Feet & hands

Mom has been feeling ok in general, other than some days are more tiring than others. Her feet are giving her the most problems right now and are red and peeling. She keeps the faith on the ice packs and puts them on her feet every day for a few minutes at a time, but they still get red. If she is on her feet a lot they will start to burn. Her hands haven't been too bad, but she keeps them well-conditioned with the lotion. And she puts the lotion on her feet several times a day too.

Her next appointment with Dr. Porubin is on June 15. He is going to evaluate her blood work and then also look at her feet and hands. At the last appointment he was pretty sure he was going to take her off of the Doxil and put her on the Taxol/Carbo mix again (which she received the first time she started chemo back in 2009). Mom had great results with that chemo and I believe that her cancer count went drastically down. I think her lowest number was 18 but I will have to go back and check my notes.

Unfortunately, the Taxol/Carbo mix is very toxic, and she will lose her hair and also have more nausea/bone pain symptoms. This means that she will have to do the dosing of steroids and anti-nausea before she starts chemo, and then do Benedryl during chemo, followed by more anti-nausea after chemo. I at least hope that Dr. Porubcin will reduce her Lovenox dose down to once a day. Mom's belly is very tender and sore from all of those shots.

We had fun last weekend and went to Aunt Carol's 70th Birthday party at the Ottawa Lions Club. There were a ton of people there, and many were old classmate's of mom's and Aunt Carol's. I overate on BBQ pulled pork, cake, chips and M & M's (they ordered some special black and white ones for the occasion) and the pièce de résistance: CAKE POPS by Jane. They were decorated in all sorts of fun characters and I wish I would have taken more than one.

Alaina, Gayle and Jane did a great job with the party (I think Daryl moved a table) and it was nice to see everyone. Things like that really bring mom's spirit up. Ethan and his girlfriend Andrea and Scotty and his girlfriend Stephanie even came along and that make Grandma Barb very happy. Before we knew it, 7 p.m. rolled around and it was time to head back to Geneseo.

The video below was from Aunt Carol's party. Mom, Aunt Carol and Aunt Rosemary were standing there while everyone took their picture, so I decided to take a video of them standing there while they were getting their photo taken.