Update on Dad and Ally

Hope everyone enjoyed MLK day today. And thanks for all the comments on Ally's piano concert. I may have to put more videos out there!

Our MLK day did not go exactly as planned. Dad was due to have his heart ablation surgery today and had driven up to Cleveland yesterday. Long story short, they could not do it because his blood was too thin and it would have been too risky. However, one of the other options, that he previously had dismissed, was using a medicine therapy to get his heart back into rhythm. The reason he dismissed it was because it required a 4-5 day inpatient hospital stay for monitoring as they gave him the medicine (sounds very familar to Ally's methotrexate hospital stays). So anyway, he changed his mind and decided to go ahead and give this a try. So now he is checked in to a nice room at the Cleveland Clinic for the remainder of the week. Barbara and my aunt and uncle are up there with him. I did not go up for the procedure, but now am wishing I was there because I just can't get enough of hospitals in the last three years. No really...wishing I was with my Dad. Lots of prayers are going up for him and I am still not unclear as to whether I will be in Cleveland sometime this week. (And special thank you to my blog reader....Maria...who I don't even know but lived up by the Clinic and offered to help...wow that is a wonderful person.) I keep reminding myself that everything happens for a reason and that this must be part of God's grand plan.

And Ally...well Ally had her chemo on Friday....and IVIG and Pentamadine. We thought we were getting a light day by only being at the hospital for five hours. Five hours to us is like nothing. Her ANC was 1300. Just perfect. We did talk quite a bit about Ally's belly pain that has persisted for over a month now. We could try more miralax or more prevacid...but he also wanted to check her liver numbers again. We thought all was well until we got home and got the word that her liver enzymes are high again. Sigh. Of course, noone knows what this means...and the liver processes everything out of your body so it is just hard to tell the source of the problem. They are running some liver blood tests on her next week to see if they keep climbing. I am just going to pray and keep my fingers crossed that this is just another side effect.

Sometimes I just think that we have to get to the end of her treatment. Next Fall. And then all will be good in the world. And then I step back and take note of all the long term side effects that these medicines can cause her. They are not good. This is why they will be following her for 20 years. The meds saved her life. But they changed her life too. Well this whole thing did.

And at that I will sign off another medical update by asking for continued prayers for both my father and my daughter.