She just found out this morning. It is amazing to me how calm and positive she is when she gets this news, unless she flips out and cries and screams when she hears it then calls me. If so, I don't know how she composes herself. I hope she isn't protecting me from hearing her upset. I know I was when I was on the phone with her. I must have cried silent tears the whole time. I just want something to work for her.
She was not given any options yet (because it's been about 3 hours). Once she gets everything back to normal (or as normal as it can get for her) she will be heading home. Being that she just went through three rounds of chemo since July, and these last two rounds back to back, she can't receive any more medications for a few weeks anyway. So she wants to come home and enjoy the holidays.
There are a few things that can be done, I believe. Hopefully one of them involves an out-patient treatment so she doesn't have to stay in Sloan again. She can't do out-patient at Sloan as it is: 1. She can't travel mass transit (germs). 2. She can't afford the travel expenses to NYC everyday in a car (gas & tolls). 3. The times in which she would need to travel would be exhausting for someone in her state (5-6 am leave time to a 6-7 pm return time). 4. She would need to gather her troops and make a schedule for someone to go with her, everyday. Which we would, but she would never let that happen. 5. Plus, she just wants to be home for a little while.
Even if she can get another treatment the odds of it working are slim and the odds of it destroying her internally are great. IF - and that's a big IF - they could get the leukemia under control and perform a transplant, the odds of the transplant working are about a 10-20% success rate.
She is not sure she wants to put her body through so much torment for nothing to work. She admitted that she thinks that she has done all that she can do, has done what she was told to do, and believes that she's made all the right choices this past year. She says she doesn't regret anything that she has chosen for herself and that, "It is what it is." She said she is not going to walk around all upset because nothing has worked, she is going to take it as it comes and deal with it day by day. She realizes that the type of leukemia she has is the worst to have, and it's hard to get rid of, and she has accepted that. She is not giving up, she is just being realistic. She mentioned that even though cancer is hard, every one has a different battle to test them. Some people, like my father, encounter bladder cancer and get it zapped, have a few rounds of chemo, and they're fine. (Of course, this level of "fine" can take a year of more to reach, respectively.) Some people don't encounter such fortune. And some people, like her, have a kind of cancer that can't be zapped and is coursing through their blood, veins, marrow and organs and there is not really anything that they can do about it. So she is waiting to see what her options are.
As of now, she believes that she will be released sometime next week, pending all of her levels are okay. She wants to learn the various (if any/all) options and marinate in them for a few weeks. She wants to do that at home, by her tree, listening to Bruce Springsteen's Christmas songs (ok, one thing I just can't agree on with her) and seeing her family. And you know what? After almost 6 months in the hospital, I think she deserves to do anything and everything she wants to do. Give the woman a break.
Fingers crossed that she comes home next week.
(This song makes me want to cry almost as much as that "Christmas Shoes" song).
Happy crying!
― Chase Brooks, Hello, My Love 2: First Love Deserves a Second Chance
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