Sunday, January 29, 2012

The past week we have been getting things ready for Mom and Dad to go back to Illinois for about 4 weeks or so.  We moved them out of their apartment and in with us until Thursday.  Mom has chemo on Wednesday and after that they will try to catch a flight home on Thursday.  Illinois Cancer Care will see her on the following Tuesday.  As long as everything goes well with that appointment, and Mom and Dad do well there on their own then they will stay there until the first part of March.  Then Mom will come back to Utah for follow-up care at Huntsman.

We are a little nervous to see them go.  However, I know Mom misses the rest of the family back there as well as her dear friends.  We will be depending on our family and friends back home to help take care of Mom and Dad and get Mom out of the house a few times a week.  If we don't take her out here, she just stays on the couch.  She still needs to get up and move around from time to time so she doesn't lose anymore muscle strength or develop more blood clots.

Dad has been having some problems swallowing lately.  He will need to have that checked out as well while they are home.

It will be hard to see them go.

Thursday, January 19, 1012

Today we looked at a little apartment that might be a better option for Mom and Dad.  It was cute in a nice area.  Not sure that they have made a decision yet on if they want to secure it at this  point or not.

I called Illinois Cancer Care Center today to try to set up chemo for Mom when they go home.  She wants to go back for about 5-6 weeks and then come  back for follow up.  I told them she would like to see Dr. Lindqwister to handle her chemo while she is there but she wanted to continue direction of care through Huntsman Cancer Institute.  They told me she would have to see original doc who she saw back in October.  I told her she didn't want to see him, that it wasn't a good experience.  The woman told me that the original doc would  have to approve her seeing someone else.  She said she would look into it and call me back.  I am not sure if this is going to work.  But we will try again tomorrow.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Today we got the results of all the CT scans that were done last week.  The results were over all good, but rather mixed results. Many of the spots on her lungs, the tumor on her right adrenal gland have slightly decreased in size.  There is a small tumor in her liver that has stayed the same.  The tumor on her left kidney has grown slightly as well as the tumor on her pelvis.  All other tumors have stayed the same size.  Over all the results show that she is responding to treatment.  They did find two blood clots in her iliac veins.  They felt they needed to treat those with daily injections of blood thinners to keep that under control.

Mom wants to try to go back home (to Illinois) for a few weeks and see everyone back there for a while.  So we are going to try to set things up so that Mom can get chemo in Illinois and come back here for follow up and direction of care.

Saturday January 14, 2012

Today we went to the Natural History Museum in Salt Lake City.  It's a great place to visit if you are ever out this way.  It sits up on the mountain side and ever looks the Great Salt Lake Valley.  This picture was taken on the observation deck (sorry these pictures are such poor quality.  They were taken with the video camera b/c the battery was dead in the good camera.  Oppps!)

This museum has SO many amazing things to see.  There are plenty of hands on activities for the kids to learn on and explore.  There is so much to learn in each section of the museum that you could take almost a whole day to take in all the information.  We loved it! 

Some of our favorites were the insects that the kids could handle and learn about.

Alex was so excited to hold the hissing cockroach.  Yuck!  But he's all boy and loved it!

Here he is again with a stink bug.

Another shot of the stink bug.

They had so much fun here.  It was hard to keep them focused on the exhibits here on this floor b/c if they looked over to their right they would have seen the dinosaurs on the next floor and wouldn't want to see anything else.

The dinosaurs were quite a hit!  I didn't get the pictures of them that I wanted.  We will have to do that again some time soon.  They had a T-rex, giant sloth, wooly mammoth, an enormous bear, sabre tooth tigers, triceratops, raptors, and many more that I don't remember the names of. 

After wards we went out for pizza at the Pie in South Jordan.  The pizza was good but the experience was exhausting.  That's a story for another day.  Mom did really well the whole day.

Friday, January 6, 2012

Today we originally planned to have pictures taken however, we canceled those plans and scheduled surgery for Mom instead.  Why, you ask?  Well because surgery is always so much more fun than a photo shoot.  Just kidding.  They wanted to do the port placement today.  So it was off to the University of Utah Hospital we went.

