The Road Set Before Me

Written by Alyssa. Mom’s treatment today went well. Mom was pretty thrilled when she was called in for treatment and the nurse offered her a heated blanket! Who would turn that down in this weather? Today Mom received both the chemotherapy and immunotherapy treatment again, which is always a little more difficult for her.  Yesterday, Mom had an appointment with Dr. A and he was very happy with her response to the treatment so far, which we were very happy to hear! He is upping Mom’s level of chemotherapy today back to the amount she was getting in early December before she got sick. He has also lowered her steroid dose again.  At the appointment with Dr. A yesterday, Mom and Dad requested that her treatments be moved to an earlier time in the week, and Dr. A agreed. We are still waiting for her new schedule to be confirmed, but it does sound like her appointments will likely be moved to Tuesdays. Her treatment next week is still scheduled for Friday.  Thank you to everyon...

Written by Alyssa. Today’s treatment again went well for Mom. This week she only had chemotherapy treatment again and this marks the end of her sixth treatment cycle. The nurse was kind and assured Mom that they would take it slow to make the infusion less painful but Mom said that even despite her efforts it was still painful.  This week has been a lesson in patience for Mom. She has felt tiredness and nausea more often in the past week, which sometimes foils the plans she makes for herself. She often sets goals for herself during the week, like going to the store or making muffins. Sometimes she has the energy and drive to accomplish these things and other times she doesn’t. This week has been one of the weeks when they haven’t been able to happen and this is understandably a frustrating thing for Mom.  So we are always reminding her that this is a period of time in her life, and she just has to be patient and to have patience with herself as her body IS actually working har...

 Written by Dawn. We celebrated grandson Trenton's 4th birthday on Sunday . Today was treatment day again - "only" chemo today. I'm thankful that I wasn't dreading treatment today like I was last week. I still struggle with breathing issues since I had influenza A last month but the healing over the last week has been quite good. I'm hardly coughing now, so sleeping isn't interrupted as much, and I haven't needed to sleep elevated, and my oxygen is staying at proper levels and not dipping like it was. My blood pressure is still dipping so I have to be very careful to avoid falls.  We celebrated our grandson Trenton's birthday this past week. I found out about Trenton being on-the-way just after I'd had my massive stroke and surgery in August of 2021. Although my stroke recovery was unbelievably good, I'd just began chemotherapy for my amyloidosis and it was very serious. We didn't know if I'd live to meet Trenton but his ultrasound...

Written by Alyssa. Mom’s treatment today went mostly well. Mom said that it felt like a bit of an ordeal to get back into the swing of going for weekly treatments again. Today’s treatment was both Chemotherapy and Immunotherapy. The nurse who gave Mom the Immunotherapy shot today gave it to her quickly, which was very painful for Mom. That definitely made getting treatment a little more difficult.  Mom’s cold has improved quite a bit this past week. While she is still experiencing exhaustion and a bit of a lingering cough, she isn’t experiencing shortness of breath as she did before. Praise God for the healing that has taken place! We can see in Mom’s blood work the level of stress that was put on Mom’s heart while she was sick.  December 14th was when she went to the hospital and the Troponin marker shows the stress level of her heart at that time. Thankfully, this number has gone down as she has recovered.  Prayer Requests: Please pray that Mom continues to recover from...

Written by Alyssa. We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!  Mom enjoyed some time with the whole family on Christmas Day, but it was exhausting for her. She slept for part of the day and then joined us for dinner and opening gifts in the evening, but had to rest again after a couple of hours. Although this made our Christmas a little different this year, we are all very thankful for the time we were able to spend celebrating together. Mom has continued to struggle with the effects of being sick over the past two weeks. She still has moments of feeling weak and sometimes has difficulty catching her breath after moving around a lot. She also has quite a cough that can’t be treated with any cough medicine because of her heart condition. Mom was able to have her Chemotherapy treatment today. They have her scheduled for treatments on Mondays in January, which is a welcome change after having Friday treatments for most of December. Today’s treatment was only a Chemotherapy shot and n...

Written by Alyssa. Well, this week has thrown a bit of a wrench in our plans. After Mom’s brief hospital stay on Sunday, Dad stayed home Monday and Tuesday so he would be around to assist her and monitor her fever and oxygen levels. Thankfully her fever has broken since then, but she still has to be careful not to overexert herself because this can cause her oxygen levels to drop too low. If her oxygen drops too much then she will have to go back to the hospital for supplemental oxygen.  Since Mom isn’t fully recovered yet, Dr. A has decided that it would be best for her to skip her treatment this week. This means she will have an additional week off from treatments than originally planned, with her next treatment on Monday, December 29th. Thank you for all your continued prayers. While this week was slightly scary, it is such a comfort to know that God is with us throughout it all. Prayer Requests: For healing and quick recovery from sickness for Mom and that her oxygen levels won...

The past 24 hours have been a whirlwind of events. This situation as Mom would refer to as her “drama” happened. On Saturday evening, Mom started showing symptoms that she was getting sick.  Last night Mom spiked a high fever and became pretty weak. After consulting with her team at Jurvinski it was decided that she should go to emergency and get checked out. She was a little dehydrated, her blood pressure was pretty low (although that isn’t too unusual for her), and their biggest worry now is that her oxygen drops when she exerts herself. They had her on an IV to help with her dehydration and ran some tests to ensure she didn’t have pneumonia.  After a 9-hour stay at the hospital, she is now home and resting and has to watch to ensure her oxygen doesn't drop more or she will have to return to the hospital. Thankfully, she doesn’t have pneumonia and just needs to rest now. Prayer Requests: Please pray for healing from this illness for Mom and that her oxygen levels will remain...

  Written by Alyssa Mom’s treatment went well again this week. Dad has been sick the past couple of days and despite that, he was still able to drive Mom to treatment but dropped her off at the doors instead of going in with her. Sunrise on the way to chemo Friday’s treatment was a bit earlier than usual, and Mom enjoyed watching the sun rise while they drove to the Cancer Center. This treatment was just the one chemotherapy shot so the treatment was a pretty quick one and (thankfully) uneventful! As you may remember from a previous post from closer to thanksgiving, I have an hourly reminder that prompts me to think about what I am thankful for. This is based on the book by Ann Voskamp called One Thousand Gifts. Yesterday the reminder on my phone went off while we were all sitting together in the livingroom and I thought it might be a nice idea to share. What are you thankful for?  Mom: That the dex (steroid she’s on) helped me get some Christmas shopping done!  Alyssa: F...