Dan here, updating you in Cate’s place: Cate is not feeling up to writing herself. A lot has happened just since the last post a little over a week ago. Cate went on Monday the 29th to get the therapeutic blood transfusion she mentioned in the previous post. Unfortunately, it didn’t improve her oxygen levels as expected, and she was sent for a chest X-ray. She had a CT scan, too, the following day, and we got a call around 5:30pm that evening from an on-call doctor who told us that the scan showed Cate had a blood clot in the neck area and a large amount of fluid on the right lung. He talked about putting her on blood thinners, but when we explained that Cate was already taking a blood thinner, Cate’s oncologist, Dr Arrowsmith, was consulted, and he advised us to go to the ER.

Cate was admitted at Memorial, and another CT scan was done. This showed that a tumor was impeding air flow to the right lung and obviously contributing to Cate’s difficulty breathing. On Wednesday an interventional pulmonologist, Dr Krish Bhadra, visited Cate and proposed a bronchoscopy procedure to drain some fluid and investigate putting in a stent to open up the airway some more. The procedure was scheduled for Friday, since it was necessary to discontinue the Eliquis (blood thinner) Cate was taking and wait until it had cleared her system before operating.

Thursday was Mary’s May Day at GPS, which was a big celebration that Cate had looked forward to enjoying with Mary. Our wonderful friend Karen Klein Herbst stepped in to take Mary to have her hair and makeup done and even brought along some chocolate strawberries to take in for the girls to have while they were getting ready for the pageant. Mary was just gorgeous, and Cate was able to watch the livestream on TV. Mary visited afterward, and we took pictures with her in her beautiful gown. It was a great day, in spite of the disappointments.

On Friday Cate didn’t have her procedure until after lunchtime, and it was several hours later, in the early evening, when Dr Bhadra gave us the difficult news that he’d taken about a liter of fluid out of the lung but had not been able to put in the stent, because there was not enough healthy lung tissue to make it a viable solution. A little later, when Cate and I were in the room and she got up to go to the bathroom, she collapsed, and her heart stopped beating. Staff rushed to do CPR and revived her. She was able to talk to me briefly, before they took her down to the Critical Care Unit, sedated her, and put her on a ventilator in order to stabilize her respiration. The doctors told me a pulmonary embolism—a clot that had travelled to her lungs—had caused the cardiac arrest. They investigated whether they could eliminate the clot, but it was not accessible, and they put her on anti-coagulants to prevent any further clotting. The result of all this meant that Cate’s left lung had sustained damage, while the right lung was also not functioning. The decision was made to take the ventilator off and for Cate to go into hospice. After two days on the ventilator, it was removed on Sunday, and Cate was back with us again.
Cate moved from the ICU to a regular hospital room last night and went on comfort care prior to letting her come home.The hospice service has already delivered a bed and oxygen to the house Cate is home now and we are getting care set up. Local visitors are welcome at any time as long as Cate is still awake and alert. Just reach out and call or text. Cate is alert, and, although her voice is weak, she is still fully able to communicate. She’s still every bit the fighter, and she’s still pushing on. In the meantime all the children are here now, and Cate is spending time with family and has had a few other visitors. Cate’s brother Michael will be arriving tonight (Tuesday), and her Aunt Sarah is coming on Thursday. 
Please continue to keep Cate and all of us in your prayers.  Thank you for all the support.