They were pretty behind schedule so we did a lot of waiting.

They finally were ready to take her back.  They wanted her to wear a blue hat so her hair wouldn't get in their way :).

Soon they were done and she did really well.  They were able to get her port placed without any problems.

On behalf of Mom and the rest of our family we would like to thank each of you for your continued support, prayers, cards, phone calls and acts of kindness which makes this journey bearable.  It truly means, and helps so much!  We love you!

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Today Mom went into Huntsman to have her radiation simulation done.  It went well and took about a half hour to complete.  I was waiting in the women's waiting room for her and while I was waiting, a woman walked in with a familiar face.  It was one that I haven't  seen in at least 20 years.  It was Rosella Ashton from Peoria.  Our family has known her family forever.  We sat and chatted until it was her turn to go back for her treatment.  It was fun to see her again after so long and to visit for a few minutes.  Her husband was in the other waiting room and we got to talk with him for a few minutes before we had to talk with the Mom's nurse.  Small world!

After Mom's simulation, she had plenty of time to eat a good breakfast up in the Bistro.  This morning they had Belgian waffles with strawberries.  That looked good to Mom and they smelled wonderful!

Mom like them and that always makes us happy.  Some days it so hard for her to find anything that tastes good to her so when we find something that appeals to her its an accomplishment!

This is the biggest bite of ANYTHING we have seen her eat in weeks!  It was a definite photo op!

Look at her plate!  She ate all that all by herself!  This was a HUGE accomplishment!  We were so proud of her!  Hoping this is the start of something new.

After breakfast we hoped we could get into the infusion room earlier than when she was scheduled since we had been there so long already.   Mom was getting tired and needed to take a nap (it was all that work eating I'm sure. lol). 

But they were too  busy to get her back right away.  So we waited a few more minutes until they had a free spot.

They just opened this huge addition to the Huntsman Center when Mom got here and already they have completely filled it.  They could expand again and be able to fill the room.  It's just amazing.  They have people from all over the country coming here for treatment.  We are so blessed to have it right here.

Soon they took Mom back to start her IV.  They wrap her arms in warm blankets to help the veins surface. 

The chairs recline nicely so she can sleep while she gets her infusions if she wants to.  They also have TVs at each station if she wants to.  You know Mom doesn't feel well when she doesn't have the TV on.

We call her our little Russian Princess when she wears this hat.

She was pretty worn out by the time they got her started and just wanted to sleep through the infusion.  By the time she was finished she was ready to go home and rest some more.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

The Smile Strikes Back!

  Mom has seemed to do a little bit better each day this week.  She ate a good breakfast this morning and ate little bits of things as the day went on.  But all that is better than nothing at all.  This evening, some dear friends of mine from our ward came over to visit with Mom.  They are Wendi and Jordan Mott.  Jordan was diagnosed with brain cancer 4 months after their wedding and has been on chemo for four years now.  So they know what Mom's going through.  I think it was good for Mom to have a chance to talk to someone who has been there and done that.  

Jordan and his beautiful wife Wendi are quite the inspiration.  Jordan had to have 45% of his brain removed just 4 months into their marriage and woke up not remembering who Wendi was.  He was not expected to make it and if he did they told Wendi he wouldn't be able to walk or talk again.  And here he is 4 years later walking, talking, driving, ect.  He could really relate to the problems Mom is having with eating.  He has had the same problem.  They were able to share some things that have worked for him, so we will see if they will work for Mom.

It was nice to see Mom smiling that award winning smile of hers again.  In the picture of her in the owl hat at the top of the page, she is modeling one of the hats that Wendi made.  Wendi has set a goal to sell her hats to raise $2012.00 to donate to the Huntsman Cancer Institute this year.  What a great way to give back.  If anyone is interested here is the link to her Facebook site https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mottley-Creations/166242686801349?sk=wall.

Well we will see how Mom does tomorrow after chemo.  She will have the radiation simulation in the morning and then she will have her chemo.  The radiation simulation is where they make a special mask of Mom's face and do all the calculations for her radiation treatment she will have next week.  They have to have everything exactly right so the radiation is focused only on the tumors.