May 13, 2009

Kendra and I are so grateful for being blessed with such wonderful friends and family members who have been so supportive during this difficult time. For the most part Bryce continues to make slow progress, but it is hard to be patient with the slow results. We have to keep reminding ourselves that he is not getting worse.

Bryce and Jerica's wedding is scheduled for three months from today so Kendra told him today that he needs to get better faster.

Today they tried to do the conventional four-hour dialysis on him and his body (specifically his blood pressure) could not handle it. The plan is now to do continuous dialysis every night for 12 hours.

Unfortunately he was not ready to get his endotracheal tube removed today and get off the ventilator. He continues to do most of his own breathing, but still needs some support of the ventilator.

His white blood count is creeping up - today it was 0.4 - one tenth increase from last night. According to the oncologist one of the key indicators that the chemotherapy is effective is the LDH liver enzyme. On May 5th his level was over 18,000 and today it is down to 5000. (Normal range is around 300-600.) This was encouraging to us.

The doctors need to get a more permanent central line in one of Bryce's large veins in his chest/neck area to do dialysis. WIth the line in his femoral vein in his leg he is unable to sit up or move around; however, Bryce's platelets are too low to be real effective in clotting so it is too much of a surgical risk to do at this time.

We continue to feel deeply grateful for your prayers for Bryce. Again we recognize that there are many others who also need our prayers, but thanks for adding Bryce to your list. In fact this evening it was very sobering to me when I called a member of our stake to offer condolences because her sister just passed away. As we visited I found out that her sister died of the same type of cancer that has Bryce has - related to a transplanted organ many years ago. This doesn't lessen our hope, but it does reinforce the reality of the seriousness of Bryce's situation.