So far, so good

Sorry for the hiatus...brother Kirk was in town and we had a nice time catching up.

Karl is doing well in terms of the plastic surgery to repair his bum and heel. Doctors were especially concerned about his heel because the blood supply is not as good there. But, so far, so good. They've been applying an ultrasonic mist on the other heel and it continues to respond well.

In the meantime doctors have been trying to figure out how to best take care of the spot on his kidney. With his kidneys' limited function, they want to limit the invasiveness and blood loss. Karl has agreed to go with cryoabrasion. They will do that procedure sometime this week or next. The cryoabrasion consists of punching a hole in the spot and freezing it. They will take a small biopsy to determine just exactly what it is. His body will then eventually absorb the part that's frozen. Karl will be under general anesthesia. They feel this procedure will be less stressful on his system and still get the job done. There are advantages to doing the cryo now: 1). With any loss of bad tissue, there is loss of good tissue and they want to limit that loss while the mass is still small. 2) They will keep close tabs on him and if the mass grows at all, they can always go in and get it later. We're thankful it's a slow-growing mass.

Today Karl is going in for another CT-scan -- this time it will be of his entire body. Doctors don't think they'll find anything else, but they want to make sure. And since the car's in the shop, they figure they can take care of it.

Doctors have told him they will probably do the radiation cyberknife on Karl's spinal tumor in 2-3 weeks. It has the same advantages as the cryo, but is apparently works better. Anyway, we're looking at Karl coming home in 3-4 weeks. We're hoping and praying!

Since you all probably look forward to Karl's crazy antics, I will not disappoint you. Karl is hooked up to a heart monitor. Nurses have it set to alarm whenever it goes above 120 beats per minute. For some crazy reason whenever he eats, his heart races in anticipation of the food going in his mouth. It's really odd. One day Karl decided he would get a fork full of food and move it close to his mouth and then back it away. The alarms sounded and the nurse came running in. She asked what he was doing and he said he was "teasing himself."

We are all so thankful for your thoughts and prayers. We can certainly testify to how well they work.

Love and blessings,

Kerry