#mindyvsmarla

[thordodaday]

Thank you

I wish I could thank you all individually and I hope everyone who has helped-by sharing or donating can see this. All day I have seen donations trickling in and I am just overwhelmed with gratitude. I know it’s because of you all here on tumblr sharing my post and our story and doing what you can to help Mindy and me and I am just so incredibly thankful and grateful for every bit of it. I really hope you all know.

And I really hope that I get the chance to pay it forward.

I have been trying to do that in small ways but I really want to be able to give back as soon as we are on our feet again.

But please know how much your support means to me, to both of us.

XOXOXO

[thordodaday]

Three trips to the hospital down. We are both pretty tired from all the traveling (and the road construction! urgh!)But we're home and Mindy's doing well. They did adjust her amount of chemo meds she got during her infusion this time because she's lost so much weight. (11% since the start of treatment) A lot of the initial weight loss was because of all that fluid finally drying up.Her albumin number is at 4! (That's the goal!-it's the protein that measures if she's malnourished or not) And since she's got her nausea under control (and my feeding her rather than crap from rehab)-we finally got that number up! We do still need to work on putting some weight on her but her appetite still isn't great. (Everyone keeps telling her to drink milkshakes -DO NOT suggest that! LOL-the chemo has killed her sweet tooth so it's not as easy as that!) Even all the nutritional drinks are (Ensure,Boost) are too sweet-we cut it with milk to reduce the sweetness but she still does't love it. -So, that's our goal still-work on getting some meat on her bones.I ordered her a little pedal bike (it's just pedals) from Amazon (thanks to those who donated gift cards to us) and she has been able to slowly increase her use with that which is great for building her strength and endurance. Next chemo infusion is July 12. I'm off to work on another project for class (this time it's my gender studies class. TTFN!

[thordodaday]

I wanted better news

So I just got off the phone with Mindy (she’s in the hospital and I’m at home taking care of things here).

The tumor has not changed in size after two rounds of chemo. And her CA125 number (cancer antigen) has gone up so her doctor has given two options-surgery or changing to a more aggressive type of chemo. Her doctor wants to do the surgery but will be consulting with cardiology first to make sure that it's safe because of the blood clot by her heart. If they give the all clear then surgery would be Monday.

If it's too risky, then new chemo will be the route we go.

[thordodaday]

Mindy update

So we are heading to the hospital tomorrow to get Mindy a pre-surgery ECHO. (She has blood clots in her heart so they have to check that there hasn’t been any change to the stress on her heart)

We aren’t sure at this point that insurance is going to cover this but we have decided to go ahead and have it done because it’s necessary and she must have this surgery.

We have a tentative date for her surgery scheduled too (in about two weeks) I’ll share the date when we know it for sure. I hate our health care system-she has finally been approved for disability(filed inJanuary when she was diagnosed-there’s a waiting period so her first check doesn’t start till July and she still hasn’t gotten it yet. Oh and she’ll be eligible for the insurance in 2022.)

Anyway, I’m trying not to worry but it’s not easy. She’s sleeping more. Her appetite is still ok but I just feel kinda numb (therapist says it’s normal trauma response).

Also, it’s ovarian cancer awareness month so I’ll be trying to post some stuff here if I have time to add to my queue and I’m reblogging our gofundme-once the disability kicks in we should be ok but we just need a little to tide us over till that starts rolling in.

Take care everyone. I’ll update on Mindy once there’s more information.

[thordodaday]

Mindy update

So there’s a LOT of new information, but I’ll try to keep it short and sweet here.

Mindy has been changed to stage 4A which means her cancer is going to be harder to cure. And they believe she has mixed cancer cells-one type being resistant to chemo.

After two rounds of chemo- her tumors didn’t shrink, she got more fluid, basically all the things that shouldn’t happen when on chemo.

Surgery to remove the tumors, etc is too risky because she has a large blood clot in her heart and another large clot in the vessel leading to her heart.

So right now, the plan is to add another type of chemo to her current chemo regimen in the hopes that it will at the very least dry up the fluid. After two rounds, tests will be done and we will reevaluate.

But that is also subject to change also.

She had an Echo done today (a big fancy one) and she will be getting a pleurex catheter either today or tomorrow (tube in chest to drain fluid/help her breath better)

So yeah, that’s the new information. I wish it was better but it just isn’t going on that direction.

[thordodaday]

https://caringbridge.org/visit/mindyvsmarla/journal/view/id/5c88230cec100392708f24bc

I’ve added a journal post/updated today.