Again I have let too much information get built up before putting my thoughts to print. Two weeks ago Reenie was about to get her third dose of the chemo drug Gemzar but was unable to because her platelets were too low and there was a fear that she could have a problem if she was to start bleeding for any reason. We had to delay her treatment until that count came up and there was no medical help to increase the platelets just time....which seems EVERYTHING is predicated on...need time to get her biopsy results...time to schedule an additional opinion with the University of Illinois oncolgy department...time to see if the Gemzar is working....time to get our doctors on the same page ...time. Reenie was able to get her treatment 4 days later so those 4 days or that time was spent being anxious which is now our normal frame of mind these days. Fridays treatment seemed to go ok but the weekend was HELL for our warrior, felt tired and the bone pain and musle ache was worse than the past few weeks. Sunday Reenie woke up with a swollen left arm and severe pain, now what we thought, well we have hydration Monday so we will see the docs then and explain the muscle aches and the swollen arm. I woke up Monday looked at the pain Reenie was in and thought I need to take some time off work, this could be a wild week....it was. Monday afternoon the doctors saw the swollen arm and thought "blood clot" but how could that be, the treatment causes the platelets to drop so clotting is not a problem, or so we thought. A trip to Metro South hospital and an ultrasound later we were now dealing with a blood clot. The technician explained that he was going to ultrasoumd each arm because thier facility demands that, I guess there are some facilities that only do what is ordered..good thing the clot was found in the right or opposite arm. This means more shots, shots to thin the blood, so back to the doctors office for the shots. Tuesday a new day and a new doctor, we had decided that once the cancer came back and was resistant to the second treatment of chemo we need to seek other opinions and thoughts on the case. We had scheduled this appointment weeks ago but had to wait, time to gather information, lots of information, tests,scans,diagnosis...lots of information to pass along to the University and schedule an appointment to see their director. We met with 3 doctors, one being the director of oncology for the University of Illinois and we were impressed, we were informed and we were encouraged. Encouraged being the obvious most important feeling walking away from our meeting. Before I get too far ahead with the University doctors,On Monday the day before, Reenie's regular doctors, before shipping us immediately to the hospital for the ultrasound, told us that one of Reenie's numerous weekly and monthly tests came back showing she was menopausal..this as it turns out ...big news. Reenie was always borderline and fake menopausal which determines certain treatments some are pre-menopasual and some post, we never knew for sure so this was sort of big. We now can start on a hormone treatment which will give us another line of attack. So before we left they gave our fighter a monthly shot of Faslodex which will be her hormonal treatment, which is actually another form of chemo but really doesn't have the severe side affects...I'm thinking this is good. Back to our meeting, Dr. Mehta said that the recent finding of being post-menopausal is the way to fight the beast and whoever requested this last biopsy (our Kristen) was brillant.we can now use this hormone treatment..Faslodex, I think I have a new favorite drug. He also felt that this should be the only way to fight this at the present time, he is not one to throw alot of combo medicine treatments at his patients and he had some credible backup and findings. So now lets get these two doctors together for some discussions..need time for that, later in the week that will happen. Still waiting for some biopsy results we had appointment with our surgeon and appointments with our primary to go over the increasing prescriptions and then finally chemo hydration day, yes this would be a wild week. Really I'm not sure if the roller coaster has left the track or it has been taken over by the energizer bunny, because it just isn't stopping anytime soon. So at this point our team of doctors are ALL leaning toward treating this beast with the hormone therapy drug Faslodex and ceasing the chemo therapy drug Gemzar. If this works, and we already have seen some benefits, smaller bumps, no increase in marks or bumps Reenie's quality of life should improve and that is the proverbial WIN WIN situation....Friday the day we had nothing scheduled, wouldn't stay that way too long. We recieved a call Thursday night that Shannon our oldest daughter was possibly having issues with her pregancy and had an appointment Friday morning, so Reenie as always would be there for her kids, took Shannon this morning to her doctors to find out that her pregnacy was terminating. Shannon's rock her "mama bear" was with her this morning to console and explain how every thing happens for a reason, reasons that may take years to figure out but reasons none the less....maybe we needed another angel to look over us, and get us off this F$&#!%* roller coaster.
Love to all...
