Post #60: Continued Dizziness But Upbeat

Good Morning Everybody!

Just got off the phone with Mother who is getting ready to go get her "CT Contrast Studies," or in other words, a cat scan of her lungs and abdominal/intestinal area. So she has to fast from 9:00 a.m. this morning onward, only drinking that yummy concoction they gave her that once imbibed allows the cat scan to show something! She gets to drink one full bottle of it (somewhere around a pint of liquid) at 11:15 a.m., a half a bottle at 12:15 p.m., and then the remaining half during the scanning process which is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. this afternoon. Results probably won't be out until next week at the earliest.

She reports that she has continued to have the dizziness, accompanied by some shortness of breath, over the past two days. A day and a half ago, she was doing something at the kitchen sink, turned around to walk away and got so dizzy that she felt her knees were going to buckle. This is the worst episode of this nature that she has experienced. The good news is that her shortness of breath at the time was not as bad as in prior episodes. So yesterday she phoned the oncologist's office to inquire about why she is having these episodes (she was thinking that it could be blood related), but the doctor was out that day. She will try to contact him again today. However, she was able to speak with his assistant who assured her that her blood test results from this past Friday were good.

Anita said that, as of yesterday, she weighed 132 lbs. which means she has lost two of the four pounds she recently gained. She has not weighed herself yet today so I don't know if she has lost more or is holding steady. Ultimately, she hopes to get her weight up to 140. She said that as it stands now, she will have two more Rituxan treatments and three more chemo treatments. So she is halfway through the program!!! That is a wonderful achievement.

On an amusing, if irritating for Anita note, yesterday they had a couple over to play a little bridge. So Anita put Tristan out in the back yard. A point came in the game where she was dummy, so she got up to go check on the dog. Lo and behold, he was covered in mud from his ears to the tip of his chin and all four legs! She doesn't know how he managed to do it! So telling the bridge trio to "wait a minute," off went her white jacket and into the sink went Tristan for a complete scrub down followed by a vigorous toweling-off. Thinking all was safe, she put him back in the grassy part of the yard this time and went back to the game. Bidding (no pun intended) the couple goodbye, after they left Anita went out to check on the little darling having completely forgotten about the sprinklers which had gone off in the interim! Well, he was having a grand time, proudly standing there dripping wet! Vigorous toweling-off Number 2!!! That called for a bourbon - Jack Daniels of course! Which, in a diluted version, she tolerated quite well and reports "tasted wonderful!"

She remains upbeat and positive despite the dizziness and is pacing herself to get through the rest of the treatments. We can all raise a toast to that!

Melissa