Mom and Dad, updated

M started her 3rd and final (according to her) round of chemo yesterday. So today (Fri 11/9) she is on Day #2. It is a 6-day treatment this time. She says she feels great. She has been walking around the ward all day today and sounded chipper on the phone. The treatment itself is always easy, it's the recovery from the treatment that hits her the hardest.

I say "according to her" because according to her calculations she will be ending this treatment on Tues (11/13) and she is calculating that the next bone marrow test will be done the week after Thanksgiving. If it does or does not send her leukemia into remission she wants to give herself the time to recover in Sloan to be home for Christmas. She will, without a doubt, not be home for Thanksgiving. Apparently, she doesn't mind that at all, but she wants to sit at home and stare at her tree and send me out to buy gifts. And, me, I don't mind that at all, either. 

She was given the opportunity to go home for a few days this week, I believe, but she wanted to get this next treatment over and done with. I don't think she wanted to waste any time, and I don't blame her. This treatment is a different chemo than the previous, and when I go visit tomorrow morning I will get the name of the medication. I am still unsure if this coincides with another clinical trial/placebo or not. When I get her on the phone she wants to talk less of the medications and tubes and protocols and likes to gossip and be entertained and hear what is going on with everyone else's lives. 

Dad had his full body CT Scan last week. He was given a DVD of his internals, although he is not a doctor and is not certain of the results until he hears from his doctor directly. He was advised, however, to start a new chemo treatment next Tues (11/13) for 3 weeks, as a precaution. I really don't understand why, but whatever. That will also end the week after Thanksgiving. I see I am going to have quite a busy month. 

Our home still does not have power. We were told Saturday, but I am not getting my hopes up and I am going to guess Sunday. Monday would make it two weeks in a row without power, and that is just absurd. 

All your prayers are welcomed and - as always - blood and platelet donations. 

“Our parents can show us a lot of things: they can show us how we are to be and what things we ought to strive for, or they can show us how not to be and what things we ought to stray from, then you may have the kind of parents that show you all the things about you that you want to get rid of and you realize those traits aren't yours at all but are merely your parents' marks that have rubbed off onto you.” 

― C. JoyBell C.