a better day

Reading the Magic Tree house with a trusty watch dog

Last Saturday Mom did not feel well enough to go to the boys basketball games but today she went to both games and looks much better than just a few days ago.

The scan results. The results were not very satisfactory but now I am ready to try to explain them as I understand them.

The opening line of hearing the results was 'comparing a bone scan to a PET scan (which is the test she had before treatment started) is like comparing apples to oranges'. And so we were told that the tumors are not bigger and there are no new tumors. They seem to be some what less in size or they could be much less in size but the bone scan only looks at bone not at tissue (not at lungs or liver or tumor tissue). I asked if the fractured vertebra is healed and the answer was "we can't tell by this scan, we can't answer that question with this scan". We asked, WHY then did they do this scan. Apparently insurance often rejects payment of the PET scan if it is done too frequently. Upon seeing the unsatisfactory looks on our faces, we were told that she could have a repeat PET scan in 8 weeks. 8 weeks from now she will be beyond her 6 cycles/months of chemo.

Obviously we were hoping for a more definite answer...something along the lines of "yup, it's worked and the tumors are gone!". Instead we will go with the idea that the tumors have shrunk even if they can't see it on this particular scan.

At the same time that we heard the scan results, we also learned the Mom's sodium has dropped a bit again which would account for way she was SOOOO fatigued. She is still anemic and therefore will be tired easily and need frequent rests.

Since the weeks before Christmas her fatigue has worsened but we are fortunate that she hasn't had some of the other common and more debilitating side effects. 

We are glad that today is a better day.