Day +7

Thank you Pacer team mates and friends who have commented back. Dale and I enjoy reading them. Today's challenge was still the high blood pressure. It has been running in the 120 -150s / 80s - 90. The doctors are watching his In's and Out's closely. The cyclosporine level today was 313. The target level is around 300. After yesterday's transfusion, his platelets were 95,000 this am. wbc-0.08, Hgb-9.2
Dale is eating more each day. He was happy to announce to the doctors this morning that he ate a whole bowl of cereal. He hasn't been able to eat cereal for the last 5 days or so because his mouth was sore. Again, Dale spent most of the day doing his school work. I encourage him to take a break but he says "no thanks, I'm good." There are a lot of things I need to do for Dale during the day. I give gim a mouth rinse called Gelclair 1 hr before he eats to prevent mucosal damage to the mouth , after he eats he brushes his teeth and rinses with chlorhexidine mouth wash to keep his mouth clean. This routine is repeated 4 times a day. After his bath, I have to apply cream all over his body, powder him with antifungal powder, put another cream on his buttocks and change his line dressing. This whole process takes almost an hour. Sometimes I forget to do something but Dale is always watching me and will remind me what I did wrong or what I forgot to do. He watches Wade like a hawk during his shift. When I return, I get a full report on how dad did. Dale has also figured out how to read the iv pumps and knows exactly why it is beeping and when it will beep next. While I talked to the many doctors that come in to see him, Dale is reading and studying their name tags so he knows most of their first and last names. I have a hard time with all of the different interns, residients and fellows. I do however, know all of our attending's last names but Dale knows their first and last names. It's funny what you do when your confined for a long time. Dale has not seen the outside of this room for almost 3 weeks now. Thank you for your prayers. It's what gets us through the day and we are grateful.