10PM Update:

Mom got a transfusion this evening. It seems like it may have been two bags of blood (a first for her!). Makes sense– her red blood cell count was lower than ever before.

No surgery tonight, no MRI tonight. Hopefully Mom get’s a good night’s sleep and the treatment team is ready to roll on this stuff Wednesday morning.

🤞🏻

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8PM Update:

First off, Mom’s in good spirits. She’s tired, but that’s quite understandable. Her red blood cell count is low, the hospital isn’t giving her food (since they want to bring her to operating room – details below), and she was awake until 4am this morning being admitted to the hospital.

So here goes:

The cheek pain she’s had for a few days is due to a sinus infection.

1. She needs another blood transfusion. As expected, her blood levels are getting low again. They want to wait to do the MRI first.
2. They’re going to do two MRIs. One with and one without dye, this is to evaluate her for any CNS involvement. They want to be sure no fluids or infection has spread through to her brain.
3. The Ear Nose & Throat crew is planning to do a nasal endoscopy today or tomorrow morning. They found a small infection in one of her sinuses, this is likely the cause of her cheek pain. They want to investigate to be sure it’s not fungal (which would be bad news) and they want to clean it out to relieve her of pain and to reduce the risk of further infection.

Mom’s currently getting saline and antibiotics through her picc line (mad props to Jennie for becoming a medical practitioner capable of flushing picc lines daily).

She’s also been given some pain and nausea medication orally.

For those who heard about a stone in her saliva gland (last night’s news), that was mis-information planted by the Russians. Mom does not have a stone in her saliva gland.