It’s not that we try to keep you uninformed, to be honest; it just gets hard to write these updates sometimes. Sometimes it just feels like one turn of bad events after another, but today while I’m feeling pretty positive I wanted to keep you all in the loop regarding Mom and her treatments.
Mom’s cancer had grown in her lower back so they switched her treatment again. They can’t seem to find one she can handle, well other than the “red devil” but she can’t have that one anymore due to the great risk it is to her heart. So, her last chemo treatment was a fairly new drug they thought would do well. With it comes a 60% chance of neuropathy. She received her treatments every week and this drug was scary! I can’t speak for her, but I would say this has by far been the worst! Mom was in so much pain due to the spread of cancer in her back (still is). And of course Mom ended up getting neuropathy, her hands and feet are numb and while she was on it this chemo treatment her whole body was numb, her mouth had lost feeling and she even mentioned losing her sense of smell and taste which she said was possibly a “blessing in disguise.” She was also really tired and really weak and back to having blood transfusions. We were all pretty worried about her. She couldn’t finish the treatment. She honestly physically could not and we were all relieved when her Dr decided to take her off of it.
Mom needed a few weeks off to recover and build a little bit of strength back and also let her Dr do some research and hopefully come up with another chemo option. This was good, but scary because the cancer grows while she’s on a really strong chemo so no one likes to think about what it is doing off of chemo. But she truly needed the break. The neuropathy has not gotten any better. This is probably the hardest part for her. It makes it hard to walk. She mentioned going somewhere in flip flops and completely walking out of the shoe and not even knowing it until she looked down. She has also described it as walking on marbles. It is my sincere hope that with time she can be relieved from some of this. She’s still in a lot of pain. Probably mainly the cancer growth, but also due to a crushed vertebra.
Mom started radiation on Monday. She will go everyday for at least 10 days. This may or may not help with her pain. She decided to go for it because really, it’s her only option. She will start another chemo when she is done with radiation, but for now she is on a chemo pill. It’s less effective, but still chemo none the less. She still goes to the cancer center every Tuesday for fluids. She’s pretty busy and the running around is hard on her, but she remains so positive!
Keep her in your thoughts and prayers. God is good.
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