The Plan...

 Today has been a rough day for Audra.  

She is tired, puffy, pale, cranky and angry. 

VERY angry. 

I can't blame her.  She has had to endure multiple blood draws and IV sticks EVERY day. 

I am sure that all the screaming she did in Cantonese today was her telling me off.  I have had to hold her down everyday while people do unpleasant (but necessary) things to her.

And then today she probably was begging me for food and wondering why I wouldn't get her something to eat. (Today she was not allowed to eat due to a test she was having later in the day)

The good news is that her fevers have been supressed with a medication (indomethacin) that they started giving her yesterday. That means no more shaking and crying out in discomfort three times a day for up to two hours at a time.  

Her doctors have a plan for trying to diagnose this mystery illness. 

Today her blood work showed that her body's inflammatory response to this illness has worsened. 

(For the medical people:  her Hgb is lower at 7.9, her CRP and ESR are higher at 34 and 107, and her ferritin also continues to rise)

Right now she is having a full body MRI to *hopefully* locate an abscess or osteomyelitis that can be treated with antibiotics and we can get off this horrible roller coaster. 

We are praying that they find an infection on this MRI.  

Please, please pray for this. 

Because if this MRI doesn't show a source for her fevers and increasing blood work levels then tomorrow we will have some very scary things ahead of us. 

At that point the doctors will need to investigate if she has a malignancy.

I cannot even think about that. No way.  Not right now.

Please PRAY!!!

This is her hiding from me behind the curtain after this morning blood draw. She would stick her head out, point her finger at me and say something (probably nasty) to me in Cantonese. 

She spent a good part of the day like this...

sleeping peacefully, looking like an angel. 

Here are some very sweet pictures of her from yesterday.  I cannot wait for this to be all done, for her to feel better, and for that sweet smile of hers to appear more often.