Welcome to "The Kenna Konnection"

Grandma's Valentine Cookies

2008-02-13T11:30:00.000-08:00

Grandma spent the week at Ron and Laraine's house. She continues to have regular visits from the home nurse and physical therapist. Some days are better than others, but overall, she appears to be slowly improving. Her arms are the slowest to regain mobility; she can lift them about 1/2 of normal.

Last weekend Terri's family was down, so they spent Friday evening and Sunday afternoon at Laraine's house. During the visit, we had a Valentine cookie decorating party. See a larger version of the slideshow above for the photographic evidence that Grandma and Grandpa have raised a bunch of cookie monsters! Just click on this link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/terrischutz/ValentineCookies

Send Grandma Kenna a Valentine!

2008-02-06T08:41:00.000-08:00

Technology alert!!!! Technology alert!!!!

Grandma Kenna has an email address now!!!! Anyone who desires to send her their love can address their message to kennatanner@aol.com . She is using typing as a form of physical therapy on her hands, so it may not always be easy for her to reply, but it's good exercise. Plus, receiving messages from loved ones is always fun!

Yesterday morning Grandma had a CT scan of her upper torso. The machine broke midway through the scan, so they had to move her to another machine and start over. How does one go about breaking a CT scanner????? I don't know! Grandma, you are certainly blazing a lot of new trails lately!

What a ride!

2008-02-04T21:12:00.000-08:00

Grandma and Laraine made a drive in the snow this morning to SLC to visit the dermatologist at the University of Utah. Grandma said he told her she is on the "right track"...Grandma reported tonight that she is questioning just how long this train ride is going to take!

This afternoon, the home nurse and physical therapists visited Grandma. Her blood tested a little thick, so the coumadin was started (again). Grandma reported that the physical therapist's visit was really helpful in loosening up her tight muscles. She feels like she is able to move better tonight than she did over the weekend. It sounds like it's been an "up" day compared to the "down" days she reported over the weekend. Grandma, maybe you're on a roller coaster, not a train!

Grandma is going for a CT scan tomorrow, but that's in Ogden, so she and Laraine won't have to brave the snowy roads for too many miles... We hope you have a good ride!

Home Sweet Home..

2008-02-04T13:19:00.001-08:00

Grandma spent the weekend at home. She reported that she was very tired and was just happy to sit on the couch and "do nothing". I'm sure she enjoyed just spending some time with Grandpa...and I'm sure he enjoyed having her there, too. Her trip was enhanced by a snowstorm that canceled church in Grouse Creek and got Grandma anxious to get on the road back to town before she got snowed in! (or maybe she would have liked that???). She would like to be able to spend more time at home....maybe in a few weeks.

Grandma will be spending this week at Laraine's house. She has doctor's appointments several days this week. In addition, she is sure to be entertained by great grandchildren, Carter, who is nine months old and Devree who is five months old. Grandma Laraine says Carter is walking all over the place now and can climb "wherever he wants to go". Maybe Carter and Grandma will have races while nobody is watching! Have fun, Grandma!

Grandma Rolls

2008-01-31T14:09:00.001-08:00

Grandma's appointment to have her blood drawn yesterday was canceled because of bad weather, so she is going this afternoon to have it done.

Since she had a free afternoon yesterday, she and Conny made some rolls.

Grandma's rolls are the best!

Pushing the iron and pumping iron

2008-01-30T05:38:00.000-08:00

Conny reports Grandma has recently done some ironing and vacuuming (although Grandma says it's not easy to vacuum when your arms don't have normal function!). She spends a lot of time reading and has a series of exercises prescribed by the physical therapist that she repeats periodically throughout the day.

Grandma has a doctor's appointment with Dr. Dames today and then again on Friday. Her blood was too thin earlier this week (again). It's been a battle to get it consistently the right viscosity! She's getting more vitamin K to make it thicker and is off the Coumadin for a while until things get settled. More info later...

Grouse Creek...Home Sweet Home

2008-01-30T05:25:00.000-08:00

Grandma reports she had a great time at Grouse Creek. Grandpa reports that she did a little wash, cleaned the house a little and kept busy. He said he could see some improvement from last week. That's great!

On The Road Again

2008-01-25T14:51:00.000-08:00

Today has been a busy day for Grandma! She started off with a trip to Salt Lake City to see the neurologist, Dr. Flannigan, this morning. Laraine reported that his office is not easy to find! The doctor's assistants tugged and tested Mom, but the end result showed that Dr. Flannigan concurs with the diagnoses of myositis and dormant ALS that had previously been pronounced.

He is going to have copies of all her records and tests forwarded to a specialist at Washington University for review; however, that process is expected to take "weeks" before any feedback is received. Wow, Mom's case has really attracted a lot of attention from the medical community!

The rheumatologist in Odgen will continue to be the main physician handling Mom's case for the present time, and Mom will probably be seeing her quite frequently for the next while.

Later this afternoon, Mom will be having another visit from the physical therapist at Brent and Conny's house. Then, since it is Friday, Laraine is going to drive Mom to Tremonton to meet Kyle and go home to Grouse Creek for the weekend.

Drive safely!

It's A Great Day!

2008-01-25T10:14:00.000-08:00

Grandma's lab results were awesome today! Her Ck (muscle enzyme) was 256!!!! This is remarkable, considering it has been has high as 6000. It appears the prednisone is really helping! She will be starting on injections of methotrexate today (Thursday). Nurse Laraine will be doing this. This will continue until Feb 4, when the prednisone will be cut back.

Friday she has an appointment at 8:30 a.m. with Dr. Flanigan, her new Neurologist at the U of U. Afterward, she has an appointment with her Rheumatologist, Dr. Shelby Dames, in Ogden. Based on the enzyme counts and increased mobility Grandma has seen since she has started prednisone, Dr. Dames feels the ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) diagnosed following her recent muscle biopsy is dormant. The doctor stated that if ten patients of Grandma's age were tested, the majority would probably result in positive signs of ALS, but in the majority it would also be dormant. THIS IS GREAT NEWS!!!

We appreciate so much the many thoughts, calls, and acts of kindsness you have shown during the past couple of months. Your support and love means so much to Mom and the entire family.

Check back later for updates on how the most recent rounds of doctor visits went...

Hello Friends and Family

2008-01-24T12:55:00.000-08:00

The Kenna Konnection is being created to keep everyone informed of Kenna's health condition and her related activities. Feel free to save this website on your Favorites list and check back periodically as we will update the blog with current information and news.