GVH vs Cancer

Saw the doctor today with Mom (Pat) and from what I understand she is where he (the doctor) wants her to be for the most part. The reason that they have not done a great deal to fight the graft vs host (GVH) disease or the cancer is because he is letting them fight each other. The cancer coming back activated the GVH, which is attacking the cancer, and he is balancing letting the GVH destroy the cancer, and not letting the GVH destroy her. At this point the doctor is starting her on the medication to treat the GVH and will start her on the anti-cancer medications if/when necessary. Her arm is healing well and the arm surgeon stated tonight that if her arm was the only issue, her could release her today. However she has more going on and needs more time. She has a least a couple of more weeks in the hospital and we are hoping that she will be home for Thanksgiving. That is the update for now thank you.

Saw mom (Pat) today, took the kids to see grammie and she is doing better. Her arm is healing well and the surgery went well. She is still needs to get her stomach under control which they believe is because of graft vs host disease but, are not a hundred percent sure yet, need to do some more test. The doctors are working to get the cancer back under control again, the numbers went up after the surgery (that was expected). The doctors need to work to get the numbers under control, help the stomach get better, and make sure her arm continues to heal well. She seemed to like seeing the grand kids today and enjoyed watching a movie with them. It was a good visit with grandpa and grandma. Thank you all for the support and prayers.

The Surgery update

Mom (Pat) had her surgery on Wednesday in order to fix her arm. The surgery went well. Her arm was pretty bad so they decided to replace the shoulder and the upper arm bones. She now has a metal arm and shoulder. There was a large tumor on the arm bone and it had gone into the muscle/tissue. So we are waiting to find out the results of the biopsy which will tell us whether or not it is active cancer. Either way her cancer needs to be put back into remission again. She will need lots of recovery time at least 6 weeks before she can move the arm. That is all for now. I'll do my best to keep everyone up to date.

As Comfortable as it gets

I (Hope) went and say mom today and she is as comfortable as one can be with an constant upset stomach and a broken arm. She is slowly getting better but it is often two steps forward and one step back. She is waiting to see for a lot of things they found a blood clot so she is now limited to what she can do once again, and is now on more medication to dissolve this. The clot is at the end of her pick line ( permanent IV) so they have to be careful and remove the clot because they need to keep that pick line. The doctors are trying to solve the stomach issues and get the Graft vs host disease under control. It looks like they have the pneumonia under control and all the other infections as well. So we are just trying to slowly work down the list and take care of all the issues. Again thank you for your continued support and prayers, keep them coming.

Improving

Much better news to give today. Mom's (Pat) cancer is reacting better then the doctor thought to the medication and it has gone down greatly. YEAH. Also, she is feeling much better and doing better everyday. The other great news is the doctors scheduled the surgery for her arm for next Wednesday. So her arm is going to get fixed next week. She is feeling better and the doctors feel she will be out in a couple of weeks. She needs to get over her stomach problems and start eating. But we are moving in the right directions. Thank you all for your support.

Not quite there

I (Hope) went and saw Mom (Pat) today and she looked better and sat up in a chair for a while this morning. All in all better but not quite there yet. She is doing a little better and they are running more test to see what is going on. She is still not eating so the doctors order an IV feed. It may take a while for her to pull out of this but small steps are better than no steps. But there was some improvement. Thank you all for your continued support and care. Love you all.

Hope

OOPS

Well no news is good news. I have not had to write anything for about 11 months because we had smooth waters for a while. Mom (pat) was doing well and even went back to school for 3 days.

Well now things went side ways on us. She is not doing well at the moment. We are not sure what is wrong at this time. She is sick with vomiting and ect.., so she is dehydrated and malnourished (this is not a comment on dad's cooking however he is believe it or not a really good cook).

Right now she is at City of Hope on the fifth floor and we are waiting to hear what the doctor says about her. She has had some more test and then some more test and we are waiting to find out what they all say and mean.

She does have her broken arm which needs surgery in order to be fixed but can not do the surgery until we get all this under control. Her cancer is back but at the last talk with the doctor he believes he can get it under control again. She does have graft vs host disease where the donor cells say hey this is not by body and starts attacking. Then to add insult to injury she now has pneumonia. Soooo, sorry for the bad news but I know lots have been asking about her so that is what I know as of 8pm Sunday night. When I learn more I will try to write more. Thank you all for your love and support.

Hope