In the last two weeks I have learned more medical mumbo jumbo than I care to share but I wanted to keep my notes straight, so here I am. Writing about it. To get you up to speed - Mom was diagnosed with Stage III-IV ovarian cancer last Wednesday and the following day admitted to NIMC (Centegra in McHenry, IL) for precautionary reasons due to an abnormal chest CT scan.
As it turns out, mom has a medium sized blood clot on her right lung and a few smaller ones throughout and was immediately put on Heparin blood thinner IV to combat the clots. Between that moment and now, mom has been resting safe in the hospital and has had several tests, scans, and more done. She feels good, her vitals always come back great and has tried many of the items from the hospital menu. She's taking a liking to jello for whatever reason, and plans to make large amounts of it when she gets home. Not only that, Mom has had so many visitors sometimes I think she need a personal assistant to keep track of everything!
Over the course of the week, they took mom off the Heparin IV and switched her to a pill form of blood thinner medication called coumadin. She'll be taking this when she goes home to keep the blood from getting too thick or too thin. Plus, it's a common precautionary to prescribe coumadin when you are getting chemo b/c the port could (possibly) cause a clot. So mom's not that odd for being on this medication. Blood clots are also a side effect of the cancer, not everyone gets them...and we are glad they caught them before it got worse.
Also, since she's been in the hospital, Mom got her power port for chemo on Monday 9/20/10. The port surgery went well and it's on her right side by her collar bone, and today (9/24/09) around 11:30am Central time, started her first chemo treatment. Starting with the pre-meds and then the chemo. Dad said it looks like water...and Mom says she can't feel anything from it right now as it's going in.
Along with the many tests (the jury out on a few still) there has been some good news this week too. They have confirmed that it hasn't spread to the brain! Second, that the shady scaring on her lungs has also been confirmed that it's unrelated. And third, that her blood thinner medication seems to be working (with her off the IV). Good news and good vibes as we finish off the first week and start a new one. Keep Mom in your thoughts and prayers.
The plan is for Mom to go home from the hospital tomorrow (Saturday) and Jan and Hub are visiting on Sunday for dinner. As I finish up this post, Mom is in the home stretch of her first chemo treatment, each session is about 4 hours long.
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