Days Fourteen and Fifteen

Finally! I went up to see Mom today. She is looking pretty good, still full of bruises and pale. But she still has energy and looks like Mom. She's been off and on feeling good and feeling kinda lousy, but overall better than we expected. She received a bag of platelets while I was there today but her numbers are right on the edge of ok, so they don't think they'll have to give her more for awhile now. After I left they were going to do a lumbar puncture(take a sample of spinal fluid) to see if the leukemia has gotten into her spinal column, she said they would have to give her some chemo while they are doing that to help prevent the cells from forming into leukemia cells. They told her she would need to lie flat for 2 hours after to help prevent a spinal headache, which I guess can be pretty intense and last a long time.

Mom cannot use anything that she could accidentally cut herself with, including razors to shave with(and a toothbrush so she has a little sponge to use), so I bought her an electric razor and took it up to her today. We asked the nurse just to make sure that what I bought was ok...she said yep, but reminded us that hair may not be a problem pretty soon. So far no signs of hair loss, but the nurse seems to think it'll be gone by early next week. She said once it starts it comes out pretty fast and can be kind of annoying, especially when sleeping. She also said its pretty shocking to take a shower and have half your hair in the drain when you get out. They keep a set of clippers on hand if a patient chooses to shave it off before it can come out on its own. I don't think Mom is quite ready for that yet, she's pretty nervous about being bald. I wish I was the kinda daughter to shave my head in support, but I'm not that good. :-)

Dad is taking the girls up to see her on Saturday. They are going to ride the tram, go see Grandma and grab a bite to eat and then come home. Kasey was pretty upset that "he can't go see his GRANDMA who has CANCER but they can, no fair???" but Papa has promised to make it up to him by taking him to get Grandma to bring her home from the hospital.

As I am typing this I got a little notice that an update was posted to our friend Matt's page(he has been fighting brain cancer since September). Praise to God! He had an MRI this past week and it shows NO SIGNS of new growth and the area where he had the tumor removed is shrinking and healing properly. He has a long road to full recovery and many more months of treatment, but what a great day it is - HE IS HEALING! Cancer sucks, but it can be beaten!