Bernadette

It has been a difficult week for me not seeing Tiernan and Arielle however Arielle continues to do well and on Friday her doctor gave us the wonderful news that if she continues to do well over the weekend then we can take her home on Monday or Tuesday. She is tolerating bottle feeds now which again is fantastic given her age. We cannot believe she will be coming home so soon - she would have only been 37 weeks next Tuesday. It will be so lovely to have her home and to have our family altogether.

The results on Thursday turned out to be inconclusive. The CT scan still shows a mass there however the mass did not take up the PET scan injection or the Gallium scan injection. We had originally misunderstood this to mean there was no cancer however the doctor explained that only 70% of lymphoma takes up either PET or Gallium injections. The remaining 30% do not show on either scan. The dilemna he now faces is that as I never had these tests to start with he does not know whether my lymphoma originally was PET or Gallium active and is no longer active or whether it never would have showed up on these scans anyway. The fact that the CT still shows a mass is causing the issue as there is no way to ascertain whether it is still active cancer or just scar tissue. Due to various factors a biopsy cannot give conclusive results and the mass cannot be removed due to where it is. So the current plan is for me to have two more chemos (12 in total) and then I will have further CT scans then. If the mass has reduced in size at all then it indicates that it is still cancer (as chemo would not reduce scar tissue). If that is the case then he may look at radiation. If it has not reduced in size he is uncertain of what to do next as he obviously does not want to stop treatment if there is any cancer left but does not want to put me through any more treatment than he has to. So basically he will make the call after the 12th treatment. We are ok with this result as at least it does not say it is definitely active cancer. It is not the best outcome but certainly not the worst either.

This week has been pretty tough as believe it or not I have reacted worse to the chemo this time despite having all of the anti-medics! I have never felt so nauseous and tired in all my life! Maybe my pregnant body shielded me from the effects of chemo somehow! This is certainly tougher than having chemo whilst pregnant! I had a little bit of an episode yesterday with severe chest pains after dry reaching. After a quick dash to the emergency department I was assessed and given morphine (first time in my life I was begging for morphine - usually I refuse it as the injection hurts nearly as much as the pain it is trying to fix!!). They could not find a specific problem however suggested that I had probably torn a small hole in my oesophagus due to the dry reaching and that it would eventually repair itself. I was kept in overnight for observations and should be released later today.  

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