prayer update

hi! i just got a new update on Matt i thought it was extremely important to share imediately, i'm assuming his sis emailed this out. Continue to pray for him.
Hi there,
I figured I should update you on anything going on with Matthew. He's not doing so good. On Monday he had a fever (39.4) and they were busy trying to lower that and figure out what was going on. As we were getting ready for bed on Monday night, the doctor called and said that his blood pressure was really low and kept dropping and they were probably going to move him into intensive care to monitor it (his fever was still just as high then). So Mom left for the hospital and stayed there all night. I was at home making all the phone calls back and forth between Dad and Karla and Mom. Mom called us after she got there to say the nurses didn't seem to be too overly alarmed by his fever and blood pressure. They said they see it quite a bit and that the ICU doctor (or nurses or whatever) were coming to assess Matthew and would decide whether or not to move him there. Mom seemed a whole lot more at ease when she called, so that made us all feel quite a bit better.

So they didn't move him to ICU, even though Matthew's doctor thought they should. The ICU people didn't want him there because they didn't think it was totally necessary, and he would just be exposed to more germs down there that would probably give him some other illness. Yesterday he still had his fever, but his blood pressure had stabilized, even though it was still rather low. They've figured out that he has another blood infection once again. They suspect that maybe his picc line is the cause of this. This is bad news. His port (the chemo line in his chest) was infected last time and had to be removed. They couldn't put in another port, so they put in a picc line. This is an external chemo line that is two plastic tubes that hang out of his upper arm. They give him chemo drugs through there. If they end up not being able to use that, they have to go back to regular IV. Matthew's veins have weakened and are much smaller because of his treatments, they are hard to find. Plus, when they find one, it ends up "blowing" within about a day, and anything that was supposed to be going into his veins goes into his soft muscle tissue and causes burning pain. So yeah, that's not good.

On Monday we also found out that Matthew will be getting a bone marrow transplant for sure. We don't know exactly what this will look like or when, but as soon as his blood counts are back up (they drop after every chemo treatment) AND they have a bed for him, they will start the process. They figure this will probably be anywhere from two to four weeks, and this has to be done in Winnipeg. So we're waiting to find out more about that. Mom did a little research on the internet and got the impression that Matthew will be stuck in hospital for about five months once that process starts. They do full body radiation to kill all of his own bone marrow cells, then put him in isolation (absolutely NO visitors) since he has no immune system. They then inject some of Karla's bone marrow into Matthew (via IV I think) and keep him in isolation until enough bone marrow grows in his bones. He'll have to take anti-rejection drugs just like any other transplant recipient.

So the whole bone marrow thing is not good news. It isn't necessarily super bad either. With chemo he would have undergone another two years of that treatment, and hoped for success. With a transplant, his marrow is gone and Karla's is growing in him. If that doesn't work, I understand it to kind of be the "end of the road". I really don't know what can be done if the transplant is unsuccessful. In theory, if his cancer is in his bone marrow, it should all be killed off when his bone marrow is destroyed. However, leukemia can "hide" in the body (like in the spine and a few other spots). So if it's hiding somewhere and isn't destroyed, it could somehow come back. I don't really understand everything, but this is as much as I've "picked up" so far.

I just wanted to let you know so you know how to better (well, not better, but you know what I mean) pray. For the most part I feel kind of emotionless. I've dealt with so much bad news that more doesn't really seem to phase me. I mean, it does, but I feel kind of defeated. Mom and Dad aren't doing so great. Mom has a hard time seeing him go through this everyday. Dad has a hard time being around and not being able to be the dad - the big strong protector guy who makes everything better. Karla's busy with her family and I think she feels distanced from everything. She was VERY emotional on the phone on Monday night, but when I called to say what the nurse had said, she said her usual "Does that make you feel better? Then I feel better too." Anyway, I must go. Talk to you later.