In February we were called back to Scotland to say goodbye to my Mom. She has cancer of the blood and the doctors told our family there was nothing more they could do for her. So we all hopped on a plane to be with our family and pay our last respects.
To our surprise, my mother looked fine! A little weak here and there, but on the whole, she did not look like she was dying. Many people have emailed since and asked how my mom is doing. Here's an excerpt from an email my dad sent out.
On Wednesday evening she collapsed at home. After medical examination she was taken to hospital with presumed pneumonia. Because of her very low immunity she was given intravenous doses of at least two antibiotics. She remained ill for several days but was released 6 days later to continue oral doses of these antibiotics at home. She remained very weak physically and slept much of the time. Since then she has continued to show weakness and sleeps much of the time.
In the light of these series of events, you can imagine our surprise today when we were informed at the hospital that Lana's latest white blood cell count had risen significantly since her time in hospital despite the fact that she has received no injections to boost these during the past 10 days or so. Moreover, the para protein level (an indicator of myeloma activity) had dropped from 63 to 32. We have not seen such a rapid and extensive reduction as this even after several months under the earliest and best treatment. Furthermore, all chemotherapy was stopped several weeks ago! This was as surprising to the medical staff as to us! It seems Lana's increasing weakness in recent weeks was perhaps largely due to a combination of the bacterial infections, the antibiotics to treat these and her very low blood count (76 today!) in addition of course to her myeloma!. We are hoping that the blood transfusion and platelet infusion today will improve her strength in the next few days.
So my mother continues to be an enigma to the medical community and we continue to pray for her strength and healing. Thanks for your kind words and prayers; they are much appreciated.