hard 2 days

Thank you so much to everyone who's been praying for Greg over the past two days.  I didn't have a chance to write an update, but I know some people kept up to date via some emails and Becky's facebook.  I'll try to fill you in a bit here.

Things seemed to be going great Thursday and Greg had a really good night with his brother Tim and everything was on track for leaving the hospital Friday.  But, Greg woke up around 5am vomiting and suffering from a horrendous headache.  That started a whole day of Greg having run-away headaches that were indescribably awful, with chills, vomiting, and a short-term fever.  Despite trying a variety of pain killers (including morphine), the doctors couldn't get Greg's pain under control.  They ended up doing a CT scan to check his brain and sinuses to make sure that there wasn't anything going on that they weren't aware of in his head.  Thankfully, the CT scan was completely clear.  But Greg had a horrible 24 hours dealing with the pain.

This morning (Sat) they finally realized that the vomiting was caused by one of the pain killers, so he won't be getting that anymore.  After a terrible headache around noon, Greg's nurse and doctors found a combination of medications that are keeping his head-ache at bay.

A neurologist stopped by to examine Greg and give the doctors some ideas on how to manage his headaches.  They may try some steroids tomorrow and there are a few tests that they might run on Greg, dependent upon his transplant doctors' permission, to try to determine the cause of these headaches.

At this point, they think that they are likely a side-effect from the IVIG.  At first, it seemed like it was from the chemo, but for a variety of reasons they now think it might be from the IVIG.  The difficulty is that they can't seem to get ride of them and are only managing the pain on incredibly high levels of pain medicine.

There is also a possibility that Greg has aseptic meningitis (not bacterial) but if that's the case, they can't do anything but keep him comfortable as he deals with the pain.  There is also a possibility of inflammation between his brain and head (it's too dark in the room right now for me to see the notes that Tim wrote about that) - they think that based on the location of his headache.

Greg ate 4 saltines and a few bites of chicken noodle soup tonight - his first food in 2 days.  I was encouraged to see him do fairly well and actually take a nap for about 2 hours this afternoon when his pain was under control.  Right now we're waiting for his medication to kick in and stop a headache that was developing.

It seems unlikely that he'll be going home tomorrow (Sunday) because they still need to figure out why his headaches are so severe and how to keep them under control.  I'll keep you posted as I'm able to.

Last night we had a ministry team party in Greg's hometown and I was so encouraged by the love and support that so many people gave us.  It was a true blessing to be surrounded by the body of Christ and to pray for Greg together.  Words can't describe how grateful we are to every single person who prays for us.

Thanks so much,
Elise