Cocci

Thursday 12 April evening

The opera was great and I had a nice time with Nicola Filippi. Great music; solid and splendiferous performance.

In the afternoon I had spent about two hours and a half with Lara, taking her for a brief walk in the corridor. She is doing OK. Pink turband in place.

I talked to the senior hematologist and she told me more specifically what they had found inside Lara. Last week the lab had found an Enterobacter, the same pathogen that had given her troubles in May of last year, as I reported a few days ago. More disturbing is that on 10 April, the lab also found a staphylococcus (but not the same as last year, or so I understood her to say), and today they had also seen a streptococcus. However, she was confident that with Ceftazidim and Targocid as antibiotics plus Cancidas as an anti-fungal, they had covered all the flanks.

I am not going to talk to Lara about the cocci, for she will freak when hearing about the staphs which almost killed her last year and maimed her lungs permanently.

We are now on Day 16 and waiting for the WBC to return. The doctor reminded me that last year, after the second chemo cure, they came back up on Day 18 and after the third on Day 15 with the same chemical compound (Cytosar). She said that it was reasonable to expect some action over the next few days. Inflammation may go up as a result. She also pointed out that Lara was still breathing on her own, while she had spotted her taking a walk in the corridor that afternoon. So we have a little margin, she said.

I briefly spoke to Lara after the opera. She was trying to sleep. The Dafalgan had brought her fever down and she hoped it would last her a good portion of the night.

I truly admire the woman.