Cautiously Optimistic

When my mom was diagnosed with cancer (again) and started treatment the plan was for six rounds of chemo, three treatments each round, three weeks apart. She recently finished her sixth round and yesterday she had her CT scan and oncologist appointment to determine where they were and if they needed to continue more treatments.

The last time she had a CT done the doc told her that they were making progress but not as much as she'd hoped. Mom has still been running low grade fever between treatments (a sign of the Hodgkin's disease) although it seems to not as bad as before. Frankly, I had no hope of her treatments being over and was hoping for 2-3 more rounds instead of another 4-6. Mom and Dad were thinking along the same lines and came to Jackson yesterday prepared to stay for a late treatment and come back today and tomorrow.

Nope.

She's done. She'll go back in two months for anther CT because there are still two spots in the lymph nodes in her abdomen but they haven't changed since the last scan two months ago so the doc believes they may be "residual" spots, either dead lymph nodes or scaring or shadows or something that is not cancer. If those spots show any change during the next scan they will likely start more treatments. If not, they will begin the first year cancer-free checkups.

Holy cow. I did not see that coming.

My mom has been sick for a solid year. The disease started showing symptoms last January. Most of you know this is the second time she's had had cancer; the last time was earlier stage and concentrated in the thyroid. This time was stage four and spread throughout her abdomen and abdominal organs. The simple fact that six rounds of chemo seems to have knocked it out... I can't even...

I talked to Mom on the phone last night and then sat and cried because we are the most blessed people on Earth today. To beat lymphoma twice in six years is a pretty impressive feat. My mom is the strongest woman I've ever known.