Relay for Life

We attended Relay for Life in Columbus last night...what a great event and so much money raised to help in the fight against cancer. It was a fun and very inspiring and emotional night. So many that are fighting and so many more there to support and provide hope and raise funds to find a cure for this disease. Thank you to so many of you that supported the event & donated to provide a luminary for Sharon. There were so many there & showed Mom again how many people are supporting her through this.

She has been doing really great these last 2 weeks, she decided to take a "break" from the treatments after much reassurance from her doctor that is would not stop the progress. It was 'only 1 week' he said, don't worry & enjoy it. She did have a 1 drug on her normal chemo-day, but the rest that make her sick they didn't give her. She had lots of fun too during that time - we had a Summer party, went to the pool, shopping & to visit Tara in Lincoln. The kids & I have been back to Nebraska for almost 2 weeks and are going to spend a good portion of the summer here...helping & spending time w/ Mom. It seemed like a great plan and is working out fine.

A few more details...

As mentioned in my last post, we were waiting for a more detailed discussion with Mom's oncologist at her regular Monday appointment. He discussed the results in more detail and discussed the next steps to her treatment plan. She will continue for another 6 cycles (12 weeks) on the current chemotherapy mix with some adjustments to the dosage. And also discussed a few of the future treatment plans again based on her effects of the current drugs, etc. He confirmed that number of tumors has reduced and some of the larger tumors have shrunk. He read us the size reduction of the largest tumor on her liver shrunk from approx. 3.5cm x 4cm to 1.5cm x 2cm so it shrunk more than 50%. I think he actually used the words 'fabulous report' which is great.

The side effects are maintaining which is also better than expected as a few of the side effects could be cumulative and gradually get worse. Mom indicated a few side effects to the doctor that neither Tim or I had heard about before so we know she is being 'tough' and masking some of what is going on, but she still indicates that everything is fine & she really can't complain as she knows it could be much worse. The most sensitive side effect you could tell in the doctors voice is her blood platelet levels & her white blood cell count, but they are adjusting the drug dosage to manage through that as mentioned above. Plus, she gets shots to help boost white blood cell production, etc.