The Gangs's All Here

Almost everyone from our family is here, albeit for a short bit. Callie, Mike, and Davis joined us on Wednesday afternoon and Demian joined us last night. Sophie & Patrick are in Tel Aviv and I am sitting in the airport in Nashville, about to head back to see them.

I think I speak for all of us when we say that, under the circumstances, our time with mom has been great. Her ability to express her thoughts has been improving. When I first saw her, the nurses would ask her to squeeze their hands and when she squeezed with her right hand, the nurse would smile and say "Great!" and crack a forced smile, for the squeeze was but a faint twitch. Now it's a legitimate squeeze and hopefully her fine motor control will follow shortly. They did a CTA of her head this morning and we're confident that it will show that the bleeding in her brain has subsided.

She has many bruises on her body from the bleeding caused by hemophilia, and those have been slowly fading away. We're pretty lucky to be at Vanderbilt for this, because hemophilia is a pretty rare disease that is usually congenital - it's more rare to develop it as an adult, but not unheard of - and Vanderbilt has doctors who specialize in it. That said, the doctor tells us that she's never seen nor read about a case of someone having hemophilia at the same time as having leukemia. "It's crazy," as mom would say.

Aside from that, not much else has changed. One day we feel pretty optimistic, one day it's more - not pessimistic - but... feeling the gravity of the situation. Certainly the best part of the day is the morning. This is when all the doctors come by and mom gets to show off how she's been improving on the hemophilia and neurological standpoints. We're still waiting to try to get the hemophilia under control before we start to talk seriously about the next steps. Hopefully this will be under control next week, but it could take longer - time will tell.

Morning is also the time when mom gets her mail delivered - and boy is she getting some mail! It really is quite amazing and humbling to me to see all the mail. We've received mail & food from close friends of her as well as long lost friends. We've also received mail from many of friends of us kids, which is truly amazing. We've also been reading emails to her. I've learned so much about my mom just from reading how this or that person knows her. For instance, I never knew that she taught on Lookout Mountain at some point before I was born. Thanks for your continued support!

Wanda Woman - a special delivery from my cousin Mandi!

mail!