Sorry no new updates

Hello all....

I'm so sorry there has been no updates on mom for a couple of days.
I've been a frequent flier at the ER, battling gallstones since Friday afternoon and haven't been able to visit. I've talked to her on the phone a couple of times.... she sounds wonderful and tells me that she is feeling great! I hope the doc sends her home soon...I know that would make her feel even better!

I promise a more informative update after the doctor visits her tomorrow morning. :-)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

~Jeannie

Thanksgiving Day.....

Was Fabulous! Mom is still talking about what a wonderful day she had yesterday! We all (Matt, Debbie, Pam, Jim, Dodie, Bree, Me, Trey, Derrick, Shea, Bailey and Emily) all piled in the car(s) after dinner and headed to the hospital. We fixed Carlos and my mom up with a ton of food and then brought Thanksgiving to them. I told her that if she couldn't make it to dinner we would bring the dinner to her.

Mom had specific requests....mashed potatoes and gravy, candied yams, macaroni and cheese and most importantly CHOCOLATE CREAM PIE!

I'll tell you...for a woman that has barely eaten anything in the last 6 weeks she sure had no problem devouring most of her dish and most of the PIE! LMAO! The best thing about it is that everything went down and stayed down! She feels so good today. She has daily weigh in and weighed 3 pounds more today then yesterday! Carlos said he never met a woman that was so happy to put on 3 pounds in one day lol!

If she keeps on like she was yesterday and today she should be home very soon. I just know it!

I took lots of pictures yesterday. The family room was packed so we all congregated at the sitting area next to the elevators. We had a blast hanging out and munching on fruit while mom ate her dinner.

Getting ready for a group shot

Group shot of all of us!
Wheres Waldo......err, JoAnne?

Time for Meds....And Vitals...
Granny gets a picture with Derrick

And of course he doesn't get away without some good ol' Granny lovin'.

The little ones like to ride on the wheelchair

Devouring the Chocolate Cream Pie that Derrick made for her.

Mom and Carlos

Derrick taking a picture of Granny and Poppa

This is what her view is from her hospital room window! Isn't it pretty? You can see Columbia off in the distance.

Wednesday, November 26

Hello all! :-)

No news on the MRI yet. They say, "No news is good news", right?
Mom is starting chemo again today and TPN.

Total parenteral nutrition (TPN), is the practice of feeding a person intravenously, bypassing the usual process of eating and digestion. The person receives nutritional formulas containing salts, glucose, amino acids, lipids and added vitamins.

Hopefully that TPN can help her to gain some of her strength back. It is a temporary solution....she will continue trying to eat real food and will hopefully be getting a majority of her nutrition from food very soon.

We went to visit briefly this morning. The kids were out of school today so I took the girls with me. We had a really good visit. Mom didn't have a headache this morning. She's been wearing those terry cloth hats to bed and waking up with a headache so she decided to leave it off last night...low and behold, no headache this morning. She may have just been on to something!

Anyway, of course I got a few picture of her and the girls this morning and she told me I could share them on here with everyone.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Today is one month since they admited mom into the hospital and I am very disappointed to report that the doctor will not be releasing her before Thanksgiving. I asked him if she could at least be let out for a couple of hours on Thanksgiving day and he told me that he couldn't do that because he would have to discharge her and then re-admit her and overall he felt like she is much better off staying in the hospital for right now. I can understand that....she has been a very sick lady. He did say that she will more then likely be out for Christmas though (well, goodness...I sure hope so!).
She has been getting frequent headaches...this morning being a bad migraine so he set up another MRI of her brain today. Hopefully that comes back good. Eating is still a major concern. He said that he will probably feed her through the IV starting tomorrow...I'm assuming he meant TPN, but that is nothing more then an assumption. He wants to go ahead and start the 2nd round of Chemo asap even with the other stuff still going on. I think that will probably happen this week as well. I will continue to update as I know more.

Until next time...
Love to all!
Jeannie

Sunday , November 23rd Update

Sorry to leave everyone hangin' on the scope results! Everything looked good except a bit of gastritis (inflamation of the stomach). This could be caused by either some of the medication that she is on or the fact that she hasn't eaten anything significant in weeks. I can't remember what Carlos told me they are doing for it.

I went to the hospital tonight and she was feeling a bit puny again. She was sick to her stomach and just feeling crappy. I hate to see her go from feeling really good the other day to feeling like this again. I hope she is feeling better tomorrow.

