Tests show that my aunt's bone marrow is an excellent match for mom's.  They 're starting to plan for the transplant.  The question now is  whether mom gets to come home for a little while or has to stay in the hospital - it depends on whether her blood counts (red cells, white cells, and platelets) start to go up or not ( Read more... )

Mom has gotten very good news over the last few days. The good news is that they found no signs of leukemia in her bone marrow when they did the biopsy.  There will be no need for a second round of chemotherapy.  They also did a lumbar puncture (better known as a spinal tap), and found no trace of leukemia in her spinal fluid (there is a danger ( Read more... )

The first stage of mom's chemotherapy is coming to an end.  Either today or tomorrow, she will get a bone marrow biopsy to determine if she has gone into remission or not ( Read more... )

The last few days have been better for Mom - she is getting used to the hospital routine (well, as much as anyone can get used to it), and she is more comfortable.  She does not have much of an appetite, but she has not been really sick to her stomach most of the time.  She seems to be feeling less pain, while also remaining more alert than she was ( Read more... )

Mom was in rough shape on Friday evening, much better yesterday afternoon.  We'll see about today ( Read more... )

Mom's first three days in the hospital were kind of rough.  There were lots of tests that needed to be done at what seemed like random times, and her pain caused her to get little sleep on Monday and Wednesday nights, although she did have a somewhat better night on Tuesday.  Yesterday evening when I visited, she was doing somewhat better, which ( Read more... )

The diagnosis of leukemia was confirmed for the final time yesterday, and Mom was admitted to Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston yesterday evening (they have a joint program with Dana Farber for inpatient treatment).  I spoke to her last night and she was doing OK at the time.  Today they apparently have more tests to run and they are doing ( Read more... )

Mom's leukemia diagnosis was confirmed.   They've taken one more bone marrow biopsy to be sure, but they are almost certain.  If the diagnosis is confirmed, she will be admitted to the hospital on Monday and chemotherapy will start next Wednesday.

Hope and pray.

I just fell out of my chair at work.  Fortunately, nothing important either in outside of my body was damaged.  Perhaps even more fortunately, I'm pretty sure that nobody else saw it happen.

Tomorrow, Mom finally has her appointment at Dana Farber.  We will learn if last week's diagnosis of an uncommon and aggressive form of leukemia is correct, and what they will do for treatment ( Read more... )