Update on Mom

As many of you know my mom has been undergoing chemotherapy treatments to try to put her esophageal cancer into a remission. She has been having a treatment every other week since January. She is extra sensitive to the drugs so they began giving her the treatment at 50% strength and increasing it by 10% each time. She has been doing fairly well. She has been pretty sick and very tired, but she is a trooper and has remained working full time. That is until this last week. She went in for her last treatment before they do a CT Scan to determine how effective the treatment is going. Before each treatment they run some blood work to determine what her blood counts are and if she is lacking magnesium and potassium (which is very common for her). The blood work this time revealed that her white blood cell count was very low which puts her in great danger of not being able to fight infections. At the same time she was also running a fever of 102. So the DR's told her that she won't only not be having her treatment but they were also admitting her to the hospital. She has been in the hospital since Thursday. They have been giving her an IV antibiotic and watching her blood counts. They have been increasing but now they are concerned that she anemic as well. This means that a blood transfusion may be necessary. They gave her a shot of something to hopefully help with the anemia and eliminate the need for a transfusion.

So I have spent the weekend running from the hospital spending time with her to home taking care of my sick 2 year old who is not able to kick this fever that has been lingering for the last 12 days. Thank goodness for my wonderful cousins and friends who have been taking care of my girls so I can spend time at the hospital! Mia hasn't made it easy on them. She is definitely a mamma's girl when she is sick. When I'm home she won't get off my lap so you can only imagine what it's like when I'm not here. Hint, lots of tears are involved!

Mom also made the big decision yesterday to stop working and concentrate on healing herself. I know this is a hard decision for her. Work has been very important to her for many years! It has also been a good distraction for her, something to get up to do everyday. The DR told her that she would know when enough was enough with work and I think this trip the hospital has allowed her to realize that she was just exhausting herself. I'm thankful that she won't be so busy and will be able to get some well deserved rest!

Well I'm off to get more Tylenol for Mia. We will be going to the DR tomorrow to see what is going on with her. You would think steroids and antibiotics would help her get better!