Thursday, July 4, 2013

Published Thursday, July 04, 2013 by with 1 comment

Brace yourselves

     So I'm writing a blog update about this rather than just doing a Facebook post since this will probably be too long for a status update.
     On Monday morning my mom stumbled out of bed. By the time I got over to her house at ten a.m. to pick her up for her chemo appointment, my mom had called her neighbor, and sent a text to my brother's girlfriend that scared the crap out of her. My mom's neighbor was trying to help her get off of the floor, but she was too weak to get up (she had been ill the few previous days because of chemo).
     After I had been there 3-5 minutes the cops showed up banging on the door. My brother's girlfriend (who lives in California and who didn't have any contact information for anyone here and was unable to get a hold of my mom since her phone was dead) called the cops. The police then contacted the paramedics so that they could come and help my mom. Once the paramedics showed up, they were able to get her off the floor, down the stairs and put her in the passenger seat of her car since she didn't want to ride in the ambulance.
     She wasn't hurt from tumbling out of bed, but because she was disoriented and had trouble answering questions like what day it was, how she got on the floor in the first place, she needed to go to the ER. At the ER they discovered she was severely anemic, dehydrated and showing signs of infection. She was put on an IV to receive fluids and antibiotics. My mom also received blood transfusions to help bring up her white blood cell count. The anemia put a lot of stress on her heart and her blood work showed an enzyme that is normally only found in the bloodstream after a heart attack. She did not have a heart attack, and her levels of this enzyme were on the low end of the scale. It just shows how much stress her heart was under because of the anemia. She was moved into the ICU later in the evening and she was ordered to have another MRI on her head (she just had one last week).
     Tuesday morning, her oncologist came in to talk to us about her MRI results. Now this is where the bad news comes into play. Her cancer is still in her brain. The radiologist came in to talk to her and he can do radiation on one spot of her brain, but not on the others. On Wednesday her oncologist again came in to talk to her realistically about her options. Even with the radiation, her life expectancy could only be a few months and it would be best if we were to put my mom in a hospice program. My mom has been moved out of ICU as of Wednesday night, which is good news.
     As you can imagine this has been very difficult for my family to deal with. But praise God that my family is close (both geographically and relational) and we have an amazing support system of friends. Obviously we are still praying for a miracle, but ultimately for God's will to be done.
     I know my family and I appreciate your thoughts and prayers through all of this. I also want to apologize for not being able to call and talk to many of you to inform you what has being going on, but it has been a hectic and stressful few days and honestly it's difficult to have to repeat what has been going on. Thank you again for your thoughts and prayers and I will try and keep you updated as we get more information.
Read More
      edit