Friday, May 01, 2009

Another mom update

It's been a few days and lots of discussions and phone calls later it has been decided that mom is not a candidate for surgery at this time because there is too much swelling and both doctors agree that she should receive some IV infusion chemotherapy and hopefully she will respond to that and the swelling and the tumor will shrink.

Mom is back up to 12mg of steroids and overall I think she had a better day today...the last 2 days were a bit on the rocky side....nevertheless I came home from work yesterday and promptly put her in the shower and washed her all up and put her in clean clothes...being in the same nightgown for 2 days isn't a great boost to your moral, in my opinion. She felt good afterwards and took a nice relaxing nap before dinner.

I find it interesting that the neurosurgeon would be the voice of reason that would help me to stop questioning my decision for mom's care. I never really thought he had good bedside manner and to put it bluntly he had the personality of a piece of cardboard when I dealt with him last fall...he didn't really talk to us too much but I felt that his surgical skills were more important and those were impeccable so who cares if he didn't really talk to me! Well last night when he called me after hours I felt such a sense of calm after talking to him and I thanked him for his kindness and his patience and support in explaining everything to me...it was like he was a different doctor this time around...who knows...maybe he sensed my apprehension and my worry. Whatever the reason, I'm glad that he called me and that both doctors agree on the next course of action. The IV infusion that mom will be getting is Avastin, a drug that is not FDA approved for brain tumors but is marketed for colorectal cancer, lung cancer and breast cancer. Clinical trials of avastin have had good results in the drug shrinking brain tumors so the company is seeking FDA approval for the drug to be used for brain cancer patients as well.

Next thursday is mom's first infusion...please keep her in your prayers that this treatment will shrink the tumor. We are only about 6-7 weeks away from a new little boy being born into our family and I pray that God will allow mom to hold her new grandson in her arms.

In other news, the house is still pretty crazy...stuff everywhere, boxes piled to the ceiling...but I will get through it little by little. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to put my scrapbooking stuff in 1/2 the space I had before...was I crazy to give up my larger room to my son? I'm figuring out a different storage system...it's taking me some time to work through it all in my head but I'll get it done in time.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

thinking of her every day
please take good care of you

love Madeleine

Scrappy Gal said...

Thinking of you all and keeping her in my prayers.

Nancy said...

Only time will tell.