Where we are now

I thought it might be easier and more convenient for everyone if I kept a blog (whatever that is) to keep you updated on Sally's health. As you know, Sally was diagnosed with lobular carcinoma of the breast with bone metastases in May 2008. Because of the extent of disease she was put on hormonal therapy after her double mastectomy. On this therapy she did well and her energy, weight, and blood counts all returned to normal and all the lab tests looked good.

In May 2009 everything looked very good so we decided to take our usual summer trip to Carlsbad, CA where Kathie, Craig, Christopher and Gavin live. Toward the end of the summer Sally had some feelings of being unwell, but since there was a lot of virus stuff going around, we thought it was just that. Lorrie visited us in September and that went well. We planned a somewhat prolonged trip back to Richmond, TX that began in early October. By that time, Sally was getting tired easily. We spent nearly two weeks on the trip seeing family and friends in California and Colorado.

By the time that we returned home, Sally was exhausted and we went in to see the oncologist. He found her to be anemic and to have low platelets (the blood elements important for blood clotting). Her previous hormonal therapy was stopped and new hormonal therapy was begun. Over this past couple of weeks Sally has had a CT scan, Bone scan, a bone marrow biopsy and multiple blood tests. The results show that the tumor is in the bone but not in the liver or other abdominal organs and not in the lung. However, the bone marrow is about 80% taken over by the tumor thereby crowding out her normal marrow. The bone marrow is where the blood cells and platelets are made and that accounts for her anemia and low platelets. Yesterday she had a transfusion of 2 pints of blood since her anemia was quite severe (hemoglobin 8.2 g/dl). She feels a lot better today with the higher blood count.

We go back to the oncologist on Thursday. We think the new hormonal therapy may be working since Sally has begun having hot flashes again. She had them when the original medicine was started, but they had pretty much disappeared until now. Since the hormonal therapy is based on depriving the tumor of estrogen, this sign of low estrogen may mean that the new medicine is doing its job better than the old one.

So...there we are. I'll keep you posted periodically and hope to be sending some more upbeat messages in the future. Send healing thoughts.