"I Feel Like I've Turned a Corner"

Dear friends,
With extremely grateful hearts we thank all those of you whose fasted on Karri's behalf yesterday. It was a very hard day for her - possibly one of her worst days since re-entering the hospital and she had a great deal of pain and nausea. As a result she was on a lot of medication and seemed somewhat discouraged at being caught in this same cycle yet again. Late in the day, however, she had another procedure to tap the abdominal fluid, or "ascites," as we've learned it is called. As it builds up it puts pressure on her internal organs, causing difficulty in breathing, discomfort, nausea, and back pain. She was able to talk with Jerry and the kids for a few minutes after they removed another 3 liters of liquid, and she even made a joke or two. This morning she was still in great pain, but the nausea had subsided and she was steadily more alert and interactive as the day progressed. She worked for a bit on a crossword puzzle with Myrth, surprised one of her doctors with a joke, and ate a few small bites several times throughout the day. (Up 'til now she has only been able to eat minuscule amounts of liquid food at most once a day.) In the mid-afternoon she told Myrth she felt like perhaps she had turned a corner, and our observations confirm this. We will continue to hope that each day brings additional recovery, but we have learned that good days can be followed by bad days, and that the ascites will continue to overflow her vascular system and cause distension, swelling, and severe discomfort for some time to come.

However, the medical team has agreed that if her signs of infection continue to abate she can come home on Friday for the weekend and begin chemotherapy as an outpatient early next week. Who knew we'd be so thrilled with this possibility, but after all that she has been through, chemo sounds like a step up! She will come home with a couple of medical attachments for the continued healing of her incision wounds, and for the administration of her IV nutrition. Claude, Myrth, Kim and Jerry have all been trained in how to properly administer this and we will have home care nurses checking up on her. The medical team hope and believe that chemo will bring relief to her nausea through severely curtailing the ability of the cancer cells to produce the 'ascites' as well aiding her body to recover its ability to properly absorb some of the excess fluid. Our prayers at this point are that she will be able to begin chemo as currently scheduled and that it will bring the hoped for results.