Dodie was up there and I managed to get a smile out of mom for a picture with her sis. I practically had to pull teeth (from the both of them) to get smiles but here it is lol. (sorry for all of the torture mom)

Just to show everyone what we have been doing with all the cards....here they are!! :-) We've been hanging them on the outside of her bathroom door in the room so that she can look at them all day from her bed!

And here is the shelf and mirror above her sink in the room.

BTW, she is LOVING all of the comments ya'll are leaving for her!! THANKS!!

Sleepover last night!

Yep! We had a sleepover at the hospital last night! :-) I brought grapes, apples and pretzels....sounds good right? Well, I forgot that mom is on a clear liquid diet until they find out what is going on withher stomach. They are doing a gastroesophageal duodonoscopy today to try to find out why her food isn't moving the way is should. So...I was nothing more then a tease coming in last night with grapes the size of small plums. Mom's mouth was watering just at the sight of them. I left a large container of them in the freezer for her for today when she can eat again. I'm hoping that she enjoys them and they taste as good as they look.
The doctor has her on an appetite stimulant as well as prednisone and both seem to be working well on increasing her appetite. The only problem now is that the food is just sitting on her stomach and not really going anywhere. They realized this the other day when they did the radioactive eggs test. Mom said that she thought she was glowing that night after eating them things (kidding of course lol).
We are hoping to have her home by Thanksgiving. Dr. Madden says that they wont keep her in the hospital for the second round of chemo as long as she is able to eat. Keep your fingers crossed that the scope that she gets today goes well and we can pinpoint what the problem is (and of course that it is an easy fix).

Here is a pic of us from last night! Doesn't she look great?!

November 18th and 19th Update

Great Update!
Me and the kids went to visit last night. Mom looked GREAT! She called this morning and sounded even better on the phone! The doctor came in this morning and said her chest x-ray from yesterday looked really good! Her liver bloodwork looked good too but her platelets are still down. They don't want to start chemo again until those are back up. She told me she is HUNGRY! lol The problem is that nothing sounds good to her. I wish I knew what she would eat because I'd have it up there to her in a skinny minute! The doctor is ordering her a portable oxygen tank so that if she wants to get someone to wheel her through the halls she can get out of the room. Things are really starting to look up!
Oh, and she slept ALL night long last night! Woot!

November 16th and 17th Update

Sunday, Carla and I went up to the hospital and we gave mom a cute, sporty little haircut. She looks great with short hair! I've been trying to tell her that she would for years! Unfortunately by Monday she started having some sort of reaction and her scalp felt like it was on fire. The doctor recommended that we shave the rest of it off. I guess on rare occasion the chemo can cause the scalp to react that way and the best thing to do is to take the rest of the hair off and treat with a zinc cream.
It was really difficult shaving her head. Everyone knows how my mom is with her hair. She was actually quite relieved to have it gone so that made me feel a little bit better about it. Once the hair was gone we could get a better look at her scalp and we right away seen why it was hurting her so badly. She had red streaks going all through her head. Were not sure what it was from. I guess just the reaction. She told me today on the phone that her head feels so much better now.
We had a nice visit last night. I miss talking with her so much so it was really nice to sit and chat for a little while.
The chemo is kicking her butt as far as nausea is concerned. Smells really get to her bad. The family room is right across the hall and for the past couple of nights someone has been cooking popcorn in there...not good.
I wonder if I can put a NO POPCORN sign on the microwave for awhile lol.
Anyway, thats all I have for now. Hopefully I can report soon that she is well enough for her second round of Chemo.
Until next time....
Jeannie

Friday November 14th update

A couple of new things to update on. First off, I went up to the hospital last night and mom looked great! Maybe not exactly where she wants to be in the course of treatment but she really looks good compared to even a couple of days ago. She sat up in the bed and was talking with me and Shea. She even laughed last night! It was music to my ears!
I could tell she was very tired and she told me that she would love to have just one night of uninterupted sleep. Hopefully she got just that last night. The nurse seemed to have a little plan of action so that they could try to acheive it.
Her white blood cell count is back up! She is off of the neutropenic precautions! YAY! She is still on bleeding precautions because of the low platelet count but things are definately looking up!
The physical therapist is still coming every day. They had her up walking around her room the other day. She even walked out of her room with the therapist's help. They didn't go far but what a major milestone!
All in all she is still feeling really crappy and her spirits are still down but seeing just a little improvement here and there is just wonderful.
We still need to get her eating. The doctor would like to see her stronger before the next round of chemo.
Oh, I really hate to report that it looks like her hair is starting to fall out. She showed me her giant hairball when I got there last night. I'm going to try to make her a really light and airy hat to wear just in case it all decided to turn loose. Right now it is just really thin. Not sure what will happen in the next few days so I'll have her a hat just in case. She did ask me not to make one too thick because of how hot she gets. No problem!
That is all I have to update for now. Until next time....
~Jeannie

