Day 4-5 of chemo

Last night Charmaine began two different chemos that we were dreading...Vincristine and Daunorubicin. One of them took 10 minutes and the other one takes 24hrs to finish. We heard and read that the side effects would be rough...and they have been. Charmaine told me over and over during the night and today that this is the worst she has felt so far. Nausea, headaches, and pain everywhere. She is taking meds for the side effects as needed around the clock...and is sleeping a lot of the time. Today she has needed more Lasix for the fluid retention, and more potassium. A few little stitches broke loose on her picc line and were quickly mended also. This afternoon, she received another spinal tap and intrathecal chemo (enters through the spinal cord). The Bone Marrow Biopsy and the mutation test results are not in yet, but the Dr. did clarify something about her disease for us today...she does not have ALL. Instead, she still has CML but it has progressed to the acute blast stage and resembles ALL very closely. He did not have a reason for this and hopes that the mutation test results will give some answers. He says he has 40 patients currently with the same rare occurance and either 4 or 6 of them had already received successful Bone Marrow Transplants. So now we will go read up on what he told us and go from there. The chemo regimen will be the same as planned. The dr. is holding off on her new CML meds because of the combined side effects like fluid retention and headaches. Her WBC (white blood count) was down to 19,300 today, which is good.

She is remaining strong and told to me today how overwhelmed she is by the number of people who love her and are all praying...while she has no strength to pray much today. She's having a hard time being on the receiving end of the care...she's more comfortable care giving. As we all know! She did laugh a few times today and still has her spirit, just hit a rough patch today. Even though she was queasy most of day, she ate half of a few popsicles and sipped on gingerale, then during the evening she thought she might try some grapes and a pear. The nurse had them brought to us asap, and she ate a handful of grapes, about a third of a peeled cut up pear, a saltine cracker, and a whole popsicle!!

After I left, Nat texted me that she is running a fever; so they are doing a blood culture and starting her on precautionary antibiotics. We can only hope that she will feel better tomorrow! Thank you for all your prayers and good wishes. We read the comments to her when she feels like listening...and it makes her smile!

She will remain at Emory this week and on Day 11, which I counted to be March 30, she will do these last 2 chemos again. Maybe sometime in the first part of April she can go home. As for now, she can't handle any visitors, and is at risk of becoming sick from physical contact. But keep on praying for our mom!! She's hanging in there! Hope I didn't forget anything...Nat will cover it if I did.

Stefanie (Sissy)

ps...Nat is looking into planning a Bone Marrow Donor Drive in Douglas County so everyone we know can register and do a mouth swab FOR FREE to see if you are a tissue match for anyone in the National Bone Marrow Bank including Charmaine! She will let us know the details!