Daley Ponderings

Heather is better at writing the updates than I am, though I've been intending to write a few since we've been back in the hospital. She has been doing quite well the last few days and much more cheery.  Nothing like a colonoscopy to cheer you up I guess.  I hadn't been paying... (More)

Screenshot of a video call on Thursday:  Friday's procedures went well. They got plenty of marrow for their tests. The endoscopy showed the esophagus healthy. The sigmoidoscopy showed her colon quite inflamed. The surgeon could not tell the cause, but was confident that the... (More)

Today, Boston called to say they'd like to observe Grace over the weekend and to prepare for admission on Friday. They will likely do a colonoscopy and maybe even an endoscopy. (And Dartmouth suggested they get some bone marrow while she's sedated.) She threw up her NG tube this morning and so... (More)

Today is day +133. (Jon updated this post) Grace has been having belly pain and a lot of mucus in her stool, often with blood as well.  We took her off cow's milk again (she had been asking for it instead of almond milk.)  We haven't seen much improvement in the last week, and she... (More)

This is the day the doctors consider the transplant to be successful.  This doesn't mean that she's not still at risk for a bunch of things. But it does mean that Faith's cells are firmly established in her system and doing their job! (More)

As they say, no news is good news.  Not much exciting has been going on lately.  Grace is eating a fairly regular diet at meals, which has always been pretty small.  Yesterday, she drank a lot, which hasn't been common for her, so we give her 600ml of water via her NG tube, 50ml... (More)

Grace sings this little Happy song at least once a day. She sang it in the hallway as we were leaving the apartment to go home. I have not yet managed to get a video of her singing it. Everybody is doing better now that we're all together. It's good to be home; it's good to not have to try to... (More)

This includes anesthesia and intubation and all that goes along with that. Please pray for her surgery and for the results. Thank you. An "aspirate" in this context means removing a small amount (7 ml in Grace's case usually) of the bone marrow fluid and a biopsy is removing a small chunk of... (More)

We left the hospital at 5pm today and are "home" at our new apartment and working out this phase.  Lots of meds to organize and schedule.  Getting used to a quiet room, so now we can actually hear the feed machine, where I never really heard it before.   Heather will be... (More)

We've probably said it before, and anyone who has been in a hospital for any length of time knows that any time someone says "soon" that means 2-10 hours, and "tomorrow" means 1-3 days, etc.  So, even though I posted here that it could be Friday, I've been telling myself Monday, though as... (More)

Grace has been steadily improving.  She is not throwing up as much, she's had a few messy diapers that look more normal than she's had in months, or even ever. She had an ultrasound which she slept right through.    Her drain has not been putting out much, so... (More)

Grace had a great day today, despite staying up until after midnight (I went to sleep, but I asked the nurse in the morning, and she stayed up reading her new book and trying to not let the nurses check her oxygen levels since that would involve taking away her light...) She came to rounds in... (More)

We have lots of good news to report. Grace has been improving the last couple of days.  Her abdomen measured 53.5 cm, the smallest it has been in weeks.  They have changed her cyclosporin from IV to NG (nasogastric) which is a step towards getting ready to be discharged.  The... (More)

The last couple of days have been tough, but today is looking up. At 2:00 this morning, Jon called me to say that her breathing was worse and they were considering bringing her up to the ICU. I called my sister, she prayed for us. 45 minutes later, Jon texted to say that they had increased her... (More)

The last several days have been back and forth. I’ve started several posts in my head, and then they end up changing. The weekend doctors cancelled the stool studies, then the attending on Monday re-ordered them. Jon had some very frustrating conversations with the doctor, but an... (More)