Update #13 - June 28

Dear Family and Friends,

My mom had a great week visiting with family and friends, her sister-in-law Helen came to visit, and she enjoyed helping her daughter unpack and move into her new house, playing with her grandson, going out for dinner, shopping, and enjoying the fabulous sunshine! She even celebrated her 40th wedding anniversary with her amazing, supportive husband over the weekend! In fact, she said she felt so good that she felt just like her old self again. She had tons of energy, her appetite was back (although her taste buds are still gone),she was pain free, she had little or no nausea, and she felt really great on her last round of chemo. It was amazing and wonderful to see her feeling so good, and we just know that this is a sign of great things to come!

As you may be wondering, yes, my mom went to London last week and met with her doctor. He gave her good news and bad news. He was very nice, and was so pleased to see that my mom was looking so great, holding her weight, and in such high spirits. He assured her that, despite his news, she should not give up and she should stay focused on the good news and stay positive -- which is exactly what we intend to do!

This is a hard email to write because nobody likes to share bad news, and also, we are all trying to stay really positive so that we can beat this thing. We genuinely feel that a positive attitude along with focused mental visualization will pave the way to good health for my mom. So sharing (or even talking about) this news is not something that really we want to do, and more than that, we definitely don't want to focus on it. So I will just give the facts:

The Good News: The cancer in her lymph nodes has stopped spreading, and also shrunk a bit.
The Bad News: The cancer in her liver has spread.

In light of this news, the doctors wants my mom to continue on 4 more rounds of chemo, and then they will do another CTscan and see if things are getting better in her liver. The first 6 rounds of chemo did a great job of stopping the spread of cancer in the lymph nodes, and the last 2 of those, focused on the liver. These next 4 treatments will continue to focus on the liver and hopefully will do its job. He also reminded my mom not to focus on the spread of cancer in her liver, but to stay focused on the good news that has happened in her lymph nodes. He believes that this medication has a good chance of helping things in the liver, and wants to see what happens over the next eight weeks, before he decides if they should change the plan or not.

In the meantime, my mom went for chemo 7 today, and is doing all that she can mentally and spiritually to stay positive and focused. The news was rather discouraging for her, but she has regrouped and is focused on her path ahead. She is also starting to integrate alternative home therapies that could or might be beneficial and do research to find anything new or ground-breaking that might be out there to help with the cancer in her liver. So if anyone hears or knows of anything, please send the information our way. She is open and willing to look into anything that could help. She is also getting excited about the long weekend, where her brothers and their families will be coming to Kincardine from Thursday to Sunday for a visit! She's so excited to have them here and just knows it will give her even more strength and positive energy.

She is intends to stay focused, stay positive, enjoy the moment, and of course zap the crap!

Lisa