Mom had a stomach biopsy done this morning. When I spoke with her at lunch she had just gotten back into the room and was waking up. For breakfast she had eggs and toast, she said both were tough, as in rubbery. They had gotten quite cold in the process of everything she did in the morning. For dinner she had chicken stir fry. She said it really didn't taste like anything and she was able to eat it. Her taste buds may be on the fritz due to everything else going on with her body.
There is discussion on moving her to St. Peter, to a swing bed facility at the hospital there. Mom really would like St. Peter because it is a smaller facility. Along with this, as she is getting better the options for treatment of the bone cancer are opening up. The doctors are hoping to start chemo as soon as a month from now.
Thats all for now, Heather and I will be in Mankato this weekend to see mom, and will keep you updated.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
The weekend from hell
We called mom before heading down to the hospital, she was worried. When we got to the hospital mom was exhausted. The battery of tests had really worn on her. She was weak and slow to speak. The next morning we met with one of her doctors. He was painting a dire picture for us. She may not leave the hospital, alive. Hospice should be brought up with your mom. He said the cancer had metastasized over bones throughout her body, and quite possibly her liver too.
For years my mom had been meeting with a doctor at the UofM hospital who specialized in liver transplants. I knew something was up with the liver, just not what. Now it appeared as though her liver was on the brink of failure, her white blood cell count kept climbing, an indicator of infection, and she was unable to digest even a liquid diet, ten full days after her surgery. The surgery site wound was having troubles healing, the staff is literally opening up the wound and cleaning it out because her body is unable to do so. We were interrupted from visiting with my mom numerous times by nurses doing their thing. Throughout the day we took breaks and headed over to the house to look through paperwork.
This also was the day of the local stage race for the Great River Energy Bicycle Festival/Nature Valley Grand Prix, so we headed down the hill to check things out. The route was 75 miles around towns I had spent some time in growing up, and I had family connections to many of the small towns, I decided not to bore heather with all the gruesome details. The final bit of the race is in Mankato proper, four laps, each time straight up Main Street Hill, a hill so steep that before fuel injection technology cars would have to go up hill in reverse so that the gas would feed into the engine.
With heavy hearts we headed back to the hotel for the evening, to try to relax in the hot tub and pool, and prepare for the big benefit for mom at her church in the morning. The hardest part of this was that mom didn't want everyone to know about the bone cancer. We decided to tell some folks and keep things from others. This pained me because I believe that the power of naming something allows people to understand and cope with it better.
The benefit was to be held at Belgrade Avenue United Methodist Church. The church I grew up in, and where my mom has been a member since the mid 70's. A family friend suggested that an organization that she is affiliated with could generate matching funds. Most of the congregation came down for breakfast, I was able to see many folks I had not seen for a very long time, some who I had met only once or Mom had spoken about over the phone. Mom's mother showed up along with her sister and eldest niece. At the end of the event well over the matching amount was raised, so my mom will have the ability to catch up on some bills that she is behind on.
Exhausted, and wanting to have some fun on our 7th wedding anniversary we headed back home to visit with friends at Izzy's Ice Cream Cafe and the 7th annual people's choice awards. See the thing is, among our circle of friends, ice cream plays an important role. So much in fact that some of our friends submitted flavors to this competition, and the man who coined the term ice cream stomach was there with his flavor "Marshberry and Cash." So we had to go, in an attempt to garner this man some votes to win the competition. Alas, he did not win the grand prize, but his flavor did win the category.
Finally getting home we called mom again, she had many visitors was tired, but was doing OK. We were very concerned that the cancer would conquer mom, we were wanting every contact with her to be a gift.
For years my mom had been meeting with a doctor at the UofM hospital who specialized in liver transplants. I knew something was up with the liver, just not what. Now it appeared as though her liver was on the brink of failure, her white blood cell count kept climbing, an indicator of infection, and she was unable to digest even a liquid diet, ten full days after her surgery. The surgery site wound was having troubles healing, the staff is literally opening up the wound and cleaning it out because her body is unable to do so. We were interrupted from visiting with my mom numerous times by nurses doing their thing. Throughout the day we took breaks and headed over to the house to look through paperwork.
This also was the day of the local stage race for the Great River Energy Bicycle Festival/Nature Valley Grand Prix, so we headed down the hill to check things out. The route was 75 miles around towns I had spent some time in growing up, and I had family connections to many of the small towns, I decided not to bore heather with all the gruesome details. The final bit of the race is in Mankato proper, four laps, each time straight up Main Street Hill, a hill so steep that before fuel injection technology cars would have to go up hill in reverse so that the gas would feed into the engine.
With heavy hearts we headed back to the hotel for the evening, to try to relax in the hot tub and pool, and prepare for the big benefit for mom at her church in the morning. The hardest part of this was that mom didn't want everyone to know about the bone cancer. We decided to tell some folks and keep things from others. This pained me because I believe that the power of naming something allows people to understand and cope with it better.
The benefit was to be held at Belgrade Avenue United Methodist Church. The church I grew up in, and where my mom has been a member since the mid 70's. A family friend suggested that an organization that she is affiliated with could generate matching funds. Most of the congregation came down for breakfast, I was able to see many folks I had not seen for a very long time, some who I had met only once or Mom had spoken about over the phone. Mom's mother showed up along with her sister and eldest niece. At the end of the event well over the matching amount was raised, so my mom will have the ability to catch up on some bills that she is behind on.
