Hanging in There

We had a fairly good week, with Jim's sleeping improved, but interrupted. Has a hard time going back to sleep. We had a great visit from Jeanne and Frank Birkenseher from Thursday til Sunday (Alyssa stayed with Erin and all the girls enjoyed each other). Such good old friends--it was so good of them to come. Jim had some periods of agitation, but they always seem to occur right after awakening--the doctor says that he is "locked into REM sleep" when that happens and we need to wake him up fully by turning on all the lights, the TV, the radio, get him up and dressed. That seems to work to calm his agitation. He still gets PT 3x/week and that definitely is making him stronger. The new worry is that his neutrophils have gone down (300, then 280) and the folks at NIH don't seem to know why. So we are taking neutropenic precautions once again (STRICT hand washing, wearing a mask around others, monitoring temp 4x/day, etc.). This has gotten Jim very anxious again understandably. The next blood test will be this Thursday, Aug. 13. Keep those prayers coming! Barbara