Day +16: higher and higher

White blood count: 3.9 billion per liter (normal is 5.5-17.5)
Neutrophils: 1.6 billion (normal is 1.0 - 8.0)
Platelets: 19 billion, received transfusion (thanks, Emmasdadda!)
AST: 172 (normal is 16-41)
ALT: 394 (normal is 11-55)
GGT: 244 (normal is 5-39)
Bilirubin: 1.1 mg/DL (normal is 0.3-1.3)

It's that last number that gives us hope there's nothing seriously wrong with her liver. Bilirubin is what causes jaundice and other problems if it starts spilling into the bloodstream. Her number is up a notch from yesterday, but still within normal range, despite the rapid spike of the other liver function numbers. The attending physician consulted one of the two bone marrow specialists here, who said it could still be a reaction to the chemo and radiation conditioning. They're planning to reduce her IV nutrition further, from 20 hours today to 16 tomorrow to 12 on Tuesday. Still no tenderness or enlargement of the liver, so everyone is hoping the problem resolves itself over the next few days.

Otherwise, her spirits are excellent. She had a nice day today with our friend Christine ("Ti-ti"), who is visting for a few days from Seattle. She's still puffy from fluid retention, but they've stopped the diuretics and she's doing fine with her urine output. We finally put her on a continuous morphine drip, which seemed to help even our her moods some. We probably should have done this earlier because she has definitely been in some pain. Hopefully she'll only need it for a few more days as her new white cells start healing things up. She had some rice for lunch today and drank 5-6 oz. of milk in the evening, so that's another good sign. We're planning to get some whole milk yogurt in here tomorrow; I bet that hits the spot.