Sorry again for the lack of updates, I know many of you come to see if I posted an update; I hope to keep this up a few extra times these next few weeks/months as a lot of changes / updates will occur. I'm going to do a quick recap of the last few months first, and then will provide the update on what's next for mom.
JANUARY - MARCH
First off, from January thru the end of March, Mom has been pretty good. She's took the single agent chemotherapy treatment for about 3 months and did really well with the very few side effects. Her pain (which she's been having since last winter) was manageable for a good part of 2012 with a pain patch, Fentanyl. She's been slowly over time having to increase the patch level, but overall has been managing. At the end of March another scan was done to see how the disease was progressing, it had progressed, not too much, again to be expected (since she was only doing a single agent treatment). This was the time for her body to gain some strength to hopefully try again at the stronger chemotherapy. I would add that her & Tim took a great trip to California in February, and Mom did get the chance to feel normal (or her normal) for a few months; it was really like she was my old Mom again.
APRIL - MAY
Starting in April, she tried again the same treatment (CPT-11 & Erbitux for those keeping track) that she'd been on last summer until the side effects became too harsh. The good thing about this treatment was that the disease had not progressed on this chemotherapy so a good chance this treatment would work IF she could handle the side effects. So, she tried it. She took 2 treatments (on a very low dose) and by the second dose, slightly increased, it ended up being too much, she was nauseated, her blood counts so low, that it didn't make sense to continue, once again, the side effects are outweighing the benefits. This brings you pretty much up-to-date thru mid-May.
LAST 2 WEEKS
The doctors decided to check progression of the disease before potentially trying another chemotherapy (her choice to keep trying) so she had another scan last week. We received the results on Tues, the disease has progressed, the tumors have grown in her lymph-nodes and liver. Again, as expected since she's only had 2 treatments in the last 2 months. The worst part of all that is going on is her pain. The doctors can't figure out how to get that under control. She's been in the ER three times in the last week trying to (hopefully, or really not?) find something else that could be fixed. It's very strange how the pain comes, it's terrible for her, and then it goes without a remedy. Just frustrating. Mom and Tim have been through a lot this last week. Many of you know that Tim's mother, Bern Sueper, passed away on Saturday (funeral was today). All of this with his mom and then Sharon not doing well; it's been rough for him as well.
Today, hopefully, Tim (& all) got to celebrate his mom's (Grandma Sueper) life and this weekend we'll celebrate all together my brother's marriage to Shere Rath. All of the family is back and will be a nice weekend together.
