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In Tenessee and All is Not Well
Oct. 19th, 2011 02:15 amMy mom is really, really sick. I'm in Nashville, she's in the hospital, and her cancer is slowly (please let it be slowly) killing her.
I arrived here Thursday night. She had emergency surgery a week ago for fluid build-up in the pericardium — the membrane surrounding the heart. At first it seemed like it was a relatively simple procedure, but her recovery has not gone smoothly, and the family said I should fly out. She keeps having an unsteady heart rhythm and low blood pressure, and trouble breathing.
The good news is she's improved, little bit by little bit, since I arrived. On Friday she coughed most of the time, had an oxygen mask on, and couldn't even lift her head. Today she could talk slowly, has nasal oxygen, managed to eat a little, and even walked a few feet with a walker.
We met as a family with her oncologist today — me, my mom, my sister and our stepdad. The doctor says that if Mom's heart rate and blood pressure stabilize, she can eat and has an appetite, she can keep her oxygen saturation above 90 on nasal O2, she can get to the bathroom by herself, and she's steady on her feet, she could go home. So that's still several days away, but it is very good news. He also said that once she was home, after a couple of weeks of recovery, they will restart her chemo, if she is well enough, and will add a new drug, Avastin, which inhibits blood vessel creation and so starves the cancer. It also is supposed to be good at limiting effusions like Mom keeps having, of fluid in her pleural space (around the lungs.)
The surgery on her heart made a window in the pericardium, so she should not have any further pericardial effusions, but there were cancer cells on the pericardial tissue they removed. The cancer — primary peritoneal cancer, a form of ovarian cancer — has definitely spread. The oncologist said Avastin is basically the last big gun in his arsenal. If it doesn't work, or if Mom can't recover enough to resume chemo, then, well, it's just a matter of time, and that time is probably not long.
He said he'd arrange for the hospice people to get on board, not to start providing hospice care yet, but to be prepared for it when the time comes. At the moment he said we're living month-to-month. It could go well, and mom could get many more months of relatively normal life before the end. He also said we will be able to tell when that changes to a week-to-week, and a day-to-day situation. He advised I could return to California as planned on this coming Friday, and that I should probably, if I can afford it, plan monthly trips out here, for long weekends.
My sister lives here and my stepfather, and mom's sister and her husband, and their sons. There are friends and family all rallying around Mom, so she won't be alone when I leave. But all of us are grieving. Afraid. Trying to be strong.
I've been able to teach mom some breathing exercises and talk about some of the things she can't talk about to her husband or my sister, because I'm a different person than they are, and I live far away. I'm glad I can be that for her.
I'm pretty sure that at some point it's all going to hit me, but for now I'm holding on.
I arrived here Thursday night. She had emergency surgery a week ago for fluid build-up in the pericardium — the membrane surrounding the heart. At first it seemed like it was a relatively simple procedure, but her recovery has not gone smoothly, and the family said I should fly out. She keeps having an unsteady heart rhythm and low blood pressure, and trouble breathing.
The good news is she's improved, little bit by little bit, since I arrived. On Friday she coughed most of the time, had an oxygen mask on, and couldn't even lift her head. Today she could talk slowly, has nasal oxygen, managed to eat a little, and even walked a few feet with a walker.
We met as a family with her oncologist today — me, my mom, my sister and our stepdad. The doctor says that if Mom's heart rate and blood pressure stabilize, she can eat and has an appetite, she can keep her oxygen saturation above 90 on nasal O2, she can get to the bathroom by herself, and she's steady on her feet, she could go home. So that's still several days away, but it is very good news. He also said that once she was home, after a couple of weeks of recovery, they will restart her chemo, if she is well enough, and will add a new drug, Avastin, which inhibits blood vessel creation and so starves the cancer. It also is supposed to be good at limiting effusions like Mom keeps having, of fluid in her pleural space (around the lungs.)
The surgery on her heart made a window in the pericardium, so she should not have any further pericardial effusions, but there were cancer cells on the pericardial tissue they removed. The cancer — primary peritoneal cancer, a form of ovarian cancer — has definitely spread. The oncologist said Avastin is basically the last big gun in his arsenal. If it doesn't work, or if Mom can't recover enough to resume chemo, then, well, it's just a matter of time, and that time is probably not long.
He said he'd arrange for the hospice people to get on board, not to start providing hospice care yet, but to be prepared for it when the time comes. At the moment he said we're living month-to-month. It could go well, and mom could get many more months of relatively normal life before the end. He also said we will be able to tell when that changes to a week-to-week, and a day-to-day situation. He advised I could return to California as planned on this coming Friday, and that I should probably, if I can afford it, plan monthly trips out here, for long weekends.
My sister lives here and my stepfather, and mom's sister and her husband, and their sons. There are friends and family all rallying around Mom, so she won't be alone when I leave. But all of us are grieving. Afraid. Trying to be strong.
I've been able to teach mom some breathing exercises and talk about some of the things she can't talk about to her husband or my sister, because I'm a different person than they are, and I live far away. I'm glad I can be that for her.
I'm pretty sure that at some point it's all going to hit me, but for now I'm holding on.
