Crazy May

Hello everyone,

You will find this posting not to be in the same fashion as all the rest - mainly because it's not Heather writing to you. It's her husband Jim. Sorry this has been long overdue but as most of you know, Heather has been in the hospital.
First and foremost, THANK YOU for all of the love, support and prayers. we couldn't do it without you. The past two to three weeks have been an extreme ride for all of us - worse than the BORG...While not wanting to get into too many details, I wanted to bring everyone up to date. What started as a little discomfort breathing turned into a fight for her life. We spent a week at 9200, isolation wing at Duke for BMT patients. Heather was great but wasn't horrible either. That changed abruptly on May 6 - she had a "white out" which basicly means she couldn't catch her breath and they had to intibate her -put a tube down her throat. Come to find out that her lungs were bleeding as a side effect from the chemo and she was drowning in her own fluids. They were able to get her stabilized and drain most of it. As we all know, Heather does nothing the easy way!! Up and down from then on. What helps the lungs hurts the kidneys. What helps the liver hurts the lungs. A balancing act ensued. Took the tube out three times (once by Heather that wasn't planned by the docs) but unable to keep her lungs working right. Decision was made to give her a trach tube to help wean her lungs off ventilator. She got it this past Friday. She is definitely more comfortable and moving ever so slightly forward. Today has been the best so far. After the 2-4:30 pm quiet time where they kick all visitors out of ICU, I returned to find Heather alert and trying to communicate. Lip reading was not on my college cirriculum so it has been difficult but possible. Proof being I was able to get her password to the blog with no words said. She seems to have taking a turn to the good and the spark of Heather shined today. Please keep her in your prayers.

PS Soon, I hope to be her typist and have her dictate her own message to everyone.