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Prayer Updates on Beth & Amy
Sun., Feb. 19. 2006 1:36am EST
Here are updates we received this past Thursday on the two young women we asked you to pray for last week, Beth Behanna (our former drummer Fred Behanna's daughter), who has been battling Hodgkins Disease since 2000 and our friend Amy Bryant, who has been battling leukemia since 1998.
First an update on Beth from Fred:
It's been an extremely trying time here. She seemed to be doing fairly well last weekend but on Monday her oxygen level went completely haywire and her level dropped to 64% She was turning blue and things definitely did not look good. In fact, I wasn't very hopeful to her making it through the night.
Her oncologist came in Monday evening (after she had been put on pure oxygen for a couple of hours and even then her level only got to 86%) and made some adjustments to medication which included adding steroids and by Tuesday morning her oxygen level was at 99%. After taking her off of oxygen her level held at 97%. So we definitely dodged a bullet there.
Her red and white counts are coming back to normal as is her potassium. She does have some fluid in her chest (which they hope will go away with some walking exercises) and her platlet count is still low. It had risen to 57,000 on Wednesday but was down to 20,000 today. Last weekend it was at 9,000 so we'll just have to keep praying that her bone marrow begins to make enough platlets on its own.
She's had a very rough time of it and my heart aches so deeply. I can't make things right for her and I hate that.
I do thank God that he has answered some of my prayers which were for her blood counts to improve, her breathing to improve, and for her fevers to go away (she hasn't had one for a couple of days now). So I do have things to be thankful for but I'd really love to be thanking Him for a miracle healing.
Now, an update on Amy from our friend Marla:
Finally I get to write an update with a lighter heart. I just got off the phone with Amy, who is getting chemo and an experimental drug as part of a clinical trial at the U. of Penn. in Philly. It's so disheartening to see her have to go through this process again, but here's the good news: she has a really nice room, her nausea hasn't been unbearable, and she got to watch women's Olympic hockey
Let me elaborate. She really wanted a more private room than what she had at Hahneman. She hates being in the hospital so much that the mere thought of being there for an extended stay makes her anxious. At this facility they have some regular rooms and some "suites," and they try to use the latter for those who will have extended stays. She has her own bathroom, a great view of old brick buildings, there's a mini fridge in the room, and there are wooden cabinets and marble tile--so it looks more like a hotel room than a hospital room. That's an answer to prayer.
Before her nausea has been completely overwhelming while getting chemo, she develops sores in her mouth, she can hardly eat, and she loses lots of weight, which of course weakens her immensely. Now, she just started chemo yesterday, but so far the nausea isn't intense like it's been before. That's an answered prayer, but something you can continue to pray about.
"What's hockey got to do with anything?" you ask. She said that she had to get numerous tests the one day and she had to wait for long stretches on a gurney outside various rooms. Her one wait was two hours long--but there was a TV and the US women were beating Finland in hockey. This is significant because pre-Olympics she and Russ got to see the Olympic team play at the Sovreign Center and Amy said then "I hope I get to see them in the Olympics!" That was not an answered prayer--that was an answered wish stated months ago before she knew she'd be in the hospital. Coincidence? Not on your life. "God-incidence."
The downside to this is that she'll be in the hospital until her counts come back up. She finishes chemo this week, but will probably need to stay there in the ballpark of four weeks for her counts to come up. Of course, we can all pray that the counts will rapidly improve, thus shortening her stay. Not only does she not want to be in the hospital for that long, but also for the time being their dog is in the kennel and they aren't sure that there's any other option than keeping her in the kennel for the whole time Amy's in the hospital, which they don't prefer to do.
Amy will also have to get a bone marrow biopsy (painful) tomorrow unless the blasts in her blood decrease by then. They were markedly decreased at her last blood test and the doctors weren't sure why and Amy's like "Maybe the test drug is doing its job!" It would be a bonus if she could avoid getting that test. The drug she's taking is supposed to weaken the leukemic cells and also make your body not get resistant to the chemo. She's only the second person to get this high a dosage, but the drug is FDA-approved for another use, so while there's risk involved it's not a total unknown.
If anyone would like to send a card, her address is:
Amy Bryant
3400 Spruce Street
6th Floor
Rhoads Building
Room 6016
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Thanks for "listening," and thanks for praying for my friend, whom many of you don't even know. It means a lot to me, and to her.
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