Chemo Round 6 & a Road Trip!

After a much needed week off of treatment, we're back!  My mom and I spent last Monday/Tuesday in Tampa with family.  A very special occasion took us there--my niece Jael's 15th birthday!--and my mom insisted she wouldn't miss it for the world.  Jael, Monica & Brian's daughter, is my parent's first grandchild so her Quinceañera is a bit of a milestone for us all.

My sister, Monica, arranged a beautiful luncheon for Jael.  She invited many of the older (*ahem*),  wiser women in Jael's life (grandmothers, aunts, friends, etc.) so that we could come together and offer her encouragement, advice and prayer as she enters this next stage of her life.  It was pretty awesome...and pretty emotional, too!

We've had a few other changes in our family this month.  In March we lost our two elder dogs, Mapei and Speedy.  Both dogs lived long and happy lives.  They were 15 and 16 years old when old age and health complications finally caught up with them.  We will miss them very much and take comfort in the fact that we will meet them again some day at The Rainbow Bridge.

This Monday/Tuesday, we were back to business as usual at the Sylvester Center.  My mom felt great after a week off of chemo and her lab works showed that she is progressing nicely.  All blood counts are in the "normal" range and her tumor marker continues to make progress towards "normal."  This is awesome.  Keep up those prayers!

The doctor told my mom that she will go through two more rounds of treatment and then the following week a CT scan to determine next steps.  Next steps could be anything from more chemotherapy to radiation or surgery.  What we're really hoping is that her next step will be REMISSION and that we can eradicate this cancer with chemo & prayer.  That being said...

Praises/Prayer Requests:

• Praise for steadily improving lab work.  We're on the road to better health!
• Praise for a break from chemo & time with family.
• Continued prayer for REMISSION.  Come on folks, let's see the power of prayer and positive thinking in action can do.
• Prayer for my dad.  He does an awful lot to make treatment and life for my mom and our family comfortable.  He's got a lot on his plate these days and a few doses of prayer and relaxation couldn't hurt.

Thanks again for all you do, friends!  One last thing.  Remember that awesome company Feel Good Gowns I mentioned in the last post?  Well my mom is one of their "featured models" on their blog.  Check it out!

Chemo Round 5

On Tuesday, my mom completed her fifth round of chemotherapy treatment in seven weeks.  That means that she gets next week off so that her body can recover.  This is good because even though the chemo is doing its job by killing bad cells in the body, it's also killing good cells and that takes a toll.  In general, my mom is responding nicely to treatment.  Her CA-19.9 (tumor marker) continues to decrease and the expected side effects have been very manageable.

My mom continues to astound with her bright outlook and abundant energy.  Some days she is exceedingly peppy and she tries to do (in my opinion) "too much."  This is when I tell her to "slow down" and "take it easy" but do you think she listens?  It's funny how the roles have reversed.

Last week I mentioned a handmade hospital gown that Mary and Buddy sent to my mom.  She just loves it and we wanted to show some better pictures of her modeling the gown.

This lovely gown was specially made for her by Shalon at Feel Good Gowns.  Mary put my mom in contact with Shalon, the woman who started this wonderful company out of her experience with AVM, and she was incredibly sweet and (like my mom) has an awesome attitude.  It's amazing how something so small can really brighten up a hospital stay.  If you know someone who will be making regular visits to the hospital we hope you'll consider using Feel Good Gowns as a resource.  We just love what Shalon and the gang are doing over there.  (She had this article written about her recently.)

In other news, my mom and I are headed to Tampa for a few days to celebrate Jael's 15th birthday.  Jael is my mom and dad's first grandchild and said she wouldn't miss her Quince for the world.  We'll be sure to post some pictures when we get back.

Thanks so much for the continued prayers.  We've surely felt them.  I know it can be helpful to have something specific to pray for so, here goes.  

Prayer Requests/Praises:

• Praise - We get a week off of chemo.  Yay!
• Restoration of WBCs, platelets, and hemoglobin counts to the normal range for the next treatment.
• Continued decrease of the tumor marker (CA-19.9) numbers.
• Thursdays.  Every week has its highs and lows but Thursday tends to be that day in the cycle of treatment that my mom has been feeling consistently crummy.  It would be nice to have a Thursday that wasn't so bad.
• Remission.  Let's just get rid of this cancer already, shall we?

And now, a word from my mom...