November 15, 2009

Sunday 11/15/09

Boy, does the title of this blog, "Lynn's Memorable Spring" seem inappropriate now! Here we are, speeding into Winter, and yet the saga lives on! If everything goes according to plan, it will indeed be Spring when we wrap things up...only, just a year later!

Good news, however. Lynn had a cat scan done...one of the things that you look at to see if the cancer is regressing when dealing with lymphoma is the size if the lymph nodes throughout that body. When the nodes are swollen, thus larger, it is a sign that the body is attempting to fight the cancer, and, basically, that it is losing the battle. Lynn's earlier catscan showed that her lymph nodes were much larger than usual, and that the cancer was really taking hold. Well, the last series of cat-scans showed that the lymph nodes have decreased in size dramatically. In other words, the chemo is working just like it should. The cancer cells are taking a major hit, and are retreating exactly like we would have hoped. More good news: her blood counts, including red blood cells and white blood cells, are actually better after this round of chemo than the one before. Chemo has the effect of damaging her blood cells, and so her doctors try to manage the chemo so that they do not do something that will hurt her ability to basically get oxygen to her body. Her blood counts are great right now - she is handling the chemo very well, and her basic "life functions" are not significantly impaired.

In addition, she is not loony! If you recall, one of the components of her chemo, Ifex, the "I" in RICE, was breaking down into a chemical that was causing her to have some severe confusion and disorientation. That was from the first round. Well, Dr. Blair, her oncologist, decided to start massive dosages of methylyene blue to be injected into her periodically throughout the chemo process. This chemical, usually used as a stain, per my Mom, has the effect of "soaking up" the by-products of the Ifex. Bottom line - it worked perfectly, Lynn had none of the confusion or other problems, and she was able to handle things perfectly. Really great to see that happen.

We start round 3 on Monday. She goes into the hospital that morning. Hopefully, things will progress along the same route as we have seen so far at that time.

One major issue, that has nothing to do with Lynn, but that affects me. My Mom passed away on November 5th. This was totally unexpected, but I guess that you have to be ready for something like this when a relative is 80 years old. She had all kinds of input to give me regarding Lynn's treatment, plus lots of positive encouragement...she was, after all, planning on going to Med school. I just wish that she had been able to stick around long enough to see Lynn make it through this latest series of medical problems.