Low White Blood Cell Count

Tidbit of information on Low WBC taken from about.com

How does chemotherapy affect white blood cell count?:
Chemotherapy kills fast dividing cancer cells. It also ends up killing some fast dividing normal cells in the body, like some cells in the bone marrow that maintain the supply of white cells in the blood. White blood cell counts (WBC, also called leukocyte counts) fall temporarily with most chemotherapy drugs.

When does the white cell count fall?:
The fall in white blood cells starts a few days after chemotherapy is administered. They reach the lowest levels in the second or third week after chemotherapy. As the bone marrow cells recover from the effects of chemotherapy, the WBC counts start rising again. Before each cycle of chemotherapy, blood counts are verified to ensure that they have returned to the normal range.

Are low white blood cell counts dangerous?:
White blood cells are responsible for protecting the body from infections. When WBC counts are low, there is an increased risk of infections. These infections cannot be easily controlled by the body because of the low counts.
However, low counts do not always lead to infections. Nearly all people on chemotherapy have low counts during chemotherapy. But only a few people develop infections.

How do doctors check for low WBC counts?:
At regular intervals during chemotherapy, the doctor will advise blood tests to check cell counts. These tests are called ‘CBCs’ or ‘Hemograms.’ White blood cell counts are reported as Total Leukocyte Counts (TLCs). TLCs count the different types of white blood cells. A more specific count is the Absolute Neutrophil Count. Neutrophils are one type of WBC. They are responsible for controlling bacterial infections. When the ANC is below a particular value, doctors may delay further chemotherapy and start medications to prevent or treat infections.

What are the signs of infection during chemotherapy?:
The most tell-tale sign of infection is fever. When fever occurs in the presence of low neutrophil counts (ANC), it is called febrile neutropenia. Other signs of infection are:
cough and expectoration
loose stools
boils or abscesses
a severe sore mouth and swallowing problems

How can infections be prevented when counts are low?:
A few simple steps can reduce the chances of infections:
Avoid extremes of temperature
Make sure that the food is freshly cooked
Remember to wash hands before meals
Avoid contact with people who have any infections
Avoid crowded places with poor ventilation

Antibiotics are not routinely indicated when counts are low but no signs of infection are present. The decision to start antibiotics rests on your doctor, based on specific signs and risk factors.

How are low white blood cell counts managed?:
In the majority of cases, low counts are temporary. Counts start rising soon and reach normal levels without causing infections, and further chemotherapy may be continued.
When the blood counts are too low or there is a hint of infection in the body, doctors may:
Delay further chemotherapy until the counts are normal.
Start drugs that increase white blood cell counts. These are called colony stimulating factors (CSF). G-CSF and GM-CSF are the two types of CSF available.
Start treatment with antibiotics if there is any sign of infections in the body.

Low Platelet Count information

Just a tidbit of info taken from Chemotherapy.com on platelets:

Low Platelet Count (Thrombocytopenia)
Platelets, also called thrombocytes (THROM-boh-sites), are fragments of bone marrow cells that are found in the circulating blood and are critical in stopping bleeding. Platelets, along with other blood components, rush to the site of an injury and work to form a blood clot, which is necessary to stop the bleeding. A low platelet count is referred to as thrombocytopenia.

Causes of a Low Platelet Count—Thrombocytopenia
Thrombocytopenia is a common side effect of chemotherapy. Chemo works by destroying cells that grow rapidly, such as cells in the bone marrow that generate platelets. Normally, there are billions of platelets in the blood; however, certain chemotherapy drugs can cause thrombocytopenia. A low platelet count typically occurs 6 to 10 days following administration of chemotherapy and continues for several days before the number of platelets in the blood increases to an adequate level. Infrequently, cancer patients may also experience thrombocytopenia from other medications or as a consequence of their underlying cancer.

