Chemo Take 1 & Update

Mom had her first Chemo treatment on the 6th.  She was nervous because her chest was sore from the port placement...and everything else that comes along with Chemo.  The nurse accessed her port for her blood draw and to start the Chemo and it wasn't that bad.  What she anticipated was a lot worse.  Since it was her first time they took it really slow and gave her one medication at a time.  They started off with tylenol and benadryl, then an anti-nausea medication.  She was there from about 8:30-3.  The days following Chemo were up and down.  She was nauseated the first few days, and started getting mouth sores, and then a migraine.  All which are side effects of the Chemo.  The headache was probably the worst but the Dr said that they can try to slow down the last medication the next time to hopefully prevent it somewhat.

(She of course found someone to visit with and had her grandkid blanket to keep her warm, I also kept her hydrated with a smoothie and water)

Mom went to the office today to have a blood draw and ended up seeing Dr. C.  He informed her last week when we were there for her Chemo that the pet scan came back and there were some spots in her abdomen that showed positive for lymphoma.  (which he somewhat expected) The sarcoid in her lung also showed and the only way to determine if it is sarcoid or lymphoma is do a lung biopsy which he doesn't want to do.  He said that the next pet scan will show that the other spots will shrink and if the spot on the lung doesn't shrink then we will know for sure it is sarcoid.  If it does shrink then it is lymphoma and we are already treating that so it won't really matter.

Today is when the bomb dropped.  Her bone marrow scan came back and showed trace amounts of lymphoma. (less than 2%) However, we still weren't expecting it and it has to be treated.  So for now he said to plan on 6-8 rounds of Chemo and then radiation.  Since it is in the bone marrow this upgraded her to a Stage 4.  (we didn't want to hear that) He also said her white blood cell count is .09 (very low) if the count doesn't go up she can't have Chemo.  However, this is a normal side effect of Chemo and normally it takes a week and a half for the counts to come back up.  We are still in that window...we won't know until Monday the 27th when she is planned to have her next treatment.

Thanks again for all of your prayers and support.