Exhausted, and wanting to have some fun on our 7th wedding anniversary we headed back home to visit with friends at Izzy's Ice Cream Cafe and the 7th annual people's choice awards. See the thing is, among our circle of friends, ice cream plays an important role. So much in fact that some of our friends submitted flavors to this competition, and the man who coined the term ice cream stomach was there with his flavor "Marshberry and Cash." So we had to go, in an attempt to garner this man some votes to win the competition. Alas, he did not win the grand prize, but his flavor did win the category.
Finally getting home we called mom again, she had many visitors was tired, but was doing OK. We were very concerned that the cancer would conquer mom, we were wanting every contact with her to be a gift.
June 14-June22
After welcoming mom back to the waking after her surgery, we headed back home, 1.5 hours away from the hospital. Arriving home we were glad that everything went well with the surgery and mom was doing well and very alert when she woke up.
The next day was tiring at work, but calling down to the hospital it was discovered that she was doing well and recuperating at a very quick pace. Friday the 15th she was moved out of the ICU and had even taken a bit of a stroll down the hall. I had to work my weekend job so we did not go down to visit her until Sunday. We were planning to visit the following weekend, when her church was going to be holding a benefit breakfast to raise funds to assist mom during her time off from work.
Early the week of June 18 mom was not doing so well. On the 19th she did something I had never really heard her do before, she complained about how bad she felt. The doctors had found something amiss, her white blood cell count was up, and had been climbing since the day of surgery. They had ordered a regimen of tests, X-Rays, bone scans, and blood tests, and my mom was finding the whole situation absolutely exhausting. There were so many nurses and doctors in to see her that she had no idea how many, much less who, she had seen.
Now please understand mom is good with names and people and such. She keeps telling me about the lives of people I met, once, fifteen years ago, their trials and tribulations. Then she will ask me about college and high school acquaintances that she meet at graduation, or saw in my yearbooks and wants to know how they are doing.
This was an issue, she was loosing strength, the doctors kept taking her off of the liquid diet and relying on getting her nutrition through her I.V.
On Friday the 22nd of June I got a call that I was not expecting. My mom's friend Lee Ann called and left me a voice mail on my cell phone saying I should call her back as soon as possible. I immediately left the office and called her back. My mom had been diagnosed with bone cancer. The bladder cancer had spread, and was all over her body in her bones. The only treatment was chemotherapy. The only way to even consider this was for my mom to recover from the surgery she had on the 13th. Things appeared dire. We made the decision to head down to the hospital that evening and spend the weekend in town, getting things ready for the inevitable.
The next day was tiring at work, but calling down to the hospital it was discovered that she was doing well and recuperating at a very quick pace. Friday the 15th she was moved out of the ICU and had even taken a bit of a stroll down the hall. I had to work my weekend job so we did not go down to visit her until Sunday. We were planning to visit the following weekend, when her church was going to be holding a benefit breakfast to raise funds to assist mom during her time off from work.
Early the week of June 18 mom was not doing so well. On the 19th she did something I had never really heard her do before, she complained about how bad she felt. The doctors had found something amiss, her white blood cell count was up, and had been climbing since the day of surgery. They had ordered a regimen of tests, X-Rays, bone scans, and blood tests, and my mom was finding the whole situation absolutely exhausting. There were so many nurses and doctors in to see her that she had no idea how many, much less who, she had seen.
Now please understand mom is good with names and people and such. She keeps telling me about the lives of people I met, once, fifteen years ago, their trials and tribulations. Then she will ask me about college and high school acquaintances that she meet at graduation, or saw in my yearbooks and wants to know how they are doing.
This was an issue, she was loosing strength, the doctors kept taking her off of the liquid diet and relying on getting her nutrition through her I.V.
On Friday the 22nd of June I got a call that I was not expecting. My mom's friend Lee Ann called and left me a voice mail on my cell phone saying I should call her back as soon as possible. I immediately left the office and called her back. My mom had been diagnosed with bone cancer. The bladder cancer had spread, and was all over her body in her bones. The only treatment was chemotherapy. The only way to even consider this was for my mom to recover from the surgery she had on the 13th. Things appeared dire. We made the decision to head down to the hospital that evening and spend the weekend in town, getting things ready for the inevitable.
The reason for all this
Greetings and welcome to Foster Mom Health. It is my hope with this blog to let everyone know what is going on with my mom's health, what I am feeling, and how I am coping with all these new changes.
As many of you know on June 13th my mom, Linda Foster, had surgery to remove her bladder, uterus, ovaries, right kidney, lymph nodes, and part of her intestine in an effort to rid her body of a particularly virulent case of bladder cancer. This was her fourth cancer related surgery, third for bladder cancer. Previously in October of 2006 and February of 2007 she had tumors removed from the bladder and and followed up each with a six week treatment of BCG, a biological therapy for cancer. The cancer came back wildly after each treatment of BCG. It was decided to remove her bladder to stop the recurrence of the cancer. This led to the ten hour surgery she underwent on June 13th.
As many of you know on June 13th my mom, Linda Foster, had surgery to remove her bladder, uterus, ovaries, right kidney, lymph nodes, and part of her intestine in an effort to rid her body of a particularly virulent case of bladder cancer. This was her fourth cancer related surgery, third for bladder cancer. Previously in October of 2006 and February of 2007 she had tumors removed from the bladder and and followed up each with a six week treatment of BCG, a biological therapy for cancer. The cancer came back wildly after each treatment of BCG. It was decided to remove her bladder to stop the recurrence of the cancer. This led to the ten hour surgery she underwent on June 13th.
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