"Dear Santa, All I Want for Christmas..."

If Mom's nurse had wrote to Santa that all she wanted for Christmas was a four day old stool and urine sample, well then this year she would have gotten exactly what she wanted.

I kid you not. When Dr. D arrived in our exam room, she let us know that the results from the specimens delivered last Friday were unable to be processed. When they were delivered to the front desk in a holiday bag (the only bag Mom had of the appropriate dimensions) and said to be for our nurse, either it wasn't made clear that there were specimens in that festive bag, or the woman behind the desk didn't hear correctly, because the bag was stashed under Judy's desk, only to be discovered yesterday! We're talking, fa la la la la.

Thankfully, nurses think finding a bag of caca and pee pee is hilarious. So we gave them all a good laugh, but have no idea if Mom's c.diff is gone. Fair trade.

We have every reason to believe that it is, considering her symptoms seems to be subdued, if not absent most of the time.

Nothing monumental was discussed today, other than Mom has to continue to drink at least 2 litres of water daily, MUST increase her daily caloric intake, needs to follow up with her cardiologist to get her BP under control, and we'll call Dr. D on Monday to report what we discussed with Dr. C at DFCI.

Dr. D was concerned that Mom is significantly anemic, so she's testing her blood for all sorts of vitamin deficiencies, and urine for microscopic blood loss. She did not seem to have a reasonable answer for the anemia, and believed that diet was most likely not the cause, but her labs will be kept a close eye on and adjustments made where necessary.

We took Casey for a long walk this morning, and I think Mom is really feeling that this trip to DFCI will help steer us in the right direction, because as Dr. D said repeatedly, to treat with chemo is "controversial." Fortunately, Dr. D seemed to think that overall, Mom is finally getting back to a safe place in her recovery, which was so encouraging to hear.

I left back for Boston after watching Mom scarf a big hot cocoa topped with whipped cream, and a warmed croissant, and will head back to Avon tomorrow or Thursday. Now if only I were under doctor's orders to eat croissants...