Bluniers

Thankful. To be home. To be a wife an amazing husband. To have a warm and comfortable home. To have friends and family that love us dearly. To have clothes to wear and food to eat. To have the freedom to worship. To have the freedom to go to church. To be a child of Godly parents. To be a follower of our awesome God! We all of so much to be thankful for if we search ourselves! Today we are just mostly thankful to be home and not at the hospital thanks Dr. Dilling and your crew for making that happen for us! Blessings to you and your family and your sweet little ones! Today we will spend our time getting things done around here...as Brent is in the other room popping bubble wrap...I think I do have a child already :)...but Brent's job today is to get all his meds in order and organized again-it's always a big thing for him to do..as you can imagine! I will be buzzing around the house doing my Saturday cleaning...I know...don't get to excited...it's hard for me to contai...

Dr.Dilling was in this morning said we could go home today because I am doing better. The blood transfusions helped boost my energy and brought my hemoglobin up to around 10. They are still waiting on the cultures they took from the bronchoscopy to come back. Based on what they saw in the bronch and the X-rays the are pretty sure it is pneumonia but not sure which type. Also, the test for rejection came back negative , so that is good. If I had a choice I would pick infection over rejection because it is easy to deal with. They are sending me home on 2 IV meds for about 8 more days. These IV meds work on a broad range of infections however, if the cultures come back with something not covered by these antibiotic, then we will have to change the meds . Again thanks for all the prayers and support!

This song came to me this morning as I am sitting here. New Day by Avalon. It's a new day,Oh it's a new time,And theirs a new way, I am going to live my life,All the old has passed away,and the new has come, THANKS GOD IT'S A BRAND NEW DAY! How thankful we are for a brand new day that we can wake up and have the peace that God will take care of what is ahead of us. Things are going ok this morning. He hasn't had a fever since last night. He is still dry heaving;since he had his stomach surgery he can't bring anything up so that kinda makes things more misserable for him. The Dr's are still doing the two antibiotics IV and are adding a couple more today. His hemaglobin was high in the ER but it's now low like 6ish, so they are going to recheck that again and then possible give him a transfusion if it's still low. Otherwise things are ok. They took him off of the oxygen at about 11 this morning! The Dr's did 2 transplants last night!!! Please keep thos...

Well things are about the same his temperature went back up to 101 but has gone down again with ice packs and hydrocodone. He is resting well. He does have coughing spells at times but not real often. We are looking forward to mom & dad blunier being back home and coming up this weekend to be with us for support. So far it's been fine. They are going to start him on an antibiotic (merapenim) tonight yet and possible wean him off of the oxygen if he can tolerate it. But he is comfortable and sleeping now. Tommorrow they will start him on another antibiotic (vancomycin-which he has a mild reaction to, but they are going to try it with some other methods) as well. The nurses are great here! We are thankful for Dr. Dilling because he is on call while we are here, keep him and his family in your prayers as they have baby twins so he is a fairly new daddy and working crazy hours, he does a GREAT job! Also a big thanks to Jane Thomas for the snack that got me through my day...i finall...

Brent got out of his bronchoscopy at about 2 and up here to the floor about 4:30. He did spike a fever of 102 which is now down to 99.6...as of 2 seconds ago! His oxygen was low so they put him on oxygen for now but said this is truly normal for after a bronchoscopy. They took a wash of his lungs and biopsies to check for rejection but they are pretty sure it's just the pneumonia and not rejection. I will be sleeping in the room with him tonight since we got out normal floor with a couch that folds out but I am going back and forth to the Ronald Mcdonald house for meals and showers and such. Thankfully we came prepared to be here for about 4 days or how ever long it takes to get my best friend back to his normal. I am so thankful for all that has taken place in our lives this past year-we have SO much to be thankful for! If it wasn't for our God we wouldn't be where we are today. We continue to appreciate and feel the prayers of those we love...because we need the prayers o...

Well as of yesterday Brent was starting to feel not himself. He had a fever, feet were swelling up, coughing more and just more tired than normal. He went to work thinking if it wasn't better today we would call the Dr. Yesterday came and went and he did good and got a lot of work done the only thing that bothered him before we went to bed was his feet from standing on them and being swollen. This morning he woke up and was doing his morning routine. He started coughing and bringing up phlegm that had bright red blood in it. So we called the Dr's up here in Chicago and they told us to go to the ER...which we knew to do but what to do until then.....they didn't give us anything really relevant . So we headed up here about 7:45. Got to the ER at 9:30 this morning. They have done chest x-rays, labs and now they are in doing a bronchoscopy . The x-ray showed pneumonia in his L lung. The labs all look OK . The plan is to keep him over night at least and go from there. They are ...

