Still Collecting Information

So, who would have thought the one with the brain tumor and the 7 hr surgery on TUESDAY, would be the best off! She has already been released from the hospital and heading home. I'm so impressed with the Brain!

Erin is still in ICU, but fighting strong.

I had a few tests today and got some good news and 'bad' news. The reason I put bad into quotation marks is that it might not necessarily be bad, but instead turn out to be just another test. My pet scan picked up a spot in/on my liver. It could be a cyst, but the doctors just want to be sure. SO, guess what I get to do tomorrow???? That's right folks, back to the titanic for another round in the MRI machine. When I first heard the news I was really nervous because last week the blood work for my liver came back way off the charts. The doctors made me go back to KU Med to re-test on Monday. So, hearing there was something in my liver, really threw me for a loop. Well, we can all rest a little easier now, as the new blood work from Monday came back normal. Whew! Turns out, if you take copious amounts of pain killers and muscle relaxers when you have hardly ever taken anything in your life, your blood work gets skewed.  :)

On the good side, my heart is just fine. I had what is called a MUGA scan, which determines if my heart is heathy enough to take on the amounts of Chemotherapy I'll need. It shows the overall cardiac function by measuring the proportion of blood released from the left ventricle with each heart beat. The doctor said 50%-65% is normal, with anything below 50% very dangerous. I measured a health 60% even. Now, as I go through Chemo they will repeat this test to make sure my heart function doesn't drop. As long as I stay above 50% I'll be fine. If I ever drop below that (not at all likely), I'd have to stop treatments and try something else. I tell ya, there's a lot to this cancer thing...

I didn't get to find out about my treatments yet because my tumor is still being tested in pathology. So, I have to wait another week until I know my final diagnoses (exact type of cancer I have) and treatment schedule. I do know I have to have my port surgically put in March 14th at KU Med. How is it that this surgery is 4 hours while my bi-lateral mastectomy was half that? They will place the port in my chest on the right side. Later the nurses will use the port instead of the veins to hook me up to chemo and draw labs. It saves the veins.

That's all for now. Back to the waiting game and the doctor's appointments. When I say doctors appointments, I REALLY mean it. As of now I have 16 different appointments scheduled for the month of March!!! And, we're still scheduling. Luckily though, some of them fall on the same day! I'll write a blog sometime just about the team of doctors I have! I could field a football team!