Monday Morning Update

Good Morning and Hello!

Weekdays are far busier in Indianapolis than weekends which is quite odd.  Yesterday, I went wandering around downtown for a few hours attempting to discover something worthy of being excited about only to come up completely empty handed.  What's more, no one was really out in the city on a weekend which seemed really odd.  I really love cities - all the people, the busy hum of cars, chatter flowing out from outside lunch spots, cracked sidewalk, construction, and the sun reflecting off of a skyline.  That being said, I am endlessly completely underwhelmed by Indianapolis.  It seems to be lacking the city "vibe" that I love so much.  I'm sure there is a pocket of it somewhere, even if it is half a coffee shop.  There's got to be a little bit of Lodo or Old Town here somewhere...right?  ...maybe not...

Anyway...I guess I'll spend some time talking about what Kurtis is up to because I'm sure that is why you're actually reading my word strings right now...not to find out about my failed attempt at finding the "Lodo" in Indy (and, for those who want to know, I still have yet to see a lightning bug...lame).

Kurtis is doing really well today.  His mouth pain has greatly diminished and he actually ate breakfast today at breakfast time which is a first in the last few days.  He's had a few helpings of Lucky Charms the past few days, but today he had pancakes and sausage.  Although his mouth and throat don't hurt as much, he is still dealing with some severe stuff called "mucositis".  This means that he's got thick stuff in his mouth all the time, and that makes it difficult to eat. 

Yesterday was a good day for the most part - Kurtis rested and got his fluids and we found out that his counts are doing what is expected which is always nice to hear.  After spending the day at the hospital, I went "home" to hang out with Chauncey who had spent the day at his new favorite place...camp bow wow.  A few days ago I posted a link to see him on camera, but I found out that it didn't work, so I'm trying again.  Check out Chauncey!  He generally seems to be on camera 3 and camera 6, although he's shown up on some of the others as well.  You can easily find him by his tail :)

This morning the nurse practitioner who we've seen up in the transplant unit came in to check on Kurtis.  His numbers are good and she is pleased with how he is doing right now.  His platelets are low so he just got a bag of platelets.  It's always weird to me when they give him platelets because they're yellow, not red.  I took a picture of them that should show up on our Flickr photostream for those of you who have never seen platelets!  They go in pretty quickly and seem to help him, so that's good.  We also found out that his cells have started to turn into what he needs and his white blood cell count has gone from 0.3 (Saturday and Sunday) to 0.4 (today).  As his stem cells figure out what they're doing, this number should only go up and up!

Even though all of that is great news, the best news of the day is that Kurtis' HCG has dropped again! Before this round of chemo, his HGC had risen to 9,000 and last week, we were celebrating a drop to 6,000.  So, today when his results came in, Kurtis and I were hoping for another 3,000 point drop which would put us at 3,000 - a dramatic improvement.  Kurtis' body didn't feel like making a 3,000 point drop though...it thought at 5,000 point drop would be better!  So, his overall HCG is now at 1,000 and we are very excited.  When we get news like this, that the chemo is working and killing his tumor it is a burst of wind in kinda droopy sails.  So, wherever you are today - raise a glass of milk, a lacrosse stick, a garden shovel, a chipotle burrito, a cupcake, a Sunshine Wheat, or whatever else you might have handy and celebrate!

Hope everyone is doing well... today's forecast is 89* and about 65% humidity ...woo.  Oh how we miss the Colorado dry air and sunshine!

Sending love -

Liz