Cancer = Single Occupancy Room. Bonus!

Well well, St. Franny, can’t say we missed you.

Mom got admitted to the hospital on Saturday afternoon to manage some symptoms that have gotten unmanageable at home, specifically dizziness, headaches, and nausea. The headaches she’s been dealing with for several weeks, but the pain got to be too much, and her eye sight at hearing have also changed so it seemed smart to get things secure while under the watchful eye of her oncologist in Hartford.

Thursday trekked to Boston to have another MRI of the brain and CT scan of the chest, abdomen, and pelvis. To refresh, the serial CT scans are part of the research study at Dana Farber, and the MRI’s have been done every 2 weeks for the last 6 weeks to monitor for changes and possibly find a source for the headaches.

Good news first: the CT scan showed that the tumors in her neck and groin are stable in size. The metastasizes on her belly are still undetectable to touch. All of which is very positive.

Bad news second: this MRI showed inflammation of the meninges.

The meninges are a series of three membrane layers that envelope the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord). Inflammation of the meninges can occur with infection, but due to Mom’s significant cancer history, there is some concern that she is experiencing a rare side effect of systemic metastatic cancer where cancer spreads to the meninges.

The best diagnostic tool to determine definitively if this is infection or cancer, is a spinal tap or lumbar puncture (LP); that will be first on the “to do” list tomorrow morning. For anyone who has had an epidural, an LP is virtually the same, but more temporary. The procedure will be done right at the bedside, and other than the local anesthetic injected at the site, she should experience very little pain.

Since being admitted, she’s been receiving IV fluids and Zofran (anti-nausea) and Dilaudid (narcotic… insert Jimmy Hendrix guitar rip here) with moderate to good effect. I sound like I’m tying a nursing note… The problem is that the headaches come on so quickly, that one second she might refuse her pain medicine, stating her pain is 2 out of 10, then within seconds it can be 7 out of 10.

I don’t want to do any major horn tooting, but this afternoon her pain reached 8 out of 10, the worst it had been since arriving at St. Franny-Panny. Her nurses are AMAZINGLY responsive and arrived with pain meds immediately, but I also did about 20 minutes of Reiki and she seemed to get a lot of relief. She even said her pain got as low as 0! Hooray for the power of touch.

Bottom line, she is in much better shape since being here in the hospital for management of all these symptoms. She’s eating very well when her nausea is controlled, she hasn’t booted once (knock on wood NOW), and now we’re taking in some 60 Minutes while dining on fresh tomatoes and basil.

All the gestures of love and kindness are always appreciated and mean more than each of you possibly know. Right now, she dozes on and off pretty regularly, so it might be best to shoot her an email or leave a comment on the blog to say hello rather than call just in case she’s asleep. You know her, she’ll pull the ‘ole, “oh no I wasn’t sleeping, I was reading!” Sure…

Plan: Tuesday we are headed to Boston to meet with a neuro-oncologist who will be new to our team. We’re not sure if we’ll have the results from Monday’s LP back yet, but we’re going to make a plan and meet the neuro-onc team first in case this turns out to be cancer. Will post as soon as possible after our appointment.

It's a family affair: The Marriage of Ms. Margaret Talbot to Mr. Jeffrey Virchow

25.July.2009