The Girl's Got Grit

Three days ago, Eve started worrying about her email inbox. So she picked up her phone to reply to some particularly urgent messages. After 10 minutes of studied concentration, she had written the word "So."

This is, as you may have guessed, a guest blog post. Because of the aforementioned struggle with crafting coherent phrases. I insisted on writing this to ease her stress about updating all of you.

I'm Miriam, Eve sister. I've been hanging with her for the last few days at Stanford Hospital. Which is amazing. The staff is unbelievable. The facilities are lovely. And they serve up a good house-made veggie burger. But this isn't about the hospital. It's about Eve. I get it.

But before I get into it though, just a quick shout out to her husband Pat, who was here all last week with her, arriving at the hospital at 7 AM and leaving at 10 PM or later. He would've stayed the weekend too had it not been for his commitment to go on a long-planned camp out with the girls. Pat, you have my immense respect and Eve's "I would be literally dead without you" gratitude. You are truly a menschy husband.

Onward!

So here's the latest on Eve. Those of you who are following her posts on Facebook know that she was admitted to the hospital in a seriously dire situation. She had an undetected abscess -- causing a life threatening infection -- that was caused by fluid leaking out of her kidney stent. She was in more and more pain and no one could figure out why. It took an ultrasound to detect the abscess which was underneath a muscle. When they finally got at it, there was enough pus to fill a grande cup from Starbucks.

Eve was admitted to the ER and they got to work on her immediately. They started pounding the infection with the heaviest antibiotics they could get their hands on and inserted the drains. But when she was finally stable, she was trapped in the ER. They could not find a bed in the main hospital for five full days.

Ask her to tell you the funny story about the roommate with night terrors who practically gave Eve a heart attack her first night. Or about the other roommate whose relatives came in at 2:30 in the morning, blithely flipped on the lights, and sat there all night. Or the one who made hacking sounds… continually… that are impossible to describe. Just think of the worst combination of hacking and clearing your throat that you can think of. Now make that 10 times worse. But I should not go into too much detail. You should instead ask Eve to tell you about those roommates, because telling the story will make her laugh. And she could always use a laugh. Fortunately, the nurses have moved her to a new room and have given her a quiet roommate for her last two nights.

On Memorial Day Eve plans to be discharged. They were able to get rid of most of the abscess, start another drain that's getting her bad kidney working again, give her intravenous antibiotics (because that's the only thing that can fight the E. coli at this point), and finally get her in that quiet room where she can rest. Her fever is down but the sepsis has made her very very swollen. She is good enough to leave but will have to go home with the drains still attached to her and antibiotics feeding into the port in her chest.

I look at her situation -- the drains, the pain, the tumors, the ostomy bag, the enormous swollen extremities, the chemo, the incontinence, the failing kidney, the infections, the 27+ surgeries -- and I can't believe she's able to smile and laugh as much as she does. This woman has a huge heart and a lot of grit. She just powers through it. I know she can't say these things to you because she would look like she's totally bragging. But I can because I'm her sister and I think she's marvelous.

So here's hoping she's indeed released on Monday back into the world. She needs some sun and some joy and to be loved up by her husband and daughters. And of course she always needs your prayers.

Have a wonderful and peaceful Memorial Day, Friends of Eve.

Your guest blogger,

Miriam

PS This is Eve. As you will note, my sister Miriam did not cover anything that has been going on for the last several months. There have been many ups and downs and every time I sat down to write this, I was so overwhelmed with the amount that I had to write that I'd just give up and walk away from the computer. 

However, a couple of highlights that I wanted to let you know about was that I was able to go back to the Iowa Caucus this year and complete my journey by participating in the Caucus festivities. I spent a lot of time with my friends the Mandelbaums who i met in 2008. I also get a wonderful visit with my original oncologist from Iowa, Rocky Morton. And a HUGE highlight was getting to spend time with Secretary Clinton. She found out that I was going to be in town and asked her staff to arrange for her to see me while I was there. What a thrill!

Other stuff that happened included lots of ups and downs with my health. If you're interested in learning more about that, just let me know. I'm too tired to write any more today. It looks like I won't be breaking out of Stanford until tomorrow,, but that's ok. I will be getting in-home IV antibiotics daily for the next 3 weeks. Hopefully, that can help kick this infection out of my system for good!

A big thank you to Miriam for just sitting down and writing my blog knowing that I was having trouble doing it. It's a little to generous to me, but I've decided just to leave in her nice words. You don't get a chance to see such night things written about you by you sister everyday - so I'm going to memorialize it!

I hope that you all have a magnificent Memorial Day!