We went to transplant clinic for our regular checkup today. Dr. Alex saw us and was please with the progress I have made since getting out of the hospital. My lung function test continue to improve but I am not yet back to my best since getting the lung infection late last month. My blood pressure has been running high so they increased the beta blocker med to regulate that. All else was good, blood test where good from last time in the hospital. They will recheck blood work this Thursday when I go for my Lymphoma treatment infusion of Ritoxin . Speaking of which- this will be my last treatment. Then they wait about a month and check to see how effective the ritoxin was by doing a few scans. Hopefully it will have worked and there will not be a need for chemo. After transplant clinic we went to see Dr. Love (the transplant surgeon ). He had me do a chest Xray to compare to when I left the hospital. The Xray was the same, maybe a little better. He was satisfied with what he saw and...

We made it home Monday night. On our way out of the hospital the Dr. came in and told us that Brent's wash from his bronchoscopy was positive for staph infection and pseudomonas. They sent him home on an oral antibiotic to clear it up. This is not a suprise to us because he has had staph (MRSA) in his nose for years. It's not good but it's not rejection or lymphoma-which we are SO thankful for! Brent went up for his 3rd treatment for his lymphoma. It went well but he was super tired when he got home! Hopefully he can sleep tonight :)! We are looking forward to our nieces birthday party on Saturday, it's so fun to watch them as they grow up and learn so much! (I have been feeling better..not 100% yet, but we'll get there !) Just a reminder for all of us as far as his transplant do's and dont's: He is not suppose to be around kids that have had LIVE immunizations for the first 6 weeks after getting them-because his immunity is so low he can catch that live vir...

Dr. pulled the chest tube this morning...with NO pain...thanks to morphine but it was still the least painful one ever. He just got back from his chest x-ray and as soon as we get those results back we are free to go home. Again thanks for all the support through all this! Brent & Trudy

Dr. Gagemeier was here this morning. He told us that all the cultures have come back and they are clear for infection, rejection and lymphoma at this time. There is still that possibility of infection or lymphoma but as of now the test shows all those negative. Needless to say that Dr's are stumped as to what is truly going on with him. The final results of the biopsies and cultures won't be back probable until the end of the week. There is a strong possibility that they will pull his chest tube out tomorrow. Once that is removed we are free to come home, unless something else would come up for some unforeseen reason. He is feeling really pretty well. His pain is still there but is mostly just where the chest tube is inserted in his back...thank goodness for morphine and norco ! They are God's gift for Brent's pain! We can both say we will be glad to be back home and be able to sleep in our own beds and be able to sleep well! Last night I was awake at 1 am and by 2...

Things are ok . The bronchoscopy went fine this morning when they did it at 10 ish . Then at 2:30 or so they put a small spaghetti noodle size tube in his back on his R side....can we say extreme pain. By the time he was done with the tube placement procedure all of his pain meds had wore off-it was not a pretty sight. He is finally comfortable enough to sleep now. They gave him morphine and norco for the pain-took like 45 minutes too kick in but it's now working...praise the Lord..for both of us! It's still emotional for us today. This fighting is wearing us both out. He has this lung infection and I have a sinus infection now. So please pray that we have the strength to get through this...more so Brent than me. It's easy for the tears to come when the worry and stress is high. The Dr's are saying this is probable just a lung infection-POSSIBLE pneumonia, but that won't be in concrete until possible Sunday if not beginning of next week. So as of right now we h...

Well I am glad to tell you his second infusion of retuxin went well. This infusion only took 4 hours instead of 6 like last time. Thanks Mom Blunier for taking the time to come up with him for this infusion so I could stay back home and work. Where do I really start? Starting last Sunday Brent woke up with a cough, chest congestion, feet swelling (A lot), achy,HA and fever(started Tuesday). So needless to say-he was feeling gross. Monday he went to work all day-he did pretty well, almost came home at one point but toughed it out. Took off work Tuesday & Wendsday , calling up to Chicago to talk to his lung transplant Dr's and his hematologist. Hematology said everything on there end is fine-this was not a side effect from the 1st antibody infusion-whew we were glad for that, that is was going to work for him. So he called the transplant team they started him on Z- pak ( zithromax antibiotic orally) for a lung infection, put him back on his blood pressure medications to help...