The end of a long journey

Hi All,
I am writing on behalf of my mom. It is with great sadness, I write to let everyone know my mom's journey came to an end on May 30th. She ended up in hospital with fluid on her lungs and despite all efforts, there was nothing more they could do for her. It had been a long hard battle. 4 years with cancer, and she fought all the way to the end.

Our family is honored that as I write this, she has had over 508,700 page views. She touched the lives of everyone on here.

We thank you for your words of encouragement, I know she had many devoted followers. People who may have also been experiencing their own battles, or families devastated by cancer. We plan to keep her blog open as a means of encouragement to those who need it, and as a reminder that despite your odds- keep fighting. I know her favorite thing was telling the Dr who gave her 2-8 months that she wasn't going anywhere. She didn't, not for 4 years and those were some of the best times we got with her.

In loving memory of Cathy.. and she would have wanted me to tell everyone of you..just keep swimming!

~Rhi

Now what?

Still going for blood work every two days...my kidney levels are still up and down.  All treatments have been cancelled and my oncologist says I may lose out on the program but, there are other options.

I am scheduled for a kidney biopsy on the 15th and I am being weaned off of Prednisone and down from 100mg per day to 50mg and now I am on 25mg per day.  Restless legs were driving me crazy and my family doctor put me on Gabapentin....not working so, she doubled the dose and that seems to help a lot.  I keep teasing that I am falling apart!

All tests and lab work should be in by the end of the month and I do my follow-ups with the Nephrologyst and my oncologist on the 31st.

Forgot to take my pills at 9:00 and I am wide awake and doing paperwork.  Got everything done and I am hoping in another hour the pills kick in and I can go to bed. 

Off to read my Kobo for awhile....swimming in the dark!!!

Insoimnia is driving me nuts.....

I am on so many pills right now....Meniers Disease, A-Fib, Prednisone etc., etc. and no sleep.  It is like the old days when I was swinging from the trees on Dexamethasone. 

Treatments were going really good.  I had an awesone CT Scan result at the beginning of March...everything is stable and shrinking.  Then I had a treatment on March 24th and I crashed.  Major dizziness, nausea, weekness and super tired...no energy.  I got a phone call from my oncologist at 10:00 telling me my kidneys had stopped filtering and I was to go back on high doses of Prednisone and get blood tests every day for 10 days.  Not impressed!

I was scheduled for an ultrasound and it came back....no stones, no damage but, no one knows what is going on.  One day my kidney level may be down and the next day it is through the roof again.  I am now going every second day for bloodwork. 

My treatments for April 7th and 21st were cancelled and we had tentatively scheduled the next one for May 5th.  According to the doctor two days ago...that is not going to happen.  He did reassure us that I am still on the program and when and if we get my kidneys functioning...treatments will resume.

So, my life consists of visiting the "vampires" every second day....not sleeping...so flipping tired and week all the time.

To add insult to injury...we got rear-ended in February.  So now we are dealing with insurance companies,..car got fixed and I am off to therapy for my neck and right shoulder.  When the seat belt retracted it wrenched the heck out of it.  As if that wasn't enough some jacka*ss tried to break into our RV in the compound.  Couldn't get passed the deadbolt...love old reliable RV's.  But, they did destroy the door and a new one is on it's way.  I have a dream catcher in the window in the door and the repair shop ordered a blank door so they can transfer my window to the new door.  Wonderful people at Cottonwood RV.

No plans other than caming in between hospital labwork.

Just swimming!