No news is good news :) Happy 54th Birthday Mom!
I’m so sorry I have been so terrible at keeping up with the site lately! But in this case, no news is good news. Mom is doing great!!! She has another scan on Friday, July 23rd so I will definitely post again after we get the results from that. Mom has been terrible about asking what her CEA levels are when they do her bloodwork so we don’t know where we are with that. Mom is still getting weekly treatments of chemotherapy. She is still on the same bi-weekly cycle of Erbitux and Irinotecan. One week she gets both and the following week she only gets the Erbitux. She doesn’t get the rash that Erbitux can cause too badly. Her cheeks can get very flushed and some weeks she will get a couple spots of rash on her hands and chest but it’s very mild. They prescribe her antibiotics to take if this rash does start to get worse. Mom’s quality of life is still so much better than it was. The daily shots she was getting for her low blood counts always really did a number on her. They caused her legs to swell up terribly so since she is off all the nasty Neulasta and Neumega shots, she is really doing great. The only concern we have had lately is she will have these weird bouts of confusion. We don’t know if its her messing up her pain pill dosage which is totally possible. She has a very hard time keeping track of her pills. We organize her pills for the week in a pill box but the pain pills are as needed and we find pills laying around sometimes, like she gets them out, forgets if she has taken them, that sort of thing. Or, we think it might be related to them changing her anti-depressants. She really didn’t like Cymbalta right from the beginning when they changed her prescription but they told her to stick with it. Well she got spacier and spacier and then started having these scary confusion spells. So we talked to the doctor and she is in the middle of the transition back to the Prozac since you can’t just start and stop those things. You have to ween off one and ween on the other. Lastly, it could just be exhaustion. You know Mom, she always tries to do too much and doesn’t listen to her body :) Oh, and then the 11 ton gorilla in the room is the dreaded diabetes diagnosis. Honestly, Mom’s not adjusting well. A little bit she seems to be refusing to change her lifestyle to a diabetic one. Which, fair enough, I get it, it’s hard but it’s important. So she see’s the doctor tomorrow for a checkup on the status of her diabetes. She has been stressed all day about how she is going to get her butt chewed because her blood sugar levels are not and have not been where they are supposed to be. That’t my mother. She has always had a sweet tooth and an aversion to change which are both not helping the situation. But we are slowly finding her alternatives to the things she loves and is used to. Thank goodness for Diet Rootbeer! It’s the only diet soda that tastes enough like the real deal to keep her happy.
But overall Mom is feeling really good. We had a great time for Mom’s 54th birthday on July 17th. Julie threw Mom a pedicure party at the Ten20 Salon in Boulder, CO. It was so fun! There was 10 of us that went and it was a blast. Grams loved it of course too! Mom is spending a lot of time with Grams lately. We are happy to report that Grams is retired (semi-retired at least) so she will be around even more to spend time with Mom and accompany her to Dr. appointments etc. It’s about time you retired Grams! She is 76 years-old. Jay is still working hard to bring home the bacon. He is travelling over the road still with the company in Houston he loves so much. He always has great things to say about his boss, the company and his co-workers. I’m so glad he has found somewhere he loves to work. That’s such a rare thing in the trucking business. But we miss him when he’s gone Mom especially misses him but he actually gets to come through Denver quite often. Mom and Jay are still living with Uncle Char which is working out really well. Thanks Uncle Char, we all really appreciate all that you do. But it works out pretty well since Uncle Char travels over the road all week and Mom gets the place to herself. Well that’s about it but I hope we get good news or at least neutral news when Mom gets her scan on Friday! I will let you know how it goes.
