The Road Set Before Me

Written by Alyssa. Mom had this week off from her chemotherapy treatment and instead had to go in for a prescheduled echocardiogram on Tuesday. These tests always give mom a bit of anxiety, but she said she just prayed throughout the whole thing. She prayed for healing but also for God’s will to be done, and she felt a peace throughout the test.  Mom's wristbands from each of her   21 treatments so far. Mom will meet with her cardiologist next Thursday to go over the results, but so far they have shown that her heart function has gone down a little bit. Mom is always a fan of the numbers and has always been very competitive with herself about her lab result numbers, always wanting to do better.  She's now 0.2% below the point at which her heart is in the “normal” range. This was disappointing for her, but we will wait to hear what the cardiologist has to say about it.  Today Mom went for her labs and then had her appointment with Dr. A, who is her hematologist/o...

Written by Dawn and Alyssa. Hello everyone! It's Dawn here. I was sharing with Alyssa various things about this past weekend and she suggested I write about them and she'd edit my thoughts for today’s post!  I had a bit of a break last week with no treatment and it was really good. I had some anxiety earlier in the week when I was having some side effects from the previous treatment and it seemed to me like I would never feel well enough to go away for the weekend as we had planned. Thankfully, the side effects lessened in time for us to leave on Friday.  We were planning to attend my niece Olivia's wedding, and I was nervous about being away from my comfort zone (Toronto area, so not too far away), but being away turned out to be a blessing. Not just the wedding (more on that later), but just being elsewhere with no appointments or treatments or recovery and to fill my mind with what was around me instead! We went there earlier and stayed at a hotel in Bradford, 20 minutes...

Written by Dawn and Alyssa. Andrew and I arrived a bit early at the Cancer Center yesterday. I went to register while Andrew parked the van and as I had just settled in a chair, I thought I heard my name called. My hearing isn't great right now (an ongoing, separate issue that has gone on for a while called Eustachian tube collapse) and my name often sounds like a rhyming name like John, Shaun, or Tom! But this time it was a call for me, 30 minutes before my scheduled appointment! I had to quickly message Andrew because I'd just told him where I was sitting in the waiting room!  The appointment went well, and my nurse was lovely and administered the shot slowly, which greatly reduced the burning feeling as the treatment went into my skin. I appreciate that! (and Andrew found us!) We have found that if we arrive earlier, I am often called earlier, especially if other patients are late and my treatment is comparatively quick. Yesterday, we were home by my appointment time!  I fe...

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...