christine4

Thank you, Lainy, Marions, Jemima and Gavin, for the warm welcomes and much needed advise. I’m glad that I finally posted. I have so many questions and I see that you all have questions for me too. So, let’s get started.

I talked with my Mother, asked if they were documenting each doctor visit. She said, my sister took notes and used those to relay the information to the rest of us. She doesn’t know if she notebooked them or threw them away. My sister, was gone for the weekend, mini vacation. I talked with her this weekend, but thought best to wait for her to be home to talk about the notes. I believe note taking is important but recording the visit is the best idea. You can always take the recording and document them later, so you can visual review them at later dates. Great idea, everybody should practice this idea. Feel silly for not thinking of this idea. Sound advise and Thank You!

My Mother’s Oncology doctors are Dr. Michael Gu, M.D., specialize in internal medicine and oncology. Dr. Eddy C. Hsueh, M.D., specialize in surgical oncology and chief of the division of general surgery at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. Both doctors are at St. Anthony’s Medical Center – Cancer Care Center, St. Louis, MO. My Mother has two appointments with both doctors the week of July 12th. She is anxious, she wants to know what are the next steps. She said, ‘I feels like I has been in Limbo, these past six months. I’ve played their part of the game and participated well, now they need to move to the next game plan.’ Dr. Hsueh will tell her whether they will do the surgury or not. My Mother says, ‘They better at least take out the offender, the gall bladder. After all this was the beginning of my problems.’ She knows that more is involved than the gall bladder, but she see the gall bladder at the messenger. ‘Shoot it.’ She’s a Hoot! My Mother will have a break, a fiesta, she calls it, from chemo and tests for about two weeks, before her doctors appointments. She is very happy for the break and enjoying it.

As for as the second opinion and getting her records. I feel at this point, we should wait and see what the doctors will say, with the upcoming appointments. If, we are not happy or uncomfortable with the decision they have made, then getting her records and second opinion are warrant at that time. If we continue with their recommendation, then retrieving the records to better understand her situation would be best for all of us. Again, both sound advise and plan on acting on these suggestions. Thank You!

My Mother has experience the leg swelling, discoloration and pain, throughout most of her chemo therapy. Is this a normal side effect? Her thoughts that the swelling in the legs may be from the contracts with her CT scans and MRI. Can the contracts cause these type of side effects? I thought, contracts was a temporary solution that flushes out of your system within two days. Not sure, I told her my thoughts and suggest she drink alot of water to help this process. Hope this was right, but then again water is always good, no matter what. Dr. Gu put her back on her water pill (diuretics) when the swelling first started. The water pills didn’t show much change. She gets her legs elevated a little each day, but I’ll suggest doing more so than she already is. She also experiences alot of pain in her legs. This may be the answer from Marions on the Neulasta causing bone pain. Is there anything to do about that?

Just a funny story to end this post with. My sibling and I have had our moments with dealing with my Mother’s ‘mishap’ as she would call it. We have shared all our feelings together. Whether we were having a cry jag, angry about ‘why her’ or just being a sounding block for each other, we have done it together. Well, one evening, my sister and I were talking on the phone, about our Mother.
Praising her. How well she is do, what she has been through, how great her attitude has been. We talked about when we were little and the thing our Mother would do for us. How supportive caring and loving, she was for all of us and still is. Several stories of funny stuff we did to her and her to us. And on and on we went. Of course, we were next talking about what will we do without her. My sister, at this point says, ‘She’s been a good old gal!’ I responded, ‘What are you ready to put her down? Where did ‘has been’ come from? But yes, she’s a good old gal.’ We got a little more sillier about our ‘good old gal’ we were cry laughing. Before the the conversation was over, we decided that it was best Mom did not know about this conversation, didn’t want her to take it the wrong way. So, a day or so goes by and out of the blue my Mothers says to me. ‘You know Christine, I’m a good old gal. Did you know that?’ (Shocked! Mouth fell opened, thinking I’m going to get my sister for this.) ‘Yes, Mother, I knew that.’ Then she laugh at me and walked away singing, ‘I’m a good old gal.’ That’s my Mother. Now I’m hearing everybody in the family referring to my Mother as the’good old gal’. Play and Laugher!

Knowledge is important and can empower you. Supportiveness gives strength. Play and Laughter will get you through your struggles. Those are our goals for my Mother. After all, who taught us this in the first place? Our Mother!

Christine