The Plan...

Well, we have a plan (possibly).  They have taken Maggie off of the tube feeds and Andy and I pulled Maggie's tube from her stomach.  It's been almost 2 months since we have seen both cheeks of Maggie's and we are very happy to be able to see her whole face (and kiss both cheeks).  

The plan is that Maggie will be on TPN (nutrition that goes straight to the blood stream) for several days to give her complete bowel rest and nutrition that she is not receiving through her tube feeds.  We met with a GI doctor today who has decided that Maggie also needs to have a CT scan of her abdomen to make sure that there is not an acute intestinal infection.  This scan will take place in the next day or so.  They have also begun taking stool samples once again to check for any viruses or bacteria.  The idea is that if she doesn't have any viruses or bacteria, they might be willing to introduce Immodium or something similar to help slow things down.

In a couple of days (possibly by Thursday) they will re-evaluate Maggie, her diarrhea, the tests, nutrition, and so on.  If all is well, they will look at sending us home on TPN.  We are taking a break on chemo as Maggie's counts are still too low.  

We have been very on edge the last week.  New things keep popping up and our minds immediately go to relapse.  Maggie's ultrasound yesterday showed that her spleen and liver have slightly enlarged from last weeks ultrasound.  The cause, we are not quite sure, but the liver is functioning normally according to blood tests.  GI believes that the enlargement is due to Maggie's condition of having leukemia, the chemotherapy, etc.  Regardless, we'd like to have a resolution to everything as soon as possible.

So that's the plan.  Please pray that this might be the solution to Maggie's chronic diarrhea.  Pray that the diarrhea will stop or at least be under control, that Maggie's organs will not be damaged by the TPN and go back to their normal, healthy size.  Pray that Maggie's infection will go away and that her counts will recover quickly.  And pray especially that we can begin chemo again and that Maggie's cancer will never come back (and our worries will subside).