March 2012

On Feb. 28, 2012, Mom went in for her chemo treatment and and her labs came back indicating that her kidney function was not good enough to handle the chemo for that day.  Her creatinine levels were higher than they had ever been at 2.76.  Additionally her blood pressure was rather low.  Jeff had the nurse talk to me on the phone, and after hearing what all her labs were, it sounded like mom needed some IV fluids.  The nurse didn't said the doctor there didn't want her to have any. 

So I called Huntsman to update them and when they heard her lab values they said she needed to have some IV fluids.  I told them that I asked about that and the nurse said she didn't need them, the docs at Huntsman called ICC (Illinois Cancer Care) and told them they recommended mom get a liter of fluids.  So we called Mom & Jeff to go back to ICC to get some IV fluids. 

Well, they had her go back for a liter of fluid on Wed, Thu, and Fri.  Each day Mom was getting weaker and weaker.  She was more confused and only wanted to sleep.  It got to the point that she couldn't get up without assistance and even then it was really hard. 

I told her that she should go the the ER and she stated that she didn't feel confident in the care she was getting here and just wanted to get back to Huntsman.  This was Sat. night and we were trying to get her on the next  flight out of Peoria to Salt Lake City for Sunday morning. 

My sister in law Kate went over to help her get packed while my sister Jill booked mom a flight.  When Kate got to Mom's she noticed Mom was really warm to the touch so she took her temp and mom had a fever of 102.  I told mom she had to go to the ER  now! 
They got her there and Mom's blood pressure was so low that they had two bags of IV fluids running at the same time and one was in a pressure bag to help run it through her faster.  Her blood pressure was 62/38.  They couldn't get it stabilized for quite a while.  Then they admitted her to the ICU.  She was there for 3 days before her blood pressure was stable enough to move her to the oncology floor.  They diagnosed her with sepsis and she was on IV antibiotics for about 5 days.

When she was released from the hospital she had to continue on antibiotics for a total of 10 days.  While she was on antibiotics she couldn't have chemo and would have to wait for at least 5 days after finishing the antibiotics before she could resume chemo. 

By the time she got back to Utah, she had missed almost 4 weeks of chemo.  Mom and Jeff got back on Wed. March 21, 2012 at about 11:00pm.  We were up at Huntsman at 8:00am on Thursday. 

Mom was welcomed back to the Huntsman Infusion room by her favorite nurse Tawnie, with open and outstretched arms.  Tawnie had been such a comfort and great advocate for mom.  We are so grateful to her!

Well mom was doing better, but much weaker and a little slower after being so sick. But we were all glad to have her back!