Akathistos

I wanted to let everyone know that I have been updating my other blog: Our Little Monkeys.

I can’t keep up both right now.  I can barely keep up the one.

Thank you for everyone who has transitioned over to my other blog.

The CAT Scan showed that everything looked good all the way down through her throat.  The mucositis is still very painful, but, thankfully, it isn’t an infection.

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My Dad was finally well enough to spend the day with my Mom.  They were playing games when I last called.  Supposedly, my sister is “kicking their butts”.  My Dad says that Mom looks beautiful!

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Thanks for your prayers!

The doctor ordered a CAT Scan for tonight.

I don’t know anything else.  I’ll post again when I know more.

In case you haven’t been able to check my other blog, here is the recent update on my mom.  I am going to try to start blogging on here again- I miss it too much!

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Today was my mom’s worst day so far.

She has severe mucositis (sores) in her mouth.  Not only does her mouth hurt, but she is having pain in her jaw from the TMJ to behind her years, and it hurts for her to touch her face (this could be reffered pain). The pain is causing her to have difficulty eating, drinking and talking.  She has turned off her cell phone.  The nurse said that she is a top priority for pain management right now because she really shouldn’t be this much pain.

The doctor is worried that she may have an abscess/infection; so they are probably going to do a CAT scan tomorrow.  He doesn’t want to wait and risk an infection spreading.

The doctor brought her a print out of her counts from December 22nd through today.  It showed that some of her counts have remained about the same and others have dropped considerably.  However, my mom has ZERO nutrifills, uric acid or white blood cells.

She will need to have a blood transfusion in the near future to give her platelets and red blood cells.  The doctors need to wait until the counts drop more and she gets sicker, and then they will either get blood from a family member or from the hospital.

My mom is still on anti-nausea medication, as nausea is a side effect of the chemo.

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My sister said that our mom is sleepy (partly due to the morphine she is on for the pain). She is able to tell that Mom is in pain from the way that her eyes and face look, but Mom is still moving around and doing her best to eat. My sister has been staying at the hospital with my mom overnight.  The hospital staff put a bed in the room for her- I am sure this is a huge blessing to my mom.

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My dad is still sick and is hoping to be able to visit her again in the next day or two.  Please pray that he will get better so that he can be with his wife!

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A Good Note: After 10 days in the unit, my mom finally got a nice nurse for the first time!!! Her name is Patti.  Thank you, Patti, for taking good care of my mom!

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As you can tell, my mom is in serious need of prayer.

Thank you so much for your prayers!

Don’t forget that you can add a button to your website by clicking on this photo.

As you know, my mom was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in a contained area in her acetabulum (hip bone).  With this diagnosis, she should be very sick, but miraculously, it has been contained and has not spread through her body.

However, since the prognosis is bad and there is a possibility that it could spread, it has been decided that she will be having intensive chemotherapy in the hospital for three weeks- starting as early as this Friday.  She will be spending Christmas and New Year’s in the hospital.  After that treatment, she will be having chemotherapy and probably radiation for 4-6 weeks.

She will not be allowed to have many visitors, especially not children, which means that my family will not be able to see her until she is well enough for us to be around her again.

Please pray for my mom’s health throughout this treatment.  She will be very sick and lose all of her hair. She cannot get sick, even a cold, during this treatment because it would seriously compromise her.

I truly appreciate for your thoughts and prayers for my mom and our family.

If you would like, please grab the button on my sidebar and post it on your blog.  I will mainly be posting from my other blog for the time being.  I would like to eventually merge them… maybe that is going to happen very soon.

The biopsy that was done on a different section of my mom’s hip came back completely normal.

This means that the leukemia is completely contained in the one spot– which doesn’t even make medical sense!

My mom meets with the top leukemia doctor on Wednesday afternoon.  At that point, we should (hopefully!) know the treatment plan.

Back in November, Julie at Joyful Days awarded me with this Premio Dardos. Thank you so much for this award!  If you haven’t been to Julie’s blog, please take the time to visit it.

This is an award that is given to acknowledge blogs that have cultural, ethical, literary and personal values.

I haven’t been around commenting on blogs as much as I would have liked to, but please know that I am reading your blogs as often as I am able.  Hopefully (now that we are back home) I will be able to start commenting again more regularly.

There are far too many people that I want to give this award (all of my readers are inspirational); so, if you are a regular reader and commenter (you know who you are!), please accept this award!

Please post the award on your blog and pass the award to 15 blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgement. Remember to contact each of them to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

I have a hard time hugging my mom right now.  I tear up every time or make a joke so that I can laugh instead of cry.  I have always been close to my mom, and seeing someone you care about so deeply go through such a difficult time can be excruciating.

My mom is in pain almost all of the time.  It is difficult for her to play with the children or pick them up.  I can’t imagine how frustrating that must be for her, but I am hopeful that my mother will be cured.  I think she is a miracle in the fact that the leukemia hasn’t spread to anywhere else in her body.  Since, my mom’s condition isn’t something that her doctors have ever experienced, she is getting the absolute best care available because she is a rare case.

I may have already said this, but with the diagnosis that my mom has, she should be dying or dead.  And she is healthy… healthy?  It doesn’t make medical sense that my mom has “contained” leukemia.  Since leukemia is spread through the blood, it will typically spread through the entire body.  And, usually, when it gets to the hip, it is stage four/acute.

However, my mom’s cancer is only in her hip.  She doesn’t have a touch of it anywhere else in her entire body.  How is this even possible?  I believe that it is possible because of prayer.  I believe that God is holding her cancer off from spreading through her body. I believe this is a miracle.

My children’s godmother sent me an encouraging email the other day and shared this quote: “It is ultimately God who heals; the doctors are just instruments in his hands.”

I am thankful that my mother is in the hands of wise and informed doctors, but I am most thankful that she has so many people praying for her.  Thank you to everyone who has prayed for my mom.  We appreciate all of the emails, notes and phone calls.  Thank you so much for your kindness.

Today my mom saw her oncologist, and he did another biopsy in her right hip bone.  He was able to retrieve bone, bone marrow and blood samples.  He said that the blood looked good.  If she were in an acute stage of leukemia, her blood would be thick and hard to remove, but hers looked normal.

The top leukemia haematologist at a major hospital in NYC has made an opening for my mom early next week. The doctors are still deciding whether to treat her cancer with radiation or chemotherapy.  In either case, they are doing to use very aggressive treatment.

Despite my mother’s dire diagnosis, the doctor feels very hopeful that this is a “curative”.  He says that it isn’t going to be easy, but hopes that they will be able to cure her cancer.

Please keep praying!  My mom may have more tests down the road because she is “not textbook” and “out of the box.”  He is still “perplexed”, but has all of the top doctors looking into my mom’s case.

The grand jury of doctors were not able to come to a consensus about my mom’s condition.  However, most agreed to treat her leukemia (she does have leukemia- I was wrong about that before).

Her current hemoncologist will be doing another bone marrow biospy Thursday afternoon at 1:00pm which will be looking at specific genetic factors.

Then my mom will be meeting with the top leukemia specialist (oncologist) on Monday.  He will most likely confer with her present oncologist and they will decide on a plan.  Treatment will begin as early as the beginning of next week.  My mother has myasthenia gravis, which will also affect her treatment.