Day 25: Day Off

Today was a day off of sorts for me. I got to sleep in, have meals with the kids, and even go to the beach with Trevor and his friend Dillon. I've never been to Rincon Point before, and it is amazing that as soon as we got there I saw someone I knew! Rincon is a dog-friendly beach, so we brought our dog along and let him run around and get all sandy and wet. It's bath time for him anyway. Tonight we had Dillon and Adam's friend, Garrett, over also and they watched some movies.

Krista didn't have so much excitement. Her red counts came down quite a bit (from 9.4 yesterday to 8.5 today), so she got a double transfusion. (White also went down a bit to 8.2 which is still perfectly normal; platelets are nice and stable at 66k.) She learned today that the incredible boost she had been experiencing may have been from residual Neupogen in the stem-cell donation. They give Neupogen to the donor to increase production of stem-cells, but it also is known to increase production of white blood cells. The pattern of rapid increase followed by a small reduction is expected when Neupogen is introduced.

Aside from the labs, she began experiencing more all-over skin pain recently. The new pain killer had been helping with that, but they replaced her constant IV dose with a sticky patch that's supposed to do the same thing. (The PCA, where she can give herself extra doses every so often, is still there for when it gets bad.) It sounds like they might need to adjust the patch some more, as dealing with this made her sleepy and unmotivated to do her laps around the building. Praying for a better tomorrow.

Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
(Romans 8:24-27)