Can't Sleep

Hi everyone,

It is Monday morning, 2:00 am. I know I should be asleep since I have to get up and go to work soon. Ken is sleeping, the dogs are asleep and so are my parents. But for some reason, I can't sleep. I have to drive Ken to Denver this afternoon, so I know I need sleep. For the most part, I have tried to stay very positive and brave thru all of Ken's illness, but at times like this when all is quiet and I am alone, it is so tough to stay tough. We had a good weekend and Ken is doing well, but we are still so afraid at times. It isn't always easy to "be normal".

Since we blogged last Thurs, we realized that we can't wait till May 4th to go to Denver. Ken needs to get his pick line re-dressed every week. So we are headed to the Univ of Colo Anschutz Medical Campus today to get that accomplished. We have been having trouble with the pick line for a week or so. The pick line consists of a tube that is inserted into a vein in Ken's arm that has 2 tubes running inside the larger tube. They each have a little valve on the end that allows the med staff to give Ken his chemo and to draw blood thru these tubes. I have to clean the valves every day and put a syringe of heprin in them to keep them from clotting. I have been having trouble with the red one for about a week. Sometimes, the heprin just doesn't want to go in. I play with it and it will finally go, until Sat. night. I have been told not to force it because I could blow out the line. So when I could not get it to go in, we called the U of C hospital oncology nurses and they told us to go to the ER in Fort Collins. So guess what, we spent another Sat. night with the Medical Center of the Rockies nurses. Ken was very nervous and emotional when we got there. He was really worried. They checked Ken's lines and the red one was indeed blocked. They were able to play with it and insert TPA (I think that is what it was called). The TPA worked to dissolve the fibers or clot. Within a few minutes, blood was flowing again. It was such a relief. They sent us home with some saline syringes. Now I have to flush them in the morning with the saline and at night insert the heprine. That should make a difference. It went in very easy on Sunday. So we are back on track.

The rest of the weekend was fabulous. We played cards with my parents. We went out to eat Saturday night. Mango chicken at South China is one of Ken's favorite meals, so we indulged. We were able to skyp with Katy and little Nora on Saturday morning. She is getting so big. We can't wait to hold her. I was able to shop for a bit Sat afternoon with my mom. We went into Babies R Us and talked to them about coming back to work. They have been so understanding thru all this. They are letting me come back to work only a few hours a week. I do miss working there so I am glad they have been so understanding. We had some family in after church on Sunday. My cousin, Jeff Brown brought a ton of food and we had a nice afternoon. Thanks Jeff. Ken was asleep when they got there and he was napping again when they left, so he wanted me to thank them again for coming. We really enjoyed the visit. And a special thanks to my cousins Shane and Dawn for not coming. I know that sounds crazy and we missed them, but their son has a cold and they were very thoughtful to stay clear. Ken is getting stronger, but we are thankful we didn't have to take that chance.

So Ken is going to try to work every day this week. I hope he doesn't overdo it. He can't take a chance on catching anything, so I hope everyone is careful around him. And I think he gets tired easier than he thinks. It will be good for him to work though. He misses it. I just hope he doesn't overdo it. My parents are headed for Nebr yoday to go home and check on things. They have been living in Arizona for the past 6 months, so they are anxious to get home. They will be coming back next Monday to stay with us for 2 weeks to help Ken thru his next round of chemo. I will be busy with Buyback on campus, so it will be good to have the help at home.

For those of you that are praying for us, will you say an extra prayer for my brother's wife, Toby. She was diagnosed with breast cancer last week and we are very worried about her as well. She says it is an early diagnosis, so prognosis is good, but still we worry. I hope she gets that second opinion that was so helpful to us. It is hard to know which doctors to trust, so we hope she is working with experts in the field. We are praying for you Toby.

I guess I better get back to bed. It has been nice talking to you. Hope you all got a good nights sleep and hope you had a great weekend. Bev