Moving Day

Come join us at our new blog home. 

 https://portieville.wordpress.com/blog 

 We look forward to seeing you.

Playing Catch-up

What a year! I don't think any of us wil look back fondly on 2020. This has been an especially bad week in a bad year. On Saturday of last week I learned that Blogger and I can't coexist happily and today I'll be blog shopping for a new home for our continuing saga. On Sunday last week we suddenly lost telephone, television and internet service and due to the helpful service provider we remained cut off for four days. Then there was Norma Jean. On the 25th, a week ago Friday, she went for her second chest xray to see if her bronchitis was improving. She had only coughed a couple times during the week, so I was hopeful. The doctor called me in to take a look at the pictures side by side. There was definite improvement but her lungs still weren't completely clear. Dr B said she was responding to the prednisone and wanted her to contine with a low dose every other day. He also took some blood and sent it to the lab. On Monday when I checked with him on the blood results I was told they weren't back yet. That seemed strange as they usually only take 24 hours but in 2020 nothing is unusual. I called in on Tuesday and was told that the doctor would call me back. That gave me a nervous feeling. After he closed the clinic, he called so we could talk uninterupted. He told me that there were abnormal cells in the blood so it was checked out by two different pathologists. They couldn't come up with a clear diagnosis, but it appears that Norma Jean has lymphocytic leukemia. Since she isn't showing any signs of feeling ill and she seems to be responding to steroids, we have started her on another course of doxycycline along with her prednisone. On Thursday she'll have another blood test to compare with the last one. If she is the same or shows improvement, we'll probably increase her prednisone. If she is worse, we'll have another long talk about options. I made it clear that due to her age we won't be taking any drastic measures. We won't do biopsies or chemotherapy. Our mission is to keep her happy and commmfortable until she lets us know it's time to say goodbye. No, 2020 is not going down as one of my favorite years.