Mom has been having a bit of a hard time with the chemo this go around. They gave her a huge dose, larger than the last time, so it is not uncommon to see some effects we didn't see before. Her main complication this time is stomatitis.
Here's the scoop. Cancer is a rapidly multiplying cell and the chemo is designed to kill cancer. Unfortunately is can't differentiate between bad rapidly multiplying cells such as cancer, and good rapidly multiplying cells, such as the lining of your mouth and digestive tract. So while the chemo is doing it's job on the nasty myeloma cells, mom's mouth lining is making the ultimate sacrifice. And this is called stomatitis. And mom has it bad. Grade 3.
To make it bearable she has been on a morphine drip IV. And that is helping. In fact, it's helping her escape her room. Apparently she has been playing a little golf (she told daddy all she needed was three birdies) Maybe now that she's playing golf in her drug induced dreams, she will take up golf with daddy when she is healthy again. How fun will that be!
The morphine has a few side effects of it's own.. besides the whole golf thing, that is. She is retaining some fluid and that in turn has caused some breathing issues, so she has been on oxygen. Her blood pressure has been a little on the low side as well.
BUT, as bad as all that sounds.. here is the good news. These are only problems till the heroic white blood cells return. The chemo killed them off, and while those white blood cells are gone, all hell breaks loose. But once the white blood cells come back, everything will return to order once again... and guess what..... THEY'RE BACK!
Mom's white count went from readings like .1 and .2 in the past couple of days to 2.9 today! So, we expect those white cells to start whomping some stomatitis butt soon, and mom should be feeling much better. In fact, the doctor even insinuated that she would be back in her own bed at her own home in about 48 hours.
You just can't get a much better report than that!
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