From The Past: July 9, 2008

It pains me to have to say that my mom’s Leukemia has returned. She received platelets before leaving Lexington. She will be in the Markey Cancer Center for no less than 28 days. Mom is stunned. We all are.

She will have chemotherapy again, just like last year; only this time there will be three drugs instead of two. I will try to get the names of those drugs tomorrow.

As soon as I walked in her room this morning I had to put on a mask so I could stay and watch them place a Power PICC.

It is in her arm:

After the Power Picc was inserted, her lunch was there:

It’s a good thing she really didn’t want to eat because someone came to take an x-ray and she had to get right back in the bed. (Once the Power Picc is inserted, they take an x-ray to make sure it is in the proper position. This is so they can be sure the medicine won’t go into her lungs.)

Her doctor said she could start chemotherapy either tonight or tomorrow morning. The doctor told her she has a high number of “blasts” in her system. The American Cancer Society defines these blasts as:

Immature blood-forming cells that are not normally found in the bloodstream. These immature cells do not function like normal, mature white blood cells.

She will definitely be in the hospital at least four weeks.