Blessings

Fantastic news.  Mom's MRI of both breasts and both armpits shows no additional lesions, and no lymph node involvement!  This means we have both feet firmly planted in the land of CURABLE.  Look out, cancer!  Here we come. 


We also learned a little more about the first 4 rounds of chemo today.  As you remember, these will be every other Wednesday, starting on the 14th.  The day will look like this:

1. Before leaving home, mom will put numbing cream on the port site
2. After arriving, she will go to a clinic room where the RN will access the port with a small needle (which will stay in, connected to the tubing), and draw labs from that site. 
3. While the labs are cooking, either the oncologist or her NP will visit.
4. Once the labs are back (and good), mom will move to an infusion room.  While they wait for the chemo to be prepared, she will get Zofran (nausea) and steroids (to combat side effects). 
5. The first chemo will be Adriamycin, which is the mean one.  This is a bright red medication which will be "pushed" into the tubing through the port over 15-20 minutes.
6. After that comes the Cytoxan, which will run on a pump into the port for about an hour
1. They don't anticipate any ill effects of these medications right away, unless she has some allergic type of reaction
7. When all the infusions are done, the dressing and needle will be removed from the port, and she will head home. 
8. The day after each infusion, she will return to the clinic to get a shot of a medication that will help her white blood cells rebound more quickly. This will only take 10 minutes. 

The list of "things that you could experience which would be expected after chemo" is sorta long, and includes GI issues, mouth sores, dry skin, nausea... but the list of medications to prevent and treat these is even longer.  And the end result will be that the cancer is GONE. 


Now, back to that awesome news at the beginning... We are so thankful to mom for getting her screening mammogram, which resulted in this being caught so early.  Please, if you haven't already, make sure yours is up to date!  We love you all, and we want you all to be here for a really long time. There is going to be lots of chocolate needing eating at mom's 100th birthday party...