Wednesday morning My Mom, Uncle Sonny, and I loaded up bright and early to be in Birmingham by 8:20 A.M.
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| I love this picture :) |
We got in "our meeting room". The room that we are ALL TOO familiar with. The room you never get excited to be sitting in. Like my Uncle said, our demeanor completely changes from the waiting room lobby to that room. That room holds so much power.
We only waited a few minutes before Dr. Huh came in. Mom was a nervous wreck. She was continuously fidgeting with her neck pillow that she had in her lap.
He once again confirmed that the fluid was malignant. (Side Note: although you already know it, it NEVER gets easier to hear. EVER!) He said she had two treatment options. Now I will tell you that Mama has always said that she would NEVER again take the chemo that she had the very first time. And honestly, I wasn't sure that I ever wanted her to take that again. IT. WAS. AWFUL! She would try so hard to be brave and strong, but it was easy to see the pain on the inside. It would leave her in the bed for about a week at a time. She couldn't eat, she hurt to the touch, sick, sores, it was just bad. Really bad.
So back to what he said. Option one would be the chemo she had the first time. My eyes immediately filled with tears. I was dreading watching her go through that again and I was dreading hearing what her response to that would be. Option two is a combination of some drugs and one of them she hasn't had. It is Doxil Intravenous aka Doxorubicin which is a cousin to the chemo drug, "The Red Devil". Sounds ridiculous right? He said some people have no major side effects and then some have it pretty bad. Also her CA125 will go up with this drug before they come down. So there really is not a way to know if it "is working" until about the 3rd or 4th treatment.
Here are some links to it....
If she chose option two she would only get it once a month. Her face lit up when he said that. Either option would take about 6 hours per treatment. She decided to give option two a try.
They took her to do her usual lab / blood work that she has before her treatment. Her port was not working properly so they had to put a medicine in it to get it going and thankfully it started working.
Go figure..... this chemo is indeed a cousin to The Red Devil.... it is red, too. Her urine, sweat, and tears may be an orange/red color. FrEaKy!
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| We were watching the red go in. |
She slept through majority of the treatment, but felt okay afterwards.
Yesterday she would tell me she was, "okay". By that, I knew she wasn't feeling very good. We mostly talked on text and then when I talked to her on the phone I knew her speech wasn't just right. She was working on stuff at the school, so the kids & I took supper to her and helped her finish up some things. As soon as I saw her I could tell she wasn't up to par. Her face was very flushed, she was still talking funny, and seemed very tired. She said her mouth felt funny and nothing was tasting right. (Oh No! Sounds like the first chemo already).
While we were eating and going over her medicine list, I got to thinking that maybe she was feeling so bad because she didn't have her day or two before chemo medicine that she is supposed to take. There was no way for to take them because they weren't sure which option she would take. This is the snap I got of her while we were eating....
Praise the Lord she is feeling better this morning. Hopefully that was the reason she was feeling so bad. She said her coffee tastes better so far than it did yesterday. So we shall see if it continues to be a good day :)! With the first "oh so bad chemo" she started feeling bad on day 2-3, so when she was feeling bad on day 1 we were getting a little scared.
Now I guess it is a waiting game. Just living each day like it's our last and making memories along the way.
My friend, Ashley, sent me this and I had to share :).... so much truth to it....
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