joy, congratulations to our very good friends, the Halley-Streeter family on the arrival of their new bundle of joy, Sarah! She looks beautiful. Take care.
Marleigh