From The Past: January 6, 2009

I drove Mom to an appointment she had with her oncologist this afternoon. The nurse drew blood and her doctor talked with her a while.

He would like her to have two more rounds of outpatient chemotherapy. (This is the chemotherapy she receives each day for one week, but it is a much milder form than she would receive if she were actually admitted to the hospital.) In very simple terms, he told her that the hope is the chemotherapy will cause the “bad” cells to change their direction and commit suicide before they can do any damage.

Ideally, they wanted her to have a bone marrow transplant, but she didn’t want that. Next, they would have liked to admit her for each round of chemotherapy so she could have the strongest dose, but she hates being in the hospital. So, they are “doing it the way she wants”, as her doctor said.

So far, she and her doctor’s instincts have been correct. When she arrived back home this afternoon, she had a message on her machine to call the nurse. When she called, the nurse told her there were no traces of Leukemia in her blood. This means she is still in remission.