Karen’s Story

Site created on June 1, 2020

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.

Newest Update

Journal entry by Karen Barthelmes

Pet scan results are in...

Results showed a new lesion on the liver and cancer progression, however the cancer has not moved elsewhere in the body. Her CA-19 numbers doubled between December 8th and December 29th. The chemotherapy mom switched to unfortunately is not working. We also have exhausted our appeal attempts with insurance for a HER2 specified medication due to these types of medications only being approved by the FDA for  breast cancer patients and is why insurance will not cover any of the medications, also with much consideration to any clinical trial, they can be difficult, costly, involve a lot of travel and give no guarantee to any cancer response...Given the few remaining options regarding chemo that are available  each come with significate side effects and very remote odds that any response to the cancer would occur...

After plenty of anger, tears and talk, mom has made the decision to discontinue any further treatment. That being said mom is scheduled to receive one more round of Y90 radiation on January 28th given her oncologist agrees she is still a good candidate to  receive the second dose. If the oncologist gives the green light for the second dose of radiation on January 28th 2021 this will be her final treatment. 

From here on out our one goal is to keep mom's pain controlled and go one day at a time.

 

We love and appreciate all of your prayers and support and ask that everyone of you continue to pray for good and painless days! 

 

Love always,

Sara

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