Progress Report #3

Alas still stuck with Kevin as scribe

Greetings everyone,

We wanted to provide another update on mom’s status.

The past week since our last update has been a roller-coaster! To start with the bad news, she is still in the hospital and is being treated for a fairly significant case of pneumonia that started developing Thursday of last week. She is on supplemental oxygen and does have some shortness of breath, though I can attest from facetime calls that she still has a good enough voice to make herself heard to everyone (including dad, which is most impressive). They are also somewhat concerned about a buildup of fluid in the chest cavity where her upper lobe was and installed a new drainage tube in a third surgical procedure yesterday (thankfully a minor one in comparison to her previous two and that did not require full anesthesia).

We are frustrated that she has not been able to go home but, to shift towards the land of good news, are encouraged by the direction her symptoms are taking. She is on both oral and intravenous antibiotics that the doctors refer to as “the big guns” and is responding well. They have indicated that continuing to sit in her chair and diligently doing her walking and breathing exercises is more important than the drugs and as we know, diligence is her middle-name. She also attests to feeling better and remains her positive and gregarious self. After 11 nights in the hospital (and counting), she does face what to any other person would be a daunting mountain of individual thank-you notes.

In other good news, the wounds on her remaining lung finally healed and she was able to get the original and extremely rigid drainage tube removed on Thursday, leading to immediate relief from a lot of her pain and discomfort. The new drain tube she has for fluid related to the potential infection is much less uncomfortable. The wounds from her original surgery are now close to being healed and just a little sensitive to the touch, which is great progress.

Finally, in the best news of all, the pathology report has come back on the tumor and her lymph nodes. She was finally staged at 1(b) with no cancer identified in her lymph nodes! This means she will not need chemo! They are still doing genomic testing on the cancer cells to identify if she could benefit from some oral immunotherapy, but that treatment would likely have far fewer side effects than chemo. Having a final answer on the staging is a huge relief for all of us.

Now all we have to do is wait for her pneumonia treatment to take its course so we can finally get her out of here and to the Eros Recovery Suite. Mike Eros and I have already arranged for a rented recliner (we found one that looked uncomfortable enough to satisfy her spartan sensibilities), and Mike has established a great recovery nest for her in anticipation (photo included).

Mom asked me to again express her thanks for all the kind messages of love and support. Thanks again and I hope this finds everyone well.

Love, Kevin