Monitoring Your Platelet Count
A low platelet count puts you at risk of certain side effects. Bleeding is the most important:
If you do not have enough platelets to form a clot, you will not be able to stop bleeding.
Even a small cut can cause you to lose a dangerous amount of blood.
The fewer platelets you have in your blood, the more susceptible you are to experiencing bleeding. Another reason thrombocytopenia is important is that, in some cases, it can be severe enough that chemotherapy treatments may need to be delayed or the chemotherapy dose reduced. When patients develop a low platelet count, doctors may have to delay treatment or reduce the doses of the chemotherapy until the platelet count has increased. Chemotherapy dose reductions and treatment delays may reduce some patients' chance for achieving optimal results from their treatment.
If you have a severely low platelet count, you may require treatment with platelet transfusions and, occasionally, admission to the hospital until the platelets return to sufficient levels in the blood to prevent bleeding. A platelet transfusion is the addition of platelets into your blood from another person. Platelet transfusions carry the risk of complications, which include infection and allergic reactions that may range from mild to life-threatening.

Last night's visit 11-11-08

Well, I went by the hospital last night. I couldn't stay long like I usually do in the evenings because I had the kids with me and I had to get them home and ready for bed. She seemed be doing ok despite the headache that she had. The nurses were getting her some meds as I was leaving.

Not too much more to update on but I will try to again after I talk to Carlos and see how she was when he was there this morning.
~Jeannie

Update from Dodie and Carlos

Dodie just called, she said she talked with Dr. Madden this morning and mom seems to be doing a bit better. Her chest x-rays show a slight bit of improvement with the pnuemonia and her liver bloodwork is looking better.
She is in a little bit better spirits this morning and was talking to Dodie. I guess the mouth sores are still pretty bad though. I took a look at them last night and whew...they look like they hurt!

The doctor said that she has to eat and build up some strength so that she can start her next round of chemo. Even if she gets just a little bit of soup in her it is better then nothing.

I'll be up there this evening so watch for another update tonight.

Carlos just called. He said her platelettes are down a bit but her WBC is back up to 1. Still low but much better then .5 and .6! He said she looks much better this morning. :-)

Late Monday Night

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2008 12:05 AM, EST

Well, I just got home from the hospital. Tonight I had a good visit. Mom was worried that her hair was starting to fall out and I reassured her when I brushed it that it was still hanging in there. I powdered her back and scratched it a little and she really seemed to enjoy that too. I was afraid that the powder smell would make her nauseous but she tolerated it well. Yesterday she informed me that I was making her smell too clean with the powder lol. Gotta love her sense of humor!
I talked a bit to the nurse and she said that her temp has fallen back down into normal range. They have her on 3 different antibiotics to try to get rid of whatever type of infection she has going on. Right now it looks like the pnuemonia is the culprit. I guess her x-rays still aren't looking that great but we will see when we talk to the doc.
Her cough seemed to be under control for a couple of days but tonight she was hacking a pretty good bit again. I have a feeling it is probably all related.
She still isn't eating. I told her tonight she had to start eating something to build up her energy for the next round of chemo...whenever that may be. She just doesn't seem interested in any food. I really don't blame her but I will keep on bugging her about it. Who knows...one of these days she might say, "ok...yea, I'll eat that!".
I'll try to update more as get more info.

Welcome and Hello!

Thank you all for taking the time to stop by and read JoAnne's blog. If you are visiting you this site, chances are that you already know a bit about what is going on with Jo. She was diagnosed with small cell carcinoma and metastatic disease to her liver in the beginning of October 08.

Small cell carcinoma is a fast-growing type of lung cancer that accounts for about 15 percent of all lung cancer cases. Small cell lung cancer usually starts in or near the lung’s bronchi and metastasizes quickly to nearby lumph nodes and organs. Upon diagnosis her cancer was in her left lung and had already spread to both supraclavicular lymph nodes and to the lumph nodes in her mediastinum. One lymph node in her mediatinum was 6cm x 5cm and compressing both of her pulmonary arteries. Disease was also present in her liver.

Since her diagnosis she has gone from a very lively, energetic 57 year old woman that enjoyed spending time with her family and friends to being very sickand longing to be well again and back home with her family.
Our goal is to provide her all the love and support in the world until we can beat this beast of a disease. We all feel very optimistic that we can get her cancer into complete remission so that she can continue to live her life to the fullest and get back to doing all of the things that she loves.