A Time of healing, A Time for Planning...

The following is a song currently playing on repeat in my head :)

Words-adapted from The Bible, book of Ecclesiastes
Music-Pete Seeger" To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)":

"There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time to every purpose, under Heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time to every purpose, under Heaven

A time to build up,a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time to every purpose, under Heaven

A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time to every purpose, under Heaven

A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time for love, a time for hate
A time for peace, I swear it's not too late"
~~~~~~~~~~

Onto update time-warning this was a reality check for me so it may be a bit of a shock for you all as well. But the truth and honesty are a very important part of our lives right now so I will try to be as open and honest as I can right now...

Options:
1. Wait for heart to recover (at least 6 months)
2. Go to transplant without a perfect heart (even with a healthy heart 1/4 patients do not live beyond 6 months and 35-40% of people relapse post-transplant)
3. Hospice

Risks:
1. IF the leukemia returns-while waiting for her heart to improve-having a transplant won't be possible. And she's likely have a matter of months to live.
(*The hospital doesn't take patients with 15-20% ejection faction to transplant-however it her case they may not have a choice*)
Ejection Faction= "the fraction of blood pumped out of the right and left ventricles with each heart beat." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ejection_fraction)
2. Symptomatically her heart has improved but the bad stuff for her heart is cumulative-they will work to minimize more damage in the future-and IF she is able to proceed to transplant the cardiologists will be watching her like hawks!!!
3. It's rare for healthy hearts to go into "shock" like hers has, but those with heart problems:
- Could die from chemo, during work up week, because of current heart damage
- There was MORE damage to the heart than should have occurred from the regiments she was on-but cardiologist can't figure out what other risk factors were there initially that could have added to her current heart failure.
4. Core blood has a lower risk of relapse
5. 10% of people have graft failure (seen by day 42).
6. We DO NOT want to try a new regiment, we will be staying with the routine regiments used by the hospital for all transplant cases, because it doesn't work well if you adjust the variables (others are double the mortality rates, about 50%) when variables have been changed.

Other notes:
1. "It would have been unacceptably dangerous to proceed a month ago." -Mom's doctor
2. "We should do this before blasts return." -Mom's Doctor
**************************

In otherwords we are waiting, waiting, waiting....now it's us waiting for the team to schedule all of mom's "work up week" appointments(a week of various tests with a final conference with all of the doctors, patient, and family members to discuss the next plans). From our last appointment with mom's primary physician it sounded like the plan is to try our darndest to get her healthy enough for transplant and get her in patient for transplant in less than a month.

So keep the prayers coming! Please focus on her heart's improvement, as well as our spirits, endurance and hope. It's been a rough year so far and I know the only reason we are getting through it is thanks to our strong faiths and all of you. You all are truly angels in our lives! Sending prayers of joy and appreciation out to all of you!

I will try to keep you as updated as I can. It's been a crazy couple of weeks here.

All my love,
Kate

Happy Mother's Day!!!

Good evening team! Looks like it's been quite the delay on my part since my last post, just haven't had much to update you on so didn't want to type meaningless info. Not too much in the way of major updates on mom-still in a waiting period for her heart to improve so we can head to transplant. Though her counts are doing MARVELOUS (daily exponential improvement!) and as a result she's only going to clinic twice a week! Yay mom!!!

These past few weeks as I have been preparing to celebrate on Sunday with my mom, I have also been thinking of four lovely ladies who I know who will be giving birth to their own lovely little ones during the next few weeks. With the young lives entering this world I have taken time to stop and think about all of those who I have lost during my life time, how many lives each of them effected, and how short our time on this earth is. Each life and each death bring with them a renewed hope of our purpose in this world. To serve for a positive good in the lives of those around us. Quite the overwhelming thought to have over a few weeks-if I do say so myself. And with it came a renewed frustration at my compassion fatigue for those around me. Which is not to say that I am completely emotionally withdrawn from those around me, I just have had a harder time empathizing recently-with the exception of my mom, of course.

Back to the point of this blog. Mothers. Mine is doing well. :) She is loving her brief vacation from the hospital at her house and is starting to be granted permission to be more adventurous-taking short walks in the lovely spring air and observing breath taking gardens from a distance. In fact, part of our celebration tomorrow is going to be us looking for beautiful gardens in the area for us to enjoy-without having to dig around in the dirt. (Riskiness of infection and all...)

(Haven't seen the flowers blooming this much, YET, but I know they're on their way! 60-70 degree weather the last 3 days seems to be helping them along...) :)

Other recent adventures with mom, outside her house, have been shopping at "down times" at the grocery store-mom zooming past me in a shooter. (She does WONDERFUL walking but neither of us wanted her to push herself beyond her limit, shopping can be quite the lengthy adventure on one's feet.) And also a brief jaunt over to a not-so-busy Target, by her house, to peruse the incoming spring attire-during which time we found her a lovely "St Bart's" styled sun hat! Which, when worn, makes her look like she just got back from the Caribbean on a lovely cruise...Perfect for a vacation at home!
Other than time with mom, I have been continuing to work the two jobs and trying to catch up on some wonderful outdoor (and some indoor) exercise with friends. In fact, besides a jog/walk with one of my best friends I also tried out a new activity: Laughing Yoga-minimal impact yoga with major cardio and abdominal results! It is what the title suggests constant laughter. (See John Cleese's adventure with it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXEfjVnYkqM and wikipedia's definition of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laughter_Yoga). Highly recommend it-specially if you are able to recruit a couple of giggling pals to go with you! It's been a busy month so far, curious what the rest of it will hold for me. Well Happy Mother's Day and joyous spring to all of you!

All my love,
Kate