Sunday, November 1, 2009

My Mom

The majority of you probably all know this because you're friends with me or my sister on Facebook, but I'll update those that don't. My mom was first diagnosed with breast cancer in August of 2001. She underwent a mastectomy and went through chemo and radiation. She went into remission in April of that year. In May of 2008, she was diagnosed again with stage 4 breast cancer. The next January we found out it had spread to her lungs. That is when she again began chemo. As with most chemo, it knocks out your immune system and causes you to be very weak. At the very beginning of the month she had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance because she passed out and started throwing up and was too weak to even get up. She went home the same day and the doctors just said it was a little spell from dehydration, etc. About two weeks later, she had a small stroke while my sister, Chiara was home. She spent about 2 1/2 days in the hospital. They felt it was a side effect of the clinical trial drug, Avastin, she was taking with chemo, so they took her off that. Then last Wednesday night, her friend Barbara took her to the after-hours clinic because she was running a 102.9 fever. That's a high fever for anyone, but especially someone on chemo. They told her to go to the ER because she was extrememly dehydrated. On the way to take an x-ray at the ER, she passed out because she was so weak. They admitted her to the hospital and found out it was some kind of infection and told her she may be able to go home Saturday. Friday they found that she had blood clots in her lungs. Friday night they gave her two pints of blood because her red cells are so bad and yesterday put her on oxygen. I talked to her today and she is feeling a lot better. Hopefully she'll get to go home tomorrow. Please continue to keep my mom in your prayers. We hope this will fix the problems she's been having and won't have to be in the hospital anymore!!