The Full Story

I just sent an email to my peeps who aren't necessarily following this blog or my FB page, and I thought the big picture of my aunt's recent story would make sense here, too.

Last year, she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma of the bone marrow (MMM). In February, she started chemotherapy treatments, and that had been going well. She was tolerating the meds and was pleased she hadn't lost her hair.

During testing for the MMM, however, doctors found a spot in her lung, about the size of a quarter. While they were making plans to biopsy it, they uncovered another one, very small. They decided to only biopsy the bigger of the two, and about 2 or 3 weeks ago they confirmed the bigger one was malignant. They were going on the assumption that the second one was also malignant, and scheduled surgery for last Thursday, 5/21.

However, the weekend of May 16, her back started hurting, and after many phone calls to doctors and many (many) pain pills, they finally decided she should be admitted to the hospital, where they discovered she had more compressed disks (she's had a bad back for years). Doctors said it could be from the MMM, from her osteoporosis, from previous falls, or just 'old.' There was some talk of doing a back surgery before the lung surgery, but cooler heads prevailed. She stayed in the hospital the rest of the week and they operated on 5/21.

The good news was that the cancer hadn't spread to her lymph nodes, and they believed they got all the bad tissue from both spots. She was slowly recuperating, when on Sunday, she was having trouble breathing, so they put her on a respirator.

This morning (Thursday), the doctors were concerned about her being on the respirator so long, so they are doing a bronchiotomy to make sure the passageway is clear. At this point I'm still waiting for my dad to call with an update.

Aunt Irene is my mom's sister, and even though at one point I had three other aunts (my dad's sisters), if anyone asked how many aunts I had, I'd likely only count Aunt Irene (sorry, Aunt Helen, Aunt Dot, and Aunt Sister). She is special, and after my mom died, she became my new emotional mom. She really needs to pull through, not just for me and Ray, but for everyone else who have come to love her through the years. Please hold her in your hearts.