Memorial Day Greetings
from the Lake...
Remembering the Fallen this day,
May your sacrifice never be forgotten...
It is a gift of ultimate sacrifice
that gives us the ultimate freedoms we live in each day.
For All gave Some,
But Some gave All...
In Grateful Memory,
Always,
Jane
2 comments:
Jane,
Jane,
Thank you for sharing your experiences through this blog. It has been so helpful to me as I take a similar journey with my 79 year old mom. She started feeling bad last summer and by fall the pain was terrible. She lost a lot of weight, potassium and sodium were out of whack. A series of Drs did scopes and scans and told us there was no cancer, just an impaction. She spent 10 days in the local hospital in October but they refused to give her pain meds because they said it would make constpation worse.
Finally, in December we took her to the emergency room of a larger hospital and within an hour they located the golf ball size tumor on her pancreas. A biopsy showed it was cancer, inoperable because of location. PET indicated that it had already metastasized to the liver and lungs We were told stage 4 and less than six months to live.
I moved in with my Mom and she was so happy to have the pain controlled by morphine. In January she began six weeks of daily radiation and two series of Gemzar chemo. She experienced extreme fatigue and nausea but it wasn't as bad as we expected.
Her March scan showed that the radiation had shrunk the original tumor but the spots in the lungs were more numerous and much larger so the chemo was not working. She was weak and her oncologist gave her two months off chemo and told her to go live. We made a trip to the beach and another to visit family.
In early May she developed pneumonia, was put on antibiotics and chemo postponed. A week later she noticed lots of blood in her stool and I rushed her in to the Dr. Her Hemoglobin was down to 8 and they suspected internal bleeding. They admitted her to hospital and administered blood transfusions. The colonoscopy was inconclusive but they decided she had a diverticulitis bleed. Two more units of blood and they sent her home. I began to feel alarmed at this point. They said the bleeding would likely stop on its own and if it didn't she was too weak for surgery. She became afraid to eat and when we returned to the Dr in two weeks, she had lost 6 pounds.
Her Dr decided to postpone chemo again. He is planning to try a new one that has much more serious side effects and she is not strong enough. He decided to administer Injectafer to treat her anemia.
This morning she felt bad, had difficulty breathing and lots of confusion along with dark bloody stools again. We went to the Drs office for the injection. I asked them to check her oxygen and blood again even though they just did it 3 days ago. Her Hemoglobin was down to 7! We went to the hospital for typing and will return to tomorrow for two more units of blood. I'm trying to make an appointment with her gastrointestinal Dr to check for a bleed again.
I feel like this is the beginning of the end and my heart is breaking.
Toni,
My heart is aching for you. This journey is one of the most difficult imaginable, for your mom and for you. But one thing I do know is that she has been blessed to have you there with her each step of the way. It is the hardest grace.
Please know you are in my prayers... sending Hugs across the miles,
Always,
Jane
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