Lynette Vitale

Kristine and I (Michael) are using Caring Bridge as a vehicle to let all of you know what's going on with our mother, Lynette. 

Mom had a recurrence of lymphoma late in the spring.  You might remember from an earlier Caring Bridge site that mom had lymphoma in 2009 - both a Hodgkins and Non-Hodgkins.  She was successfully treated at the time, and she had a fairly easy experience with the chemo.  Well, the Hodgkins came back late this spring.  Mom was to have 7 chemo treatments - one every three weeks starting in May.  She did well with the first three sessions.  The PET scan after the third session showed no lymphoma - she is cancer-free.  However, she soon had the fourth session and had a bad reaction to that.  Her appetite became suppressed, and she stopped eating or drinking.  As we all tried to manage that issue, she declined quickly, losing a severe amount of weight.  She was in and out of Wesley Willows (in various levels of care) and Swedish American Hospital.  As I write this, she is in the Critical Care Unit of the Heart Hospital at Swedish American, Room 213.  We're trying to be optimistic about her outlook.  She has some severe hurdles to overcome:  possibility of infections (compromised immune system), weakness (no real movement in over 6 weeks), inability to swallow (tube feeding through g-tube in the nose currently), depression (no wonder!) and risk of pneumonia and heart issues.  This will be a tough road.

For now, we ask that any visitors limit their visits with mom to under 15 minutes.  She tires easily.  And also restrict those visits to the afternoon - between the hours of 1:00 and 4:00pm.  We'll let you know when that changes.