New Blog Name & Mom's Post Surgery Appt. - 03/18/11

I have decided to change the name of the blog to Alice Jo & Buddy's Status. Mom continues to recover from her surgery, surprising all her nurses and physicians. In fact today with Dr. Summers her pathology report finally was received and was reviewed. Dr. Summers was excited to share the results with us. One of the amazing results was that the final size of the tumor was .9 cm. Let that sink in. Only .9 cm! What began as the size of a tennis ball had been reduced with the chemo to not even a centimeter. She also told us that the tumor was shown to still have chemo treatment in it. She said that is impressive and exciting for them to see, because it shows that the chemo was doing exactly what it was suppose to, attack the cancer. One other thing she shared with us was that beside the lymph nodes she knew were cancerous, she had removed 7 other ducts to see, two of which she knew were already infected. The others were a preventative measure to just make sure other areas were good. And sure enough, the 5 other ducts were proved to not be infected. Great News. Dr. Summers agrees that Mom should be a poster child for breast cancer survivors. Mom only needs to come back for a check up in 6 months. That is two doctors down and only one to go. Dr. Spalding is up next with radiation.

Dad on the other hand has had some difficult twists and setbacks. Many of you know his constant battle with gout. Well with the last round we were noticing that he just wasn't getting better and this was concerning. Becky, who has been a big blessing for all of us, suggested that we prick Dad's finger and get a glucose number. His feet were really swollen and discolored which is evidence of poor circulation possibly caused by diabetes. So we did take his number and it was 238, which is extremely high. We waited two hours, he had just drank some orange juice, and yet it was over 230. We quickly made an appointment to see the doctor. There after some tests Dr. Murray diagnosed dad as being diabetic. He prescribed him some medication that he hopes that will aid in bringing things around. He wants to see Dad back in 3 weeks to do some more tests, but till then has put Dad on a strict, strict diet program. He hopes that it was a result stress, and the gout and so forth.

So from now on this blog will be about both Mom and Dad and will hopefully be about not just diseases and illnesses, but good reports about them and their experiences as well.