Lu’s story…. It began in May with an ER visit on May 7th. After 5 hours, she was sent home and told to follow-up with a GYN. It took a month to secure an appointment. June 9th, Lu received the call with biopsy results. She was diagnosed with serous uterine cancer, a rare and aggressive form.
A follow-up with an oncologist/surgeon and surgery was scheduled in early July. But a pre-op CT Scan showed some areas of concern on Lu’s lungs and potentially ribs. Although there are many areas of concern abdominally, Dr. Mathews is convinced she can get all of that one chemo shrinks things. The first surgery was cancelled and a thoracic surgeon called in to do a thoracoscopy to investigate. The major spot of concern was actually in her lung so a wedge resection was done on July 20th. A week later that biopsy result came back negative for cancer and Lu’s first chemo began just 8 days post op.
It's been an extremely rough road for her with three emergency trips to the hospital. The first, on August 4th, was a long day in the ER to rehydrate her. This was basically because she had been unable to hold anything down, including water, since two days after her July 28th chemo.
August 16th, she was back in the ER at Women & Infants and admitted for a blood clot in her liver and began a 30-day regiment of twice daily injections of Lovenox to thin her blood and try to dissolve the clot. This is another side effect of chemo. She was released from the hospital just a day before her second chemo treatment on August 18th. Her oncologist adjusted the chemo protocol in hopes of making her more tolerable. It wasn't.
The following Wednesday, August 24th, Lu was admitted through the ER to Woman & Infants, this time for 8 days. She ran an extremely high fever with dangerously low blood counts. They treated her with strong IV antibiotics, which gave her C-diff. She is still suffering the after effects of that but is in her own home.
Today's (Tuesday, Sept 6th) doctor appointment will have more changes in the works for Thursday's chemo now that they know what her adverse reactions are. She was told that a rare group of people get ALL of the possible reactions. Unfortunately, Lu is in that minority.
After Lu has had a chance to recoup from Thursday's chemo, another CT Scan will be done to determine if this all worked as they anticipated. If so, surgery can be scheduled. We don't yet know when that will be. What we do know is that three more rounds of chemo will be required post surgery.
Lu's body didn't get a chance to fully recover after her lung wedge resection on July 20th. Each chemo treatment has brought new challenges. Yet through it all, she has surely tried her very best to rally when she can.
I haven't been sending out as many updates as we have set up the CaringBridge page for Lu (www.caringbridge.org/visit/crazylucancercrusaders (
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/crazylucancercrusaders)) as well as a private and unsearchable Facebook page (Crazy's Cancer Crusaders) to let others easily communicate with her. Melanie set up a "Crazy's Pit Crew" on the Lotsa Helping Hands website to arrange to have one of us with her during those periods when she is too weak to be alone.
All of Lu’s kids, Mel, Tim and Jay are administrators on the Facebook site, Ctazy's Cancer Crusaders. Any one of us can add you or accept your friend request. Please be sure to let us know of anyone who should be added.
It is my intention to meld all of these communications together so everyone can be kept up to date in the manner that works best for them.
