Another week goes by...

Anna's still in the hospital and probably will be for a couple more weeks. It's really a bit too soon to even start thinking about coming back home.
 
I think somewhere around Tuesday of last week (June 1) was probably the low. The rash was really bad, and her mouth/lips/etc were a complete mess. She went several days without being able to eat at all, so they installed a PICC line (peripherally inserted central catheter) to give them another access point to flow some additional nutrition, medicine, etc. After Tuesday, she started to show gradual improvement and started having a little bit of food again over the weekend. Also by the weekend, her energy levels started to increase a little bit and by Sunday she was occasionally going for a short walk around the unit. She's been eating a fair bit of ice cream, popsicles, and protein shakes, as they tend to go down the easiest. They've run a bunch of tests, and while most of this is GVHD related, she also did have an infection of some sorts that they are treating.
 
On Monday, she started to feel like she catching a cold, so they ran some more tests on that. Turns out she had a little bit of pneumonia in one of her lungs, so today she went through some minor surgical procedure to clean out some of that. Given that her immune system is so compromised they really stick on top of every little thing, run constant tests and are pumping her with a combination of everything. When I was leaving this evening, she had 5 different things going in via IV at the same time. I'm amazed that they all play nice with each other, but they definitely seem to know what they are doing, so I keep my mouth shut.
 
Emotionally, it's been a bit of a roller coaster... Last week when she hit her low, it definitely was a tough period. It was the first time in a while that I felt really scared, mostly because they really didn't seem to have things under control and it seemed to be getting worse by the day. Once we turned the corner, I think we all felt a little relieved, but then the pneumonia stuff really isn't something to mess around with. Plus, the steroids really have a crazy impact on her mood. Definitely makes the normal roller coaster even more dramatic with higher highs, and lower lows.
 
Things at home are going pretty well. TJ's been adapting, and speaks to Anna a couple times a day via phone. We haven't done much skype lately, but hopefully we will pick that back up again once the rash settles down and she gets a little more comfortable. It's so nice to be greeted every night back home with a big hug and kiss. I can't wait until Anna can experience the same.