friday 7/24/09

finally the wait is over. no chemo for mom.

it's difficult to explain all the emotions. for us, it all comes down to 'ok, the scare is over. now let's move on.' do we have major relief? hell yeah. major.

my brother had a hard time wrapping his head around the whole week. it's hard, i believe, to be removed from the day to day-- getting info from me rather than living it as we do. no sooner did he start processing thoughts of mom going thru chemo, the conclusion that she's not having it took place. he's got so much business and life to fill in the gaps, it's no wonder it's hard to get from A to B. it is what it is.... neither of us is going to change our individual daily duties. i'm not sure if i need to say i'm sorry to him.... i don't feel like i've done anything to be sorry for.... i tell him everything i know as timely as things happen. this is a disease we're talking about, it's not a math equation one might be able to google an answer to. but i know it's difficult for him, so yeah, i feel bad when answers aren't immediate or exact.

i find myself frustrated at the whole thing tho. i don't get pounded on for answers but my answers aren't exactly what he needs to hear and i 'feel' that from our conversations. there's a part of me that wants to say 'hey, here's the docs phone number. give 'em a call!' i don't do that but that's how the conversations make me feel.

anyway-- that aside. this is what we learned today.

mom could have chemo once a week for the next 5 weeks. she would also have vomiting, nausea, acne type lesions, rashes, lose her hair and all the fun stuff one gets from the poison. what would having chemo do? it would increase her chances of living cancer free another 6%.

with the surgery done and the 2 tumors removed and with the radiation therapy she's under-going now, her chances of living cancer free are 92%. even with both chemo and rad, she'd not get to 100%! (no one will with cancer)

sooo, being a rather frail 73 year old, the decision to not have chemo was practically a no-brainer. the stats tell the story. would it help? yeah, it might. would it help her achieve a better quality of life? nope. sooo, i went back to my oldest and most basic question...... 'doc, if this was YOUR mom, would you encourage chemo?'

'no.'

after the doc said no, he looked mom straight in the eye and said, 'you've made a very acceptable decision.'

end of story. not really, but it's the end of this particular story!

monday july 20

here we go. radiation begins. guess you can say we're ready but.... there's that letter that came on saturday that threw us until we heard more about it today. the letter was one of those form letters.... it said mom has an appt this friday with so and so doctor at whatever time.

HUH? who's this doc and why do we need an appt with him?!

well.... i can't complain that they didn't try to help answer our question. a couple people called me back and a couple of people at the hospital tried to find out. essentially all we found out was this was a chemo doc. so, we spent most of the day sick to our stomach. awesome.

the phone rang just as i was swinging out the door for youngest son's college appt. i saw it was the hospital so i picked it up while son's face drained all it's color. i know, i know.... we have to go. but i HAVE to get this!

it was one of our prior nurses on the phone who had heard we were asking questions about an appt... man-- i love this woman! she saw us at the hospital today but missed us before we left. so she called letting us know about the chemo doc. i guess the normal protocol with cancer patients is to see both a radiation doc and a chemo doc. but because no one has ever mentioned chemo to us throughout this whole thing we felt like something slipped thru the cracks.

more than that tho, we felt deceived. it was horrible! mom's ready for rad. all prepared and good to go. then...... we might also have chemo?? well, what the heck?! why weren't we told?

anyway, the butt of it is that protocol. all patients see both rad and chemo docs, but you don't necessarily have both treatments. it's a case by case basis. the chemo department is simply 2 weeks behind in their appointments. ohhhhhh! ok then.

so will mom also have chemo? god i hope not. but we'll go to the appt and find out.

i dunno if i'd say it was a good day. but son got his pic taken for his ID, his classes scheduled and his dorm contract signed. and, we got our form letter question answered. our stomachs have recovered from the shock of potential chemo, but.... we're better than we were at 3pm.