Night Update

The morphine isn't lasting as long as it should. Mom has now been given Lortab, fortunately she is also been given an anti-nausea drug with it. She now has a low grade fever 100.8. The nurse said the Lortab should help bring it down. I am glad she is in the hospital where they can change up drugs without a pharmacy trip. It's not great to be in the hospital, but I think it's were she needs to be. We will find out more information regarding chemo and release with tomorrow's rounds.

Good Night.

Less Pain is always good!

Mom is doing well as long as she stays on the Morphine every 4 hours. Once it runs out she becomes winded just from talking and then then the pain spikes pretty quickly. Which seems to be a problem, as the nurses don't really respond very quickly to calls. It took 5 minutes for the nurses button to be answered and then after waiting 20 minutes I went and tracked down her nurse. I let him know she was in pain and that she was requesting morphine, he got right on it and said "thank you" like he didn't even know. I hope that he didn't know and that it was lost on the receptionist, however it still shouldn't have taken so long.

The P.A. told Mom that she would go home tomorrow with coumadin shots for Dad to give her. She will also be on coumadin for the rest of her life. He also said that Chemo will be put on hold, they will decide for how long. Mom has been on 2 drugs for a study, when chemo starts again they will eliminate the avastin for a couple of rounds while she heals from the blood clot. We were told that the clot wasn't a very big one, that sounds encouraging. They have her on a heart monitor and everything is look great there. Her blood counts are also looking good!

Hospital Cont.

That is pretty much the info. The only thing to add is that started to have pain yesterday morning in the front. She had been having pain in the back to the touch. She mentioned that this pain was different and was inside rather than to the touch. She just put up with it and went to work. Today she went to work and really felt winded and it hurt to take deep breathes. Dad didn't' like the way she was breathing and he took her to the ER. They were very fast at getting her back, I guess you just have to say chest pain, can't breathe and your in!

Mom really wants to be able to continue the treatment plan for Chemo. She is scheduled for Thursday. She will be talking with her Dr in the morning about everything. For now she is pretty drugged up with pain meds and anti-nausea drugs, she was off to dream land when I left.

ER visit and Hospital Stay

Mom went to the ER tonight with extreme pain in her lungs so much so that it really hurt to breathe. 4 shots of Morphine didn't take the pain away. Finally a shot of Toradol seemed to help. A CT scan found a Pulmonary Embolism (blood clot in the lung. So they are starting her on Coumadin. Unfortunatly she has to stay at the hospital for 3 days to regulate it.

This is the very short version. Karie and my dad were with her and can probably add more details. This is the jist of it. Mike and my dad were able to give her a blessing before we left. None of us could stay with her but as we left she was really groggy and wanted to sleep.

Women's Conference

She is just so beautiful!
On September 26th, Mom, Valerie, Amanda, Mary and I all went to the General Relief Society Meeting at Valerie's ward! It was great to be there with everyone. We missed Teresa though. Mom was looking great as usual and being strong (after having Chemo and all)! She amazes me!

No effects of chemo didn't last

Saturday I started getting short of breath and just didn't feel well. I had a killer headache and I can't take Tylenol or Ibuprofen while on these chemo drugs. So I took Darvocet and was able to sleep at least. Sunday afternoon I just felt like I had the flu; chills, achy, fever of 101.5, headache. We called the doctor and he said to take Tylenol to get the fever down. That worked but I can't seem to get rid of this headache. It's not as bad as it was, but still there. I hope this is just a one-time incident and doesn't happen every time I get the chemo.

First Chemo Today

Here is mom all hooked up. The port is a blessing. It was so much easier than finding a vein. It's still a bit tender to the touch, but thanks to the numbing gel she didn't feel the poke.

First Chemo down.

I came home from having chemo and I did pretty well. The only adverse reactin was a slight headache and my legs started to ache. But by the next morning that all went away. I got the results of the CT and bone scans and the cancer is not in my liver. YEAH!! But I do have 5 nodules on my lung and in the pleural area. But confined to one organ is a good thing. I have rested today (Saturday - 9/19) and I am feeling normal. I hope this continues throughout. Next chemo treatment is on October 1st. I'll keep you posted. Thank you everyone for all your thoughts and prayers -- and love.

First Chemo tomorrow

I start chemo again tomorrow. I'm not very happy about this as you can imagine. Hopefully it won't be as bad as the last time I had it. Thank you for all your prayers and support. I couldn't do it without all my friends and family. Julie

Port-a-Cath in

Today I took mom to IMC to get her port-a-cath in. We had to get up at 5:30 am and be there by 6:30. Once we got to her room and changed they put in an IV - after today she wont have to do that again - since this is the reason we were there. They had a hard time placing it which confirmed to me that we were making the right move.
I took some pictures of what it looks like but I took them on mom's camera so we will have to post them later.

