Anno Home to Horizon House

Mom went home from the hospital today. Still doing great with the chemotherapy. She goes to the doctor's office tomorrow morning for an injection that will boost her red blood count.

Sarah is with her tonight and says: "Mom is home doing GREAT. Going to shower and bed."

We are learning all about hygiene, diet, etc in the care and nurture of the cancer patient!

Daughter Jan

Do you want to learn about AIL?

I like to learn as much as I can about medical situations, as I find it helps me understand what my loved one is experiencing, plus it gives me information to ask questions of the doctors. I do this a lot with my daughter, Lily, and her battle with epilepsy.

I found a fantastic discussion of Stage 3-4 Aggressive Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, that talks about the different chemotherapies (CHOP, what was originally prescribed to Granno, as well as the EPOCH protocol, which is what she is getting), how Retuxan improves overall odds, and a somewhat advanced description of how these drugs work (interesting for geeks like me).

If you like this sort of thing, here is the link: CancerConsultants.com Oncology Resource for Stage 3-4 Aggressive NHL.

Katie (Anno's Granddaughter)

Nodes Responding to Chemo

Mom continued to tolerate the chemotherapy well over the weekend. She slept well each night, sounded a lot better, was talking on the phone, and generally perked up.

This morning, my son Eric and I were visiting with her when her oncologist came to see her. He is pleased that she is not having trouble with the therapy so far. He examined her armpits where he said he had felt some "juicy" nodes prior to therapy and he felt nothing there now!

This is really good news. Of course, he said, what we want is to get rid of every single cancer cell so that it doesn't come back. If she continues to do well with the treatments and is able to go through the entire series of treatments 4 - 6 times, that will give the best chance of getting all the cells.

Mom will leave the hospital either tomorrow (Tues) evening or Wednesday morning. The day after she leaves, she will go into the office for an injection to boost her red blood cell count to help fight infection.

She will go into the oncology office a week from today and as long as everything goes well, she will return to the hospital for the second round March 13th or so. After the second course of chemotherapy, they will do a CT scan to see how the nodes are responding.

Daughter Jan

Really Good Night!

Mom called at 8 this morning and she sounded great! Her voice was almost unintelligible yesterday on the phone and today it was so strong I thought it was Sarah calling. She had a great night sleep. New antibiotics are taking care of the intestinal bug.

The oncologist was by last night when Sarah was there. According to Sarah, this is a 6-9 month rigorous schedule of chemo that cycles every 21 days and starts with 5 days of inpatient IV (the retuxin antibody, chemo drugs, immune boosters) then steroids at home with office visits every 10 days. She'll have to be vigilant about avoiding infection and need day to day care so she can save energy for fighting the cancer. Fortunately, she is living in a place that is well set-up for that. We'll just have to make arrangements based on how she ends up feeling.

Daughter Jan

Update Thursday Evening

The installation of the port for IV therapy went very well mid-day today. She moved to the oncology floor on 12 East.

The docs determined that she has some kind of a bug in her stomach due to the antibiotics she's been taking so they have switched her to a more specific antibiotic that should take care of this in the next couple of days. Because of this, they moved her to a private room which was a relief to her. Everyone entering her room must be gowned.

Jeff was with her as she began the Retuxin and she tolerated it well. She is really sleepy though due to many drugs of one kind or another.

Daughter Jan

Moving to Onclolgy Floor to Start Treatment

Mom's oncology doc came by last night with some news. He talked with a research doc at UW he knows who had just returned from meetings at the National Cancer Institute where he heard about some promising results from treatment of T-cell lymphomas using a different protocol.

The acronym for the regime Mom was going to be on is CHOP. Instead, she will be on EPOCH plus the antibody Retuxin. EPOCH stands for the chemotherapy drugs used. Retuxin is something they have had some success with as it attacks the B-cells which seem to gather around and promote the T-cells.

Sarah just reported that Mom will go down to have a port for the IV installed at about 11 this morning. Then she will move to the 12th floor East which is the oncology floor at Swedish Hospital. She will start Retuxin via IV this afternoon some time.

The EPOCH treatment is via IV and is approximately 4 days inpatient and could start tomorrow (Friday). We don't expect her to be discharged to return to Horizon House until maybe Tuesday of next week.

Mom has appreciated all the wonderful cards and emails that have arrived from so many. She is eager to get started fighting the cancer. We all welcome your prayers and good wishes.

Daughter Jan

Diagnosis confirmed

The oncology doctor did come late Tuesday evening when Jan, John, Sarah and Jeff were all there with Mom. The pathology report had come back at 5pm and confirmed the diagnosis of Angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma. We asked many questions.

The doctor is going to confer with a renown lymphoma expert at the University of Washington to see if there are any brand new treatments that have not been published yet. If not, she will start soon on a chemotherapy regimen. Treatments are every three weeks for about four months.

Mom had two units of blood infused last night and into this morning (Wednesday). She is looking and feeling much better and has more energy. Her itching, chills, sweats, and rashes are responding well to the steroid.

She would like to be cared for as much as possible in her own apartment. We will see how it goes with the chemo.

Daughter Jan

Update on Tues Feb 19th

It looks like we may not see the oncology doc today. Perhaps the holiday weekend slowed things down but it looks like the lab results were not ready yesterday as we hoped. We may see him tonight but maybe not til tomorrow.

Mom had a really good night sleep and then slept almost all day! Not sure if she is just catching up on sleep or what. Her vital signs are good but energy is low. Her blood counts are on the low side so they are going to give her some super cleaned blood tonight. This should pep her up.

She is getting around a bit better on her feet.

Daughter Jan

Email from Barbara Beatty this morning

Saw Anno this morning and she was much better and alert. We carried on a conversation. She had a mocha Starbucks coffee. She had walked some yesterday and was going to do so this afternoon. She appears to be on the correct medication.Tomorrow is the big day when they will be able to talk to the oncologist and etc.Her love and mine to all.

Barbara B.