Wednesday update

Mom is improving slowly. Her voice doesn't sound like a squeek and her nose isn't running so profusely. Karley recommended Mucinex and that has helped the cough so I expect that in the next few days, Mom will feel much better.

Her INR level (Coumadin measurement) has dropped to 1.8 which is too now thick and I have spoken to our contact at the coumadin clinic. She's upp'd the dosage for today and then we are supposed to go back on Mom's standard regimine and check her blood in a week. Fat chance! I will continue to check until things stabilize. Meantime, we did chicken soup and yogurt for lunch...diahrea again from the antibiotics...and then had a regular dinner. Mom's taste is gone for the moment along with her appetite.

Tomorrow we go to the Boniva clinic for Mom's arthritis med's. Never a dull moment.

The day after Christmas

We have spent a week with gastro-intestinal upset that was truly upsetting. Mom suffered from Sunday, Dec. 19 ending Friday Dec. 24. The severe diahrea threw her INR (coumadin) rating to the sky raising it to 7.8. I finally called Dr. Cohen who told me to feed her greens and take her off the coumadin until her blood came down to 2.2 or 2.3. That is now in progress. Meanwhile, Mom now has a cold with laryngitis. So, today, Dec. 27, we are off to Dr. Cantwell, hoping to get some remedy that will prevent this from going further.

Dr. McCune Dec 15

We went to see Dr. McCune today. He is the haematologist/oncologist. Mom is doing well. Her white blood count was down a bit from the last time. Her red blood count was also down a bit so he wants her to take an iron suppliment twice a week. This is an over the counter remedy. In the meantime, her complete blood workup will be ready by Friday (maybe) and we will get another reading of other things. This information will also be faxed back to Dr. Myerson so Mom can have her Boniva infusion next week.

Re: Boniva. I asked Dr. Myerson the rhumatologist last week whether there was any questionable interaction or adverse impact on CLL from Boniva. He said no, there was not.

I asked Dr. McCune about Karley saving her cord blood for Mom or any one of us should the need arise. He said he had done two years of cord blood work when he was at Duke Univ. and they were nothing but trouble. It did not produce the results desired, it could only be used on little adults and, at that, it took two transfusions. Apparently the stem cells in the cord do not work as well as other stem cells for the purpose of CLL and perhaps other things. Dr. McCune also said that Mom would not be a candidate for this modality anyhow. He also said it was very expensive to save cord blood, about $100/month and that the cells only stayed viable at the outmost for 2 years, hence, he would not recommend saving it for Mom or any of us. Thank you Karley for thinking about this for all of us!

McCune thinks Mom is doing very well for 92.

We are scheduled to go back in April, 2011.