Finally at about 8:30 they took her back. Around 10 am they finally brought her back to me. I love it - they say 45 minutes to an hour tops.. yah right. Oh well. She was really groggy and said she didn't hurt at all. She didn't even remember them putting it in. It is on her right side on her chest. She had a small incision (about 2" long) where the port is. They glued her up. After resting for about an hour she was able to go home. It was only 11 am and her next appointment wasn't until 2. So we headed to Jamba Juice and then home to rest.

At 2 she had another appointment at the Huntsman Cancer Institute at IMC to sign up for a study she most likely will qualify for. We went through all the paper work and were told that the CT and Bone scans wouldn't be until later this week. We were under the impression that it would be done today but thinking about it now - it is for the best. Mom was really pretty tired.

The doctor went over all the information and we discussed getting the results for the scans later in the week. He really feels that we aren't going to find any worse news. So when she goes in for her first treatment (Thursday the 17th) we will be able to get the results. The only reason for doing all these scans is for the study. It will be good to have baselines too.

Once the doctor was through she needed to have blood drawn.. and guess what? She has a port now! So we got to go through the very first time using the port. They cleaned up really good and then put on some kind of freezing agent so she wouldn't feel the poke. In the future they will prescribe topical medication to put on 1 hour prior to using it that will help numb it. This was the coolest thing I have seen. The put the needle in..drew out the blood.. put on a bandaid.. and all with out any pain. No searching for the right vein. This is going to make life so much better. No more sore arms, needle pokes all over the place searching for a good vein. If you ever
get a chance to watch one being done.. do it. I found a quick video on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdD3KSGJOHI

It was off to pick up a fun drink (not) that she needs to consume prior to the CT Pelvic/Abdomen scan. She will be getting that done along with a bone scan on Friday. This will also be an all day event.

By the time we were on our way home I could tell that she was pretty tired. Can you imagine basically having outpatient surgery and then doing all that she did? Amazing women. I called her around 7 to remind her to take some more medication. They had given her versed and was forgetful through out the day. She was really groggy and I was resting.

Whew... That was a lot. I wanted to get it all down before I forgot it. Mom will post when she can.

1st Step

On Tuesday the 8th I will be going to the hospital to have a Port-a-cath.

Port-a-cath - A more permanent option involves the placement of a port-a-cath. The port-a-cath is placed under the skin on the chest. The catheter is then inserted into the superior vena cava vessel at entrance of the right atrium of the heart. This catheter can be placed in radiology by an interventional radiologist or by a surgeon in the operating room. It is approximately a one-hour procedure. The useful lifetime of a port-a-cath can be as long as three to five years. The port-a-cath can be felt under the skin and the nurse can find the entrance by locating the edges of the port-a-cath and inserting (cannulating) a special needle (called a Huber needle) into the soft middle section. Medications can be given through the port-a-cath and blood can be drawn from it eliminating the need for a blood draw from the arm.

This was a much better option than to continually be poked.

After that procedure I will than get a CT Scan of my body, bone scan and bloodwork done. I will also meet with the patient advocate to get chemotherapy underway. They believe that I will start sometime next week.

Happy Birthday Mom! Love all of us! (and that's alot!)

Cancer Again

Mom is probably not ready to really type it all down. We will be updating this blog again for her. 12 years ago she got breast cancer and they caught so early all she needed was radiation. After 5 years she was cancer free. She has always been good about getting her mammograms. In 2007 they found it again in her other breast this time too big to not do chemotherapy. She went the rounds and in early 2008 she looked great. It seemed that chemo and radiation had gotten it all.Then Friday night she goes to the ER with pain in her lungs. The doctor suspected a blood clot. But there wasn't anything there for the blood clot.. instead they found a 3 cm node in her lungs that was cancer. They also found a spot on her liver. This is now called metastatic breast cancer. The doctor is saying that it went blood born. Unfortunately there is no cure for this cancer.. only treatments. Which is hopeful because there are lots of treatments out there. She could go into remission but she will always fight this the rest of her life. There is no telling which of the treatments will work or for how long. It will just be a guessing game. Next week they will get her a full CT on her body to see if it is anywhere else. Then she will start into a 4-6 month treatment of chemo every other week. We are praying for the best.Thanks for your concerns. We will update as we know more information