Thursday through Monday, May 31st through June 4th

Good evening,

Last Thursday proved to be a very rough day as she began vomiting in the afternoon and well into the night... Her temperature also reached 103 degrees and we had to place her on 3 liters of oxygen to keep her blood oxygen level above 90%. By coincidence Tori was also scheduled to have her blood taken and it took her nurse Myra numerous attempts before she actually was able to take the blood samples. Myra then called us within a couple of hours and the results indicated Tori was indeed fighting some sort of infection because her white blood cell count was high and other parameters were as well. We called the PCMC and were tempted to take to the hospital but decided to give her the night at home after she finally calmed down and went to sleep. We gave her some pedialyte and her temperature also dropped to normal levels. Friday morning she was feeling much better as we were able to take her off oxygen and temperature remaining normal as well. She remained just fine from that point until now so we are not quite sure what exactly was going on with her over that time.

Whitney and Brendan also left Thursday with Grandpa and Grandma Schmanski for a long weekend of camping and water park fun in Idaho. All of their cousins also went and they had a wonderful time. School is now out and summer vacation has begun!! :-) I also left the house Friday evening for a 3.5 hour drive to St. George, Utah for the golf tournament benefiting the Tori Schmanski Fund and the Spinal Cord Society. I would like to thank Dan Thomson for putting the tournament together, the St. George Golf Club and to everyone else who helped out at the event. Of course I would also like to thank all of the golfers, sponsors and prize donors as well. There were over sixty golfers participating and the local newspaper also stopped by for an interview and pictures that appeared in Sunday's Spectrum newspaper. I then drove home late Saturday afternoon to spend the rest of the weekend with Maria and Tori.

We couldn't really take Tori anywhere since our van was in the shop getting fixed so we just hung out at home, relaxed and watched movies. There is nothing really miraculous to report on Tori's progress unfortunately. She is remaining healthy, despite Thursday's slight episode, and she continues to try and eat just about anything. Her muscle tone is still quite high so we will have to raise her level once again or try the 'burst' mode I mentioned previously. We haven't sorted out her PT sessions with the new primary insurance company so we do the best we can to counter.

I thought this story about a man waking up after 19 years in a coma was very touching and intriguing. I cannot fathom the strength, courage, determination and love demonstrated by his wife who cared for him for those 19 years. 19 years is just unimaginable to us all after caring for Tori for just under two years now. Lauren also continues to show improvement since her return from SCT in China.

That is all for now. Thank you all once again.

The Schmanski Family