No More Chemo, Charlie Brown

We had a family meeting at hospice today. Laurel has decided, with the blessings of her oncologist, to stop chemotherapy. The chemo was not doing it's job, and was making Laurel's life completely miserable. She is ready to enjoy a chemo-free life... this is a cause for celebration!

Laurel would like to spend her precious time with her immediate family. We are coming up with a strategy so that people who would like to visit Laurel can do so at specific times so as not to overwhelm her with too many visitors simultaneously and to give each of us the time we need with our mom/sister/wife/daughter. I'll be posting a schedule on this blog within the next day or so.

~chelsea

Back in Hospice

My mom is back in hospice as of yesterday evening, on her own initiative. She's been having a lot of nausea and is having trouble keeping hydrated, so she's there for the wonderful folks at hospice to alleviate some of these awful symptoms.

blue must be the colour of the blues

I hate George Jones. Rick loves George Jones. Mom says, "Who's George Jones?"

Mom was released from hospice last Friday morning. I arrived early to pick her up. She was puking and very nauseous, but the powers that be said it was fine to go home.

Dr. Black, the Pain Specialist that had been caring for mom in hospice (a very nice man), prescribed haldol for the nausea. I thought that was a little strange, because my indirect experience with haldol comes from working at Eric Martin~ from what I understand, it's a very powerful anti-psychotic. It leaves people vague, drooly and incoherent. That's how mom was for most of the weekend. She had the classic haldol shuffle. She was confused. It was frightening for the whole family, but mostly for mom herself. I think we all wondered if we should expect her to be like that forever.

On Sunday, she decided to stop taking the haldol because it was making her feel worse. Since then, she's been MUCH, MUCH better. I think she feels better now than she has all summer, particularly because she's not in constant pain!

The next meeting with Dr. Maclean is on Friday. That's when we'll find out how mom's responding to the taxol. I'm positive that her ca-125 will have PLUMMETED. I can feel it in me bones.