Todays Blog is brought you by the Colors, Yellow and Purple and the Numbers 2 and 4.

Tonight I sit again by Tracy’s bedside; I have spent 24 of the last 26 hours in her room.  I know how these episodes or attacks affect Trace.  Dr. Berg and the nurses have assured me that she will be fine, but it is hard to leave her side.

Dr. Berg told me today that he believes his work is cut out for him.  He believes that the lymphoma that Tracy had or has is causing a paraneoplastic syndrome, in which the cancer causes the bodies antibodies to attack the brain and nervous system.  He thinks that maybe the b cell follicular lymphoma is not gone and is continuing to cause Tracy’s symptoms.  Tracy’s cognizant times are intermittent and he needs hematology and neurology to see Trace during one of these times.  If they don’t catch Trace during one of these times, it will be up to him, Tracy’s history and the nurse’s notes, (which have been good) to convince them to get on board with him.

Now this is important!  I told him that we are very strong Christians and that we have a lot of people praying for Tracy and that I would write in Tracy’s blog asking these same people to pray for him as he talks with these other doctors.  He thanked me and said that it would help.  So I am asking all of you who are praying for us and even those who have told me they would but were not sure God would listen (let me remind you, if you call upon His name, He listens), to pray for Dr. Berg and hematology and neurology teams to have wisdom, clarity and patience as they treat and evaluate Tracy.

Also say a prayer for Drew as he is not feeling well tonight and has his ACT examination for college acceptance tomorrow.

While we are on the prayer request topic, please pray for one of my best friends, Steve Maniaci, brother Casper and his family.  Casper is currently on life support after suffering from heart failure over the weekend.

During Tracy’s occupational therapy today (our OT therapist is Kristen Clore, and we love her) Kristen said that when she came in she said hello to Tracy, she stuck her hand out to shake Tracy’s hand and Trace grabbed it, shook it and said hello to her!  If that wasn’t enough, Kristen then held up two fingers and asked Trace how many fingers, “two” was her answer!  If that wasn’t impressive enough, Kristen then held up four fingers and asked how many again.  Tracy responded “four”!  

Kristen then grabbed a stuffed caterpillar (we call it “The Hungry Caterpillar” as this was one of Drew’s favorite books as a child) that is multicolored and pointed to its head and asked what color it was.  Tracy responded with “yellow” which it was!!  She then pointed to its tail and asked what color it was.  Tracy responded this time “purple”, another correct answer!!!   Then she pointed to it’s green midsection and what color it was.  This time Tracy pondered and then said she didn’t know. 

Hey 5 out of 6 is pretty good!  Actually it’s impressive!!

Also as Dr. Berg left this afternoon he said see you tomorrow to Tracy and she responded “Thank you” to him. Later on in the evening we got a new nurse, Martha who introduced herself to Tracy and Tracy responded “Tracy Bowden, nice to meet you”

I think you know now that I smiled a lot today.

Other than that Tracy slept the day away, which Dr. Berg said he thought was appropriate given all the stimuli and day Trace had yesterday.

I read to Tracy everyday and the last few days she has been very attentive to my readings.

It is now 9:30PM and must close for now.

God Bless and “Never Give Up… Never Ever Give Up!”

Rob