Bluniers

We have been blessed with surprise visitors these last few days! Aunt leann surprised us and came up on Thursday, we were glad to see her! Then yesterday Brent's cousins Dawn and Becky surprised us and brought Brent Taco Bell...not sure what or who he was more glad to see! ;) Pretty sure it was Dawn and Becky though! They have moved Brent back to 5 tower....the Ritz of Loyola. He is back in real cloths, got a shave and he is feeling much better! Yesterday they bumped his oxygen down to 3 liters and are going to try and wean him down today again. His platelets are up in the 80's which is better than yesterday in the 60's! His Hgb is 7.1 so they are watching that close and if it drops any more they will have to give him a unit of blood. Everything else is looking good. Dr's are saying these next couple days will be critical as far as if he is truly out of the woods and done with the plasma pheresis, etc. We are glad to have my sister Rachel here to keep us company so we...

We got more good news this morning! They have bumped his oxygen down to 3 liters! They have said he may move to the floor later today or tomorrow. We are in no hurry because we don't want to have to come back to the ICU! He did get disconnected from his insulin drip yesterday afternoon and they got his shunt pulled so he was excited to get out of bed and sit in the chair! We both got a good night sleep last night since he didn't have to have his blood sugar tested hourly. The head blood doctor came in yesterday evening and informed us that he didn't think all these blood problems were ttp but a toxicity of his prograf (anti-rejection med). So I guess it doesn't seem clear what caused what but things are better! All his labs this morning look good! None of the teams have been in just the "scouts" as Brent calls them! Love to all! B

Last night for our devotions we read from Romans 8 verses 18 & 28 really stuck with us and gave us the encouragement to press on and that the Lord is near us. We are still in ICU so that the nurses can keep a close eye on him. Brent didn't sleep much last night...might be due to his addiction with coffee and it not being decaf! So today will be a restful day for him. He still has this port in for his phorysis...it's been there for a week as of today...so he is VERY anxious to get that out so he can be more mobile. He has had to stay in bed since that was placed. So like any of us would be he is getting roomatism! Which is another sign that he is feeling better! Currently as I type they are doing his 5th treatment of phorysis in which is to hopefully be his last. We will know more once labs come back from early blood draws tomorrow. They did wean his oxygen down to 5 liters yesterday and he is doing well on it. So they may continue to wean him down depending on how he does f...

Brent had a fairly restful night last night besides the cleaning guy coming around at 3 am to collect trash. Dr.s came in this morning and his Hgb is down to 6.8 so they are going to give him 1 unit of blood, they are doing plasma phorysis right now and the plan is to do one treatment tomorrow before they pull that access out (it's like a large iv that's painful for him)-so he is looking forward to that being out. His chest x-ray looks the same today as it did yesterday. He ate some yesterday and ate a great breakfast this morning. They told us we can bring him whatever he wants to eat just as long as he keeps eating. They are monitoring his blood sugars still as they have been all over. They are hoping to pull the IV insulin drip and give him shots instead. They have also been discussing weaning him down on his oxygen. So things are looking better but he isn't out of the woods per say he is still pretty "brittle" and they are keeping a close eye on him. I am than...

I don't know how I could forget this! They are going to take him off the non rebreather today and put him on a regular nasal canula and let him eat! This is the encouraging news...another step in the right direction!

Good morning! I know a lot of you are anxiously wanting news and I appoligize but since we are in the ICU I don't update as often because my focus is on Brent, so that being said please bare with me when there is nothing posted and just pray. I stayed here in the room with Brent all night last night in a reclining chair. If any of you are massage therapist you are welcome to come and give me a chair massage or a table massage ;) He was able to rest well last night.Yesterday after noon they did do the aphorysis which is the plasma transfer. That went well. Later in the evening they gave him platlets due to his levels being low but they are 59 this morning so they helped. They are here doing the plasma transfer now. This is a daily thing until they say it's not and its a 3 hour process in which Brent usually sleeps. During the night they gave him 2 units of blood because his Hgb (hemaglobin) was low. The normal range is above 10 and they have been keeping him at between 7-9 so th...

We know who holds tomorrow but we don't know what tomorrow holds. How true this is today. When I left to go to the Ronald McDonald house last night Brent had had a snack and was feeling much better after his plasma transfer. He also rested very well while we were there in the evening. At 4 this morning I received a call from Brent telling me he was Short of Breath (SOB) and he was coughing. So I got ready as fast as I could and headed over to the hospital. When I got here he had been coughing up blood, more so then the past few days. His oxygen levels had dropped so they increased his oxygen...that didn't help much, so they put him on the non rebreather and then moved him to the bi pap machine. He wasn't on that bi pap machine long before they came in and took him off of it because his blood gases were normal. They then moved him to a non rebreather which is 100% oxygen and he is not rebreathing any of his own air and bumped him up to 15 liters due to his trouble breat...

Well as I said above...we never know what a day will bring...today that rang true. I received a phone call from Brent at 4 this morning telling me he was sob (short of breath) and coughing stuff up. So I got ready as fast as I could and headed over. When I got there he actually had been coughing up blood , more than he had been earlier in the week. At about 6 his oxygen dropped down into

This is the day the Lord has made Let us Rejoice and Be Glad! This morning Dr Dilling (Lung transplant) came in and told us Brent's hemoglobin was low. After yesterday's blood transfusion he was up to 9 but then this morning down to 7. There was no way that with him coughing up the little blood from his lungs that he would drop that fast so there had to be something else going on. After further investigation and the blood doctors came in to see him and did some labs. The labs confirmed there suspicion of TTP . TTP is a disorder your platelets are attacking you red blood cells causing antibodies in your blood. In order to treat this they are doing plasma exchange. They pull his blood out spin it down take off his plasma and replace it with donor plasma. This is a three hour process that began at 5 this evening and he was finished with it at 8. During this process he did have a slight reaction about half way through. Which was easily fixed with benadryl . This treatment is some...

1/2011 Our addition* Diesel As many of you have noticed we haven't updated for some time. It has been because things have been going exceptionally well with only routine visits to Chicago up to this point. And as I have said before no news is good news. To some of you this may come a shock compared to those in Central IL that know some of what is going on. Over a week ago Brent started up with leg swelling and the Dr's had found a fungal infection in his lungs, from his bronchoscopy he had done routinely 1-2 weeks prior to that. So they put him on Lasix and a fungal medication. With this Fungal medication there was a known risk that is could raise the levels of his anti-rejection medications but they adjusted it so it wouldn't go too high. Up to this point he had been working long days average 8am-6pm and loving every minute helping those farmers and just enjoying life together. Last Sunday he was pretty wiped by the end of the day so we decided to just go home and relaxed ...