Donors needed.

Please donate Blood and Plasma. My mom (Pat) needs blood and Plasma twice a day right now and so if anyone has time to spare please head to City of Hope and donate. They give out great prizes for those who give, however they only place that you can give blood to go to my mom is City of Hope they do not get blood products from anywhere else. You can go to City of Hope's website list on side of this blog and find out all the information need to make appointment and to donate. Again if you have time it is needed. Thank you.

Update

Mom (Pat) is doing okay at this point. She had surgery on Saturday which we were told about on Friday night about 5:34pm. She needed to have blood clots removed from her arm, this was due to her arm not healing correctly from the previous surgery. The surgeon said this surgery went well and that he was able to remove the clots and clean out her arm, however she has some skin blisters because her skin is so thin and sensitive. The doctor told her today (Monday 11-8-10) that her liver counts were down, which is good news. Her stomach problems are getting better and she is eating full meals again. We were all hoping that she would be home for Thanksgiving but it looks she will be in the hospital again this year, but as long as we are all together it does not matter. She is improving but it is slow. She needs to recovery from the most recent surgery and have the GVH and cancer more under control, we are closer but still have a long way to go.
As always thank you all for your love and support.

Hope

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.