Returning Home

After a long and valiant fight, my eternal companion returned home to his Heavenly and Earthly Father on December 4th. He will be greatly missed. I am so greatful for all of the love and concern that has been given to us through the past year. I have come to know that Kurt was loved by many people. I know that he wanted to stay with us, but he has a much greater mission on the other side. Thanks again for all the help.

I left the hospital last night to get some sleep, since Kurt was doing better. I came back up this morning around 10:00 and he was not doing well at all. He had a breathing mask on and they were having a hard time waking up. The physical therapist was trying to exercise with him, but he was nor too cooperative. I tried to talk to him, but he couldn't get any words out just sounds. We met with the Doctor and he told us that the fungal infection is a like a cancer that is very aggressive and takes over very quickly. He told us that they could continue with the treatment and see if he has a rebound like he did yesterday, or we could stop treatment and let nature takes its course. We decided as a family to keep the treatment going for another 24 hours. As the day went on, he became worse and could not talk at all, his body was jerking a lot, and his breathing was very heavy. As the night went on he just seemed so agitated, and upset, so we decided that they would sedate him with pain medication to see if that helped. Around 9:00, he did seem to relax and was sleeping a little bit. This is so hard to watch. We even have had all of the hospital tell us what a great person he is and they just love him. The hospice nurse told us that this could end tonight, or go a few days. They still said there could be a miracle, so we are just praying that God has a plan for him and that we will be able to accept that plan, and know that he won't suffer anymore.
We are so appreciative to everyone, we have so many great family and friends. Thank you for all of your help and prayers.
Love, Cindee

Update

Wow, what a journey! Last night Kurt didn't say too much during the night, he woke up about 7:30 in the morning, but was saying weird things and I couldn't understand him very well. He stayed awake, and that was something he hadn't done for the last two days, he also was trying to get out of bed, and he seemed more alert. I asked him if he wanted something to eat, but he said no. But he did want to watch TV and even wanted his glasses. Later in the morning we saw the physicians assistant and she asked him some questions and he did well. He still is saying some things that don't make sense, but he looks better. Then she told us that the liver counts were looking better, and everything else was stable, they were surprised that the liver did better, because the medicine that they are giving him might of made the liver worse, so they were happy about that, and because he seems more alert they think the medicine is helping the infection. I don't want to get my hopes up, but I know that a small miracle has happened. They were not expecting the liver to do better, and I really think they thought this infection would take him quickly. We're still not out of the woods by far, but I don't think they expected this. So I will do a quick update everyday. Once again thanks for your prayers, I know that is why he is doing better.
Cindee

What a Shock!

Monday I got up to the hospital and Kurt had just come back from an MRI of the brain and CT scan of his lungs. He is still confused and so they wanted to check his brain. A little while later the PA came in and asked me to come and talk to the DR. I knew this wasn't going to be good. In a conference room she showed me the pictures of his lungs and read the report of the brain. She said it was bad. He has a fungal infection in his lungs and it is the bad kind. They also think that some of the infection has traveled up to his brain and causing the confusion and what they call mini strokes. They told me that it was a very hard infection to cure, and that they didn't know if they could fix it. She told me that I should call our families and have them come up. She did say that she wanted to confer with a infectious disease doc and an neurologist. Once all of our families got up there, the disease docs talked to us and said that there was one more drug they could use and see if that would help, but they said it was bad and didn't know if it would help. Everyone went in a couple at a time to talk to him, which he isn't doing much of. When Kelli took her kids in, he started to cry and said am I dying? It was so hard to see. We told him that he is very sick with a lung infection and they were going to try a new medicine to get it better. It was a very hard night for all of us, and I think he knew what was going on.
The disease docs said that it would take a few days to see if there was improvement. They also told us that his liver could get worse being on these meds. So my kids and I decided that we would try this new medicine and see if it would work on the infection. And they would check his liver everyday and if this didn't help, that we would take away the meds that he has been on for the transplant and Graft Versus Host disease, and that it wouldn't take long for him to go. This has been devastating to us as a family, and the bad thing is that Kurt asked the Dr. today if he was going to die? I'm so grateful to everyone for their prayers and help, right now we need to pray really hard that he gets better. I still can't believe what I heard yesterday, and I'm so sorry to tell all of you this way. I will keep you updated hopefully as soon as we know something. Thank you again.
Cindee

Still In The Hospital

Wow, how time flies by. We came to the clinic on Monday, and Kurt was in really bad pain. They admitted him, and they also found this week some infections, the bad one is in his lungs. They are treating him with anti-biotics. But they have also been giving him lots of pain meds for his back which they think is more of a muscle strain, and so he is not himself again. It's very hard to see him this way. He doesn't talk to me very much, and he says funny things again. Today I got up here and they told me that he was very defiant, he didn't want anyone to do anything to him. They gave him something to relax him, and then they were able to do some things. When I got here, I ordered him some food, and he ate some of it. They are starting to taper him off the pain meds, so hopefully soon he will come back again. They said his lungs sound better, and are slowly getting better. But his strength is very weak, because he hasn't been able to get up and around because of his back. I feel really bad about all of this, it seems, he has had several different things to deal with, and I hope sometime soon, he feels back to himself and can live a normal life! (One good thing, his hair is slowly coming back in)
I don't know how long he will be here, it depends on how long he is out of it. I will keep you posted as usual. Keep him in yours prayers and thank you again for everything. Thanks to all of my kids for all of their concern and help!
Cindee