It Has Been a While

Haven’t posted for some time but have been doing life nonetheless.  Just to tie up some of the loose ends from previous stories.  Mom lived in assisted living at HCR till December of 2016.  She wanted to come home but the split-level house was not her friend.  So we converted a small closet on the first floor into a small restroom, put a bed in the family room and moved her home. She is much happier there and basically adjusted to her one-level-living.

I have told you about the herceptin treatments every three weeks and I originally though they would be finished in July or so.  When Dr. Miles told me we would be treating through September I cried.  After everything that I had been through who knew that taking a treatment every three weeks with zero side effects would be the thing that broke me.  Part of the reaction was due to the “magic five year” pill I am now taking complete with menopausal side effects – hence the mood swing which seemed to shock my oncologist.

Sylvia has had cataract surgery on both her eyes and my sister, Janis, has been diagnosed with Sarcoma since last we chatted here.  I went with her to many of her original appointments which began after she saw a doctor about her back hurting on our Route 66 Spring Break this year.  It took a while to actually get the results of the biopsy and KU sent it to Mayo for confirmation.  Seems like the source tumor is actually behind her knee with hot spots in her spine and one her ribs.  They enrolled her in a clinical trial but the first day of that treatment was traumatic.  She had a full blown reaction to the antibodies they were giving her and her vitals got down to 55/20 before the EMTS took her out of the infusion center and whisked her off the the ER.  She recovered fully but was obviously not a candidate for the trials.  She has now been through four rounds of chemo, lost her hair and is waiting for surgery on the tumor behind her knee after the first of the year.  She is one determined woman.

I have been back four my three month visits with everyone by my radiation doctor and everything seems to be going just fine.  The curl is gone from my hair and it is almost back to normal – just a slightly different texture so far.

Mom fell again in October and spent some time at Providence and then back to HCR for some rehab.  She wore a heart monitor to try to catch her beats going low as the cardiologist really thought we were headed for a pacemaker. He finally got the number he needed and the device was put in this past Monday.  She is home but with restricted movement for her left arm for a while.

It just keeps going…….and that is the good news!!!

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