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I’ll post updates on this blog post if I have anything new to report throughout the day, so check this again for new content if you re-visit the blog. Morning update… Karen says “I’m alive so far… Not dead yet!” What a wonderful quote to share! At least she said it with a chuckle. She’s…

I’ll post updates on this blog post if I have anything new to report throughout the day, so check this again for new content if you re-visit the blog. Morning update… Karen had a tough night again, but marginally better than the first night. She had a fever, and got the chills. At one point…

Tuesday update… Karen’s fever broke early this morning, and she’s been on the mend since. She ate breakfast successfully, and by noon she was up and walking around the hospital with me. Here’s a pic of the view from the roof here at the Clinic. Also, late breaking news is that the Hope Lodge just confirmed…

We chose to move Karen’s treatment to the Cleveland Clinic for an array of reasons. Foremost among those was our belief that they offered the best chance to get Karen into one of the next generation immunotherapy trials. The other centers were not optimistic about their ability to offer this opportunity. The Cleveland Clinic came…

There have been a ton of changes over the last couple weeks, and each day it seems like the best time for an update would be the next day, and it continues that way… First, let us thank Christy, Bill, and Caroline for riding in Pelotonia for Karen. Wow! They rode their bicycles anywhere between…

When you say Neutropenia out loud it sounds a little like a character from the Harry Potter books (or films, depending on your preference). And if it was, she would be a villain! But alas, it’s really what the medical world says when a special type of white blood cell is running low. Karen recently…

Half the year is over, and we’re not quite sure where it went. This week Karen had the energy and time to put around in the yard (when it wasn’t too hot), and generally be up and about. It was a “good week,” for the most part. Yesterday we visited the doctor and he was encouraging….

The first week of the new chemo combination hit Karen harder than previous cocktails did. It’s hard to tell if it was the new chemo medication or residual effects from the low platelet count in the preceding weeks, but she felt a new “not well” that was hard to characterize. The new “I don’t feel…

It was another week of low platelet counts, so they couldn’t administer the chemo again last week. Chemotherapy interferes with the body’s ability to create platelets, and Karen’s body wasn’t very happy with the new chemo medications. The doc is still hoping to lower the dosages to find the best level. Karen has a history…

The weekend seemed to get away from us without me making a blog post, and I’m not quite sure how that happened, but it did. Where does all the time go? Karen was too fatigued to have chemo last week. Her platelets were too low and the doctor thought it best to hold off and…