home

so nice to be home. Starting tomorrow i will be starting to go into the day hospital to get my white blood shots and blood taken for the next 5 days. It is nice to actually sleep in my bed and recover well. I am going to stay on a the pain patch for a bit to help the pain. It so far has done alot so i may ask the boss ( Dr. Mahdavi) if i can go down on mg. this week i will be getting watched and then soon i will find out when the next chemo is. Sorry for the small updates! Hope you are all enjoying your holidays! Can not believe it is New years on Friday! WOW!!! Believe! Thanks again for your support!

sunday

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas! I am still here at Hotel Hoag getting ready to do more chemo tomorrow. I have one more session tomorrow then i will be able to go home for out patient check ups. Check ups on blood and chemo/tumor progress. Then i will have 2 weeks off to be home and recover. Then i will start another round of the chemo. I am feeling much better the pain has been managed well. Though i am finally getting some sleep! just wanted to give a quick hello and update that i am still beating this and believing all this will work out! patience is a virtue.. Believe! Hope you all have a wonderful New Years also!! update soon!!

update

A little quick update for you all. So far i have finished my chemo on Tuesday. I have been blessed to have Jame as my nurse the first couple nights and also little Daisy Renee Quatman was born Tuesday morning at 515 am. I was very lucky that i got a note to let me off the floor to go meet her and spend time with them all.she is so beautiful it made my life brighter!Still shocked that her middle name is Renee! That is so special! So right now i am feeling better with pain control and the breathing is getting a little easier with all the treatments i am getting. My face is nice and puffy red. I actually slept for 3 1/2 hours straight last night! ahh it felt great to be able to do that. So later on today i will find out how my blood levels are doing. We saw yesterday that my red count is a little low so i may need to get a shot to help or i rather get a blood transfusion! I just love how wonderful those transfusions make me feel! Jame let me borrow her computer cause now here at Hoag they are receiving wireless Internet on the floors now!! Thanks Jame and Hoag! Now i am finally able to write you all myself. You must be able to tell when others write for me cause i never make sense.. haha! I will update when i find out when i can come home. i hope you all are enjoying a wonderful Christmas eve with your family! thanks all for the love and support!

Home Sweet Hoag

I'm back at lovely Hoag for some more chemo!!!

This morning I went to Dr. Mahdavi's to review my scans that were taken last week and he felt that we needed to change the regimen for my chemo. It appears that the lung tumor has grown and has not been responding to the chemo we tried a couple of weeks ago. We only used the chemo one time, but Mahdavi feels strongly it is not reacting to the chemo.

So...we are going to try another regimen of chemo, but I am worried because it is the same chemo I did in 2006 for my right lung tumor and it did not work then. I am going to talk to him more about this later today (hopefully), once I get settled into my room.

The scan also showed that I have a paralyzed vocal chord. This explains why my voice is very weak and it's hard to breathe. I am also in a lot pain. They are going to do more tests on my vocal chords to see if there is anything they can do to prevent further damage and hopefully reverse what has already occurred. I'm hoping now that I am back at Hoag, I will be able to get better pain medication and they will keep me more comfortable. They are also going to give me breathing treatments to help me breathe easier.

So in a nut shell...I'm back at Hoag for new chemo, pain management, breathing treatments, and tests on my paralyzed vocal chord. Yipee!

Please text or email me if you are wanting to come by and see me at Hoag. I'm very weak and I need to get some rest while here.

Hopefully it's a quick visit and I will be home for Christmas. :-)

Y.O.L.O

Short

Short and sweet... I have been in bed all weekend from major back pain. My MRI came out fabulous and i don't need another recheck till 4 months! My blood levels seem to be stable. I will start the next bag the Monday after Christmas. Then with the Temador, the pill chemo, i will start a week after that. I am hoping i do not get as sick as i was this time! I do have a PET scan i am taking this week so i will let you all know what the results are when i get them. Sorry if this is short, it really hurts to type cause i am using the muscle that is in pain! Ahhhh! It will get better! Tomorrow is an exciting day because me and 7 other girlfriends get to go to Ellen 12 days of Christmas show!! So excited to see what we are getting!! Thanks for all your patience! BELIEVE

sick sick sick

Wow did things change!! Sunday night is where it all hit me at once! i have not been this sick in years! i was constantly vomiting and tummy aches! Monday i had to cancel the MRI cause i was still sick and could not get out of bed. All day Monday was still the same. i could not eat because i would just throw it up ect... I could not get out of bed wither. This carried on till all day Tuesday! I finally tried every thing i could to help and nothing was helping so i called the doctors. The prescribed me nausea pills. Mom picked those up for me after work and so far it has stopped me from my nausea and vomiting!! i feel about 40% better today! Everyday and ever hour seems to change. Sometimes when you feel so bad it feels like it will never get better, but it will! I am trying to eat something this morning hoping it will give me strength and energy. Rescheduled MRI for Friday so i am hoping to feel well and making that appointment. i will update you all with that MRI and doctor appointment when i can. Thanks for your support! Believe

It all comes back..

Got admitted into Hoag around 4 pm on Friday. Started to prep me up with a bunch of different pills and shots. They gave me my temador to start off ,which is my pill formed chemo. Then around 12 a.m is when we started the new chemo, irinotecan, which ran for 1 1/2 hours. I could not sleep cause i was so anxious on seeing how this chemo will affect me. Around 6 am on sat morning is when i started getting sick. I was so weak because i was vomiting for hours. I was not feeling well at all and it all came back to me. It has been years since i have got sick like that with the treatment. I did stop getting sick in the afternoon which was great. Finally ate something easy to digest and then i was able to rest. This morning Dr. Mahdavi let me go home cause if i stayed any longer my insurance would not pay for it. Both of these treatments are out patient and i was put in just to monitor my first session. Now tomorrow i need to work around my insurance companies to see if they will help me with the pill formed chemo. it is crazy how expensive they are!! I have 2 more days to take it and they will still charge me 945.00! Wow. It will all work out! Tomorrow i also get Brain MRI to check up on the 5 week ago craniotomy!! Time goes by so fast. Thank you all again for your support! Believe

chemo

So this is a confusing update for you all. All week i have been dealing with doctors,doctors offices,and medical insurance. For some reason it was hard for the doctors to communicate and get things rolling, it was hard to have the office staff do a simple chore, and insurance company just wont pay for anything nor call me back. So it has been a delightful week. It really did not help out the horrible pain i am still having. My cough is still loud and for some reason i am loosing my voice every morning. I think the stress and anxiety from all this has made the pain worse. So we came up with this for my chemo; to take temador (pills) for 5 days straight every 28 days and then an infused chemo once a week which will be outpatient. Tomorrow i am being admitted into Hoag to try out this new chemo. Then after that if everything seems to be going well with the chemo it will be outpatient. Temador are pills that i have already taken before, though for 5 pills it is going to cost me $2700.00 because my insurance doesn't cover it! Nice! So that is what i have been dealing with all week. i am trying to be positive and relax but its too stressful. I did go to Ellen Degeneres show on Tuesday and our gift was to come back to her show during her 12 days of xmas give aways!!! I am sure looking forward to that even if i need a wheel chair or not!! I will let you know how this new chemo goes. Thanks for your patience. Thanks for your support! Believe