Okay guys, Kara here.  As you can imagine life has been amazingly crazy.  Noone’s getting sleep, and we’re all pretty ready for this to be over.  I’ll try to update again later because I know that everyone will want one (thanks for all the emails and messages.  Sorry I couldn’t respond one-on-one).

Highlights

• Donnie and I went to visit on Tuesday night.  She seemed MUCH better and they thought she’d be home by today (they HAVE to stop guessing when she’ll go home.  Something else goes wrong everytime).  We laughed and visited and had a great time.  She was in MUCH better spirits and was  “Jo” again.
• Same night she woke up with really bad chest pains
• Emergency CT in the middle of the night
• 2 blood clots, one stationary at the base of her port; one not stationary moving around in her heart
• I went and visited her last night and even though I was in a fabulously ridiculous witch’s costume (don’t ask) she was feeling so terrible it didn’t cheer her up much… Looking much worse again… now she looks bruised everywhere and her skin is peeling heavily.  Noone knows why.  Again, I think the hospital is making her SICKER.  She still hasn’t been able to hold down food, which means she’s been nutrient-less for over 4 days now.  She tries to drink ensure, but it’s not going well…
• They’re doing surgery to remove the Port today
• Hoping that her body will naturally dissolve the clots because her platelets are too low to give her blood thinners
• Will probably do a blood transfussion before the surgery because all of her counts, which were finally up, are back to critically low levels
• After we leave the hospital this time, we’re done.  The family unanimously decided the benefits of the last round of chemo are not even close to worth the negative side effects (these last 2 weeks, but worse).
• This is day 15 in the hospital.  Still no idea when we’re done.  We had been doing visitors who are well, but I’m not sure now since she’s neutropenic again
• I’ll try to update after the surgery
• Please pray.  There’s no contingency plan right now if her body doesn’t naturally break the clots and they’re located in potentially life-threatening areas.