Saturday, April 28, 2007
UPDATE OF KARON’S CONDITION
Some readers of this Blog may not know that my wife of 37+ years, Karon, is battling the cancer disease. In 2000 breast cancer was discovered. After a lumpectomy and radiation therapy she was pronounced “cured”. Everything was good until March of 2004, when the doctors FINALLY paid attention to her symptoms and discovered bone cancer. It was in all of the skeletal structure—head to toe. It has since metastasized to the liver and lungs, where malignant tumors have been discovered. They have been growing until recently. They seem to have stopped their rapid growth lately.
As a result of the bone cancer, her left hip broke in May of 2004. This has required two surgeries and a lot of rehab. She gets around now with the aid of a three-wheel walker. She has been in nearly continuous chemotherapy since. They have tried many, many drugs and combination of drugs but none seem to be effective against her type of cancer. Every 3 weeks they do a special blood work that tells the “cancer count” or “tumor marker”. 0 to 38 is considered normal. Hers has been as high as about 170.
On March 6th the tumor marker was at 134.5 which was a drop of 30 points from the February results. At the last count April 9th, the marker was down to 84.5 which was a decrease of 50 points in four weeks. Praise God for the count going down since she started on this latest combination of chemo drugs, Cytoxan and Taxol. We are especially thankful because the doctor said there was probably only a 10% chance that these drugs would be effective. She has had four treatments of these drugs. She goes Monday and we will find out if these drugs are still effective and if the count is continuing to decrease. She will probably have another chemo treatment of these drugs Monday if it seems they are doing any good.
Last week she spent most of the week in the hospital due to the side effects of the chemo. They gave her lots of fluids, antibiotics and 2 pints of blood.
I hate it that I can’t be with her at the doctor’s appointment Monday. I don’t like to have her hear news alone. But I’ll be driving a moving truck back from Atlanta, Georgia. (See previous post.) But we have a good friend who will take her and be with her at the doctor’s appointment.
Besides, God is always with us – all the time!
JimLabels: Personal
posted by jim 11:55 AM 0 comments
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