Thursday January 26

Met with Dr. Forman today and got the game plan.

Tia will be home and getting stronger until mid February when she will get an MRI and a full body Petscan. She will only have to go back to the hospital every Thursday until then, so if you are available to drive, please let us know.

We fully expect the results to show no visible cancer remains in Tia. Nevertheless, the protocol is to go through an auto stem cell transplant - and this is consistent with our current thinking. The harvesting will most likely begin in late February with the chemo and stem cell transplant taking up the month of March.

As we don't expect much to report until we get the results of the scans, this will hopefully be the last blog for a few weeks. No posts equals nothing new to report.

Have a few great weeks and GO GIANTS!

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Monday the 23rd

Tia is home and getting back to her routine. We are all very thankful.

We got the written results of the MRI from January 6th. They show that there are no new lesions or edemas (yeah!). They also show that the old lesions are roughly the same size (6x3 vs 5x4). While we wanted them all to be gone, we must remember that this MRI was taken on day 10 of the radiation.

Radiation is a cumulative process and therefore the last 10 days (and even beyond) have more effect than the first 10 days. We get another MRI next week and are hopeful of a completely clean slate!

We see Dr Forman on Thursday and we will post anything we hear after.

As always, thanks
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Tia is home

What more needs to be said

Will post more later

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Monday the 16th

Tia is feeling better. The combination of compazine and reglan appear to have helped with her queasiness and her pain is also moderated.

She is up and about and has even been eating a little.

All in all a good weekend. She has had the help of her friend Denise who came in from the east coast and her brother, JC. Thanks to both of them for being there!

Today starts the last week of radiation, so let's all hope it goes well.

Thanks again for all your support.
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Friday the 13th

Not much has changed. Tia's pain fluctuates through the day from barely tolerable to horrendous. They have put her back on a morphine drip (as opposed to oral) to supply a constant dosage throughout the day. Hopefully this helps.

Today is day 15 of radiation. Five more to go and then we get the MRI to see how effective it has been.

Ede, Zoe and I are off to Florida for 2 days to celebrate my Father's 83rd birthday.

Tia's friend, Denise, and her brother JC will be with her this weekend. She is blessed to have the support of her family and friends. It means a lot to her -- thanks from all of us!

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Wed January 11

It has been a miserable 48 hours as they cannot seem to moderate Tia's pain level. She is on a lot of morphine and sleeps a good part of each day but even that is restless and uneven.

I wish there was better news to report but at this point we still do radiation each morning and then try to make it through the day with as little discomfort as possible.

Although she is often asleep, she does like to see friendly faces when she wakes up so if you are in the area and want to stop by, please let me know.

Say a prayer

Thx, Jess
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Monday the 9th

Another set back-- Tia has shingles.  For those who don't know what shingles is, it is a very painful virus. After you get chickenpox (which Tia has had), the virus remains inactive in certain nerves in the body. Shingles occurs after the virus becomes active again in these nerves years later. In her case the reason for the virus becoming active again is that her immune system is weakened.

 

The pain associated with her shingles is concentrated mostly on the left side of her back and that is where the shingles rash is located.Unfortunately, at times this pain is excruciating.

 

The normal course for treating shingles is acyclovir.  She was taking that orally for the yeast infection in her blood stream but in a moderate dose.  They have now increased the dose and made it in IV form.  In addition, they put her on neurontin which helps control pain associated with nerve diseases.

 

This course will continue until the pain is gone.  Most likely she will remain in the hospital all week and be home by the weekend.

 

Will keep you posted

 

thanks

Sunday

Some good news. Tia's pain is way down and the Giants won.

They think she has shingles (which would explain the terrible pain). They added a new med (neurontin) which seems to be working.

She will still be in the hospital tomorrow but hopefully will be coming home sometime early in the week.

Will keep you posted.

Thx, Jess
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Saturday night

A very rough 24 hours as there seemed to be no way to get ahead of her pain. They tried some new pain meds yesterday and this morning, but nothing seemed to work.

Finally about 5pm tonight a combination of morphine, ativan and benadryl got her to a restful sleep.

The good news is that the MRI showed no new growths and no edema and the xray of her abdomen (where all the pain is) showed nothing alarming. This leaves the doctors stumped as to the cause of all the pain.

All we can do is treat the pain one day at a time and hope we find some combination to get her a more permanent relief.

Thanks

Jess and the girls
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Birthday. January 6th

Not the best birthday. Tia slept most of the day other than being awakened for radiation this morning and an MRI in the afternoon. They are scanning her to see if the radiation caused an edema in her brain. If that happened, then it could explain a lot of Tia's recent symptoms.

We will have the results of the MRI back later tonight and I will update the blog at that time.

I know a lot of you have been calling and texting. Tia just hasn't been up to answering the phone. Hopefully she will be up to it this weekend.

Thanks

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January 5th

Tia was readmitted to the hospital today.  She has been having a lot of pain and nauseousness the last few days and the doctors felt they could control both symptoms better if she were in the hospital.  In addition, she has been unable to eat anything so has lost quite a bit of weight since the new year. Hopefully, they will get a handle on the problems and she can be released on Monday.

 

It is her birthday tomorrow but we are postponing celebrating her birthday until after all the treatments, then we are going to have a huge celebration.

 

She had been having a hard time answering the phone or responding to e-mails in the last few days, but does listen to the voice messages and read the emails-- and they both cheer her up.

 

Please reach out to wish her a happy 39th (hmmm, seems older but lets go with 39) tomorrow.

 

thanks

 

Jess and the girls

 

 

January 3rd

Today was a set back. After radiation Tia needed to spend the afternoon in the emergency room. She is home now but not having an easy go of it.

Hopefully tomorrow is a better day.

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January 1st

Tia is home and getting stronger. She was up and about today and even had some bay cites sub ( for those not from LA, it is a great Italian deli).

The at home infusions are going along fine and we start radiation again on Tuesday. She is still dealing with a lot of pain and all the medicines still throw her system into chaos, but all in all it is the start of a better year.

We hope everyone had a good new year's day and a healthy year.

Thanks everyone for getting back to me about driving for radiation. We have the entire schedule filled!

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