Mom got sick. Not me, the mom, the MOM, Grandma, Oh-My (great nickname), the matriarch of the family. The main caretaker, chief bottle washer and cook. She who cannot get sick.
It started with such a small thing...a blood clot.
This was unusual because Mom is active, healthy and a non smoker. Her whole life!
Little did we know, the clot was a sign of something much bigger.
Mom ended up at UMC at Texas Tech in Lubbock on September 23. It started a long journey of fear and prayer that ended only two weeks ago with mom getting home, but not all the way cured.
Mom has Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma. Ordinarily, very text book cancer. Diagnose, start chemotherapy, go home, get better.
For us? Oh no. Dear reader, we don't do anything in half measures.
One of her tumors, or lymphomas was over 10 x20. It wrapped from her lower left side to her back. In the process, it caused the blood clot in her leg, then is closed over the nerve bundle and caused numbness and immobility in her left leg.
Perhaps the scariest thing that SOB did was to strangle off her left kidney causing a back up of urine that caused a blaze of sepsis. It almost killed her. She was circling the drain when they took her to surgery to put in a stent to hold open the ureter.
Oh, and for funsies, her port became infected and had to be removed.
Sepsis is nasty. It caused her to be so sick, and she swelled up with fluids to the point she couldn't move.
In short, radiation to shrink the giant tumor, two rounds of chemotherapy, a loss of over thirty pounds, foot drop and about 8 weeks in the hospital.
I am happy to report Mom is home, she is recovering from the infected port and radiation, as she awaits her next round of chemo.
It has been a long battle, and we know it is a marathon, not a sprint. The kids have all acted up or acted out as I spent three to four days a week in Lubbock with Mom.
She is slowly regaining her strength. She has foot drop, which may or may not be permanent. She lost her hair. She is scared, but was recently reassured by her Clovis Oncologist.
He told her, "Imagine you were talking with God, and he said, Cathy, I am sorry, but down the road, I have to give you cancer. The good news is, you get to pick which one. Well, you picked the easy one. The curable one."
I thought, why didn't she chose prostate cancer!
And how was your day?
