Doom & Gloom & a little bit of good stuff....

3/3/11

Mom update….

Well, mom met with the ob/gyn & oncologist yesterday.

Bloodwork: have to hold off on chemo. While her ANC is 7,000, there seems to be an imbalance of bacteria in her GI tract causing her not to be at her very very best to tolerate chemo right now. Liver function seems to be improving! What a blessing.

Ob/Gyn report: what was seen on the sonogram was possibly part of her GI tract, as her anatomy is now shifted & changed from her colon resection, may be an encapsulated appendix (though he thinks that would have been a remarkable finding during her surgery, during her previous CTs, etc.), and says that it would be rare, rare, rare for it to be cancerous since she’s had so many CTs (post op, pre op, etc. and nothing showed up.) Oncologist has advised that it needs to be re-sono’d at 1 month & 3 months to note any changes. He feels that it is not worth interrupting her chemo treatments for an exploratory surgery or ovary removal at this time. And just to note, her left ovary is fine. Her right is atrophied. She doesn’t care b/c she’s not using them anyway (she says). They did a blood test for ovarian cancer (which they say is not always high for cancer patients, and is not always 100% accurate, but still relevant, yada, yada, yada), and it came back negative. They will retest that at 1 month & 3 months. Mom now feels more comfortable just waiting & watching as that has been what was advised by both the oncologist & ob/gyn, with input from the surgeon who did her colon resection.

Chemo report: well, I mentioned---they’re holding off. Future chemos will be at 30% strength. Will that be strong enough? Yes he said because the cancer is made up of the same genes that indicate the hypersensitivity to the drug. So, at this point, they’ve shocked the mokey out of the cancer with one drug, but not all 3 drugs. So, her future chemos will be 30% of the 5-FU, and the other two drugs at regular strength. Still the same # of treatments in total, so if she gets one next week and continues on track, she’ll be done mid-July.

What else? She’s tired a lot. Nauseated all day every day. Lingering effects of the high levels of the 5-FU in her system. She’s bald. But, her weight is up to 109! Woohooo!

In other doom & gloom news: death to the laptop.
Bought a new charger.
That wasn't it.
Bought a new connecter piece to where the charger goes.
That fixed the charging issue, but a new issue developed, and it's just a pain in the rear! $400 to fix. Yeah....I'll pass. For a little more I could have a brand spankin' new laptop with everything I want on it. I'll opt for that! So, a new laptop is on the horizon.
sniff*sniff*sniff.
The good news: Poppa (a computer wiz) is able to get my pics off there that haven't been backed up or saved to snapfish yet, so that's good.