PNEUMONIA THAT WON'T GO AWAY :-(

Hi Friends!

Well, I went back to see Dr. Nathan yesterday. He's my infectious disease specialist. The pneumonia, of course, was resistant to the antibiotics and my compromised immune system can't seem to fight it. So -- it's still there. And I'm still hacking and having trouble breathing. So, I am now trying increased Prednisone, a new inhaler, Albuterol treatments on my home nebulizer every 6 hours, and a new IV antibiotic. This antibiotic takes 30 minutes to run each day, and Bill is able to run the IV right into my PICC line. It's not quite as easy as the previous antibiotic which took 5-10 minutes and was done with a syringe. But Bill makes a good nurse and the kids were quite impressed when the Home Health Care people delivered me an IV pole to use. Fun, fun!

I need to go to bed. But I just wanted to update you all on what's going on. Please pray that I get rid of the pneumonia in the next 7 days, because I'm afraid that I'll end up back in the hospital if I don't kick this soon!

Much Love,
Michele

P.S. -- I am starting to get hospital bills from the last stay. Guess how much my new chemo costs? The Rituxan was $37,000 per round. Thank goodness we've reached our catastrophic cap for the year. We'll be sad when the New Year comes.