Dear Family and Friends,
Since I last updated you Matt has obtained his apnea treatment machine...and it works! He tells me it took a little getting used to. He has a full face mask that he has to wear when he gets ready to go to sleep for the night. He tells me he feels like he's a fighter pilot when he straps it on. (Maybe that feeling is also fed by the fact that he also puts on his headphones.) The noise of the machine is drowned out by the music he listens to over the headphones -and he does drift off into deep sleep. The end result is that he is more rested. He has begun to dream again...literally. When you don't enter deep sleep you don't dream. He hasn't dreamed or remembered dreams in years, but now he does. He has more energy. He is more his "old self." Even the cadence of this speech has picked up. His mind seems to be working more quickly and he seems to be coming up with more creative ideas. His sleep patterns are still interrupted by the various effects of various medicines but because the sleep is deeper he is more rested. The anticipated spin off of his blood pressure dropping another 5-10 points, (a desirable result in Matt's case) has also happened.
We also had our appointment with the hematologist. I was again impressed with my own ignorance. Though I think I know so much about Matt's case, I really only have a rudimentary understanding of what's going on. I'm always learning new things, (maybe it would be more accurate to say -partly learning new things.) The appointment with the hematologist was to explore further the possibility of seeing symptoms in the blood work that might indicate that he was edging towards another episode of TTP. One of my new learnings was that those symptoms can be caused by a number of other things which are related to other things that are part of the complexity of Matt's case, and may have nothing to do at all with developing another case of TTP. That is good news. The other things are not life threatening. TTP is a difficult thing to diagnose, and part of the sorting out of things is to eliminate the other possibilities that might be causing the symptoms. The hematologist was pleased with Matt's latest blood work, but ordered some more specialized tests in order to get a clearer picture of what is going on. We are still waiting on a report regarding the test results.
Kidney function is still holding its own with some of the numbers looking a little better in some of the routine blood checks. With regard to the other things I have asked you to pray for I can report that there has been no rejection, no serious infections (he did seem to have some sort of viral digestive disorder for a bit, but so did his wife Melissa,) no TTP, a good report from the hematologist, and lessened fatigue. Your prayer support is much appreciated! God's mercy and kindness continue to flow into our lives and we are thankful. Raise the praise to God and keep on praying (even for the "impossibility of improved kidney function.")
Sharing in the undeserved blessings of God in Christ,
George
