Well, the month of August has sucked. All of this chemo has really taken a toll on LeAnn. She had the 4 doses of the heavy stuff, then she tried taking Taxol and it had too many side effects and then she has taken about 10 or 11 doses of Abraxine. She has been in so much pain that it brings her to tears most every day. She has incredible hot flashes that come from nowhere and she describes it as having her face in the oven. She has had a lot of the numbness and tingling in her hands and feet. She has been taking some Hydrocodone for the pain but it doesnt’ last long and takes too long to take effect. I nagged at her to make it known to her Dr., she needed something stronger. Dr. finally gave her some MsContin, which is a 12 hr time release morphine 15 mg.
So 2 weeks ago on August 14th, she went to the Chemo office and was going to tell her Dr. that she couldn’t take it anymore. I think she ended up doing a treatment that day and she had CT scan the day before. The Dr. noticed that it appeared these growths in her liver appeared to be considerbly larger than the previous times. She had a CT scan done on March 27th, where a spot was detected but the Dr. didn’t think too much of it at that point. They were unsure of what it was. They also did a CT scan in the 1st week of June and noticed the spots were still there, but still weren’t overly concerned with it. Well, the lesions were much larger this time around , compared with the others.
She visted the Dr on Friday the 21st.. he talked about the lesions a bit, said he needed to study the results a bit more. I believe LeAnn talked to a nurse or something on the Monday and was told it was like 80% chance of being something other that cancer, so after being scared to death on Friday it was for sure cancer spread to her liver, we were more upbeat on Monday. So she goes in to the Dr. on Friday August 28th and they talk about the liver again, and we don’t know what the nurse was talking about, but it seems like it has spread to the liver. The Dr. said she could get a biopsy done on her liver but it would be painful and could get complications, plus one of them is right next to a blood vessel. He said the other option was to wait 2 months and he would do another scan and if they were larger, he would be confident that it has spread to her liver. He wants her to go onto the radiation in the meantime.
LeAnn decided to not get a liver biopsy, based on the Dr saying it really wasn’t going to change anything as far as the plan. So, she will be going into the Nebraska Medical Center on Sept 11th for a 1st visit with the radiation people. Sept. 11th, our 5th Wedding Anniversay, my wife will be going to a Dr to talk radiation.
LeAnn is just plain wore down at this point. She has been struggling to go to work whenever she can, but alot of nights she can’t sleep and stays up all night. She’s in pain all the time, she deals with her heart fluttering, all the hot flashes and she generally feels like crap all the time. She has been quite a trooper all this time, but I can see where it is really wearing her down. Then you get news that there seems to be problems with the liver now. It’s like there is never a good day or good news – EVER. It’s just day to day of trying to get thru to the next day.
I do my best to keep her spirits up, but alot of time she will have nothing to do with my jokes and my positive reinforcements. I know it’s what I have to do, but at the same time, it feels hollow and I know me saying it’s going to be OK and look at the bright side and all that, doesn’t really help.
The kids started school again on the 18th and I sometimes wish they were a little bit older so they could realize what their Mom is going thru. They really don’t help much at all around the house, so it seems like were doing all the work. I know their kids, but they are getting older and should tone down their demands a bit during these times and be a little more thoughtful about what everyone is going thru.
LeAnn and I went back to Cozad on August 15th to visit everyone. We had everyone back, as far as Mom’s kids. Linda and all the kids and Cory were back. We left on Sat morning about 5:00 am and ran into a rain storm in Lincoln and had to pull over for awhile. We were both very tired. Made it to Cozad about 10:00. Went to Grandma’s auction and visited her. LeAnn could not handle the heat so we tried to make her as comfortable as possible during the weekend. She slept most of the way home.
So anyway, August sucked for LeAnn, and me too. I’ll post some pics of us back in Cozad and a few others too.
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