no bad news is good news

The doctors at Suburban decided to transfer Carmen to Johns Hopkins, and oh what a transfer it was--her ambulance got a flat tire, and her backup ambulance got lost so 2 hours after leaving Suburban she finally arrived at 5am at Hopkins.

At Suburban they suspected an infection, but after a CT scan saw that the tumors were slightly compressing the inferior vena cava, which became the prime suspect of the fluid retention. If this was the case they would put in a stent to help keep the vein open. But, luckily the medical oncologists at Hopkins decided to do a scan of the legs to see if anything else was going on. The scan showed that she has two blood clots one in each of her legs. So, the doctors have decided to do a de-blood-clotting procedure, where they stick a catheter in each of the affected veins and introduce a medicine that will dissolve the clots. Unfortunately, she will have to be in the ICU after this procedure to monitor the effects of the blood thinner closely. Hopefully this procedure will go well, and by tomorrow she feels better.

Tom and I are heading up to hang out with Carmen and Jose before the procedure and to sit around the ICU's waiting room. So even though there are risks associated with this procedure, the good news is that her liver and kidneys are function just fine.

Comments

The feared M-word

Today I felt the pain of mortality stab me in the heart. I have always been optimistic of my mother’s condition, knowing that with optimism and hope we could battle her cancer and finally overcome her disease. These past few years since her diagnosis of retroperitoneal liposarcoma in October/September of 2005 have been a rollercoaster of highs and lows, getting through it all. I tried to be strong for my mother, show her the strength she has within, assure her that she is doing everything she can to heal herself, and that surely she is on her way to recovery. I thought that in believing in her and her strength that she would be able to overcome anything. With every returning tumor she was better equipped to heal her body, to teach her body to heal itself. I was there supporting her through her surgeries, her trial chemo treatments, always there letting her know that she was on the road to recovery. Today after finishing her second round of a trial chemo that seemed hopefull...

Carmen Mateo

My mother was first diagnosed with retroperitoneal liposarcoma in October of 2005. I had come home to see her in the hospital—during the removal of a cyst on her breast the doctors accidentally punctured her lung. It was during her stay at the hospital that they completed an MRI of her core (to verify the lung’s status) and found a large mysterious mass—a tumor. Though frightened by this news she was thankful for the discovery. Weeks went by as my parents spoke with other doctors and centers trying to figure out what this tumor was and what to do. Eventually she was diagnosed—liposarcoma, a rare type of cancerous tumor that manifests itself as a mass of fat. The irony of it—my mother the skinniest petite woman in the world, had a fat tumor. Right before Thanksgiving she went to Sloan Kettering to have surgery to remove the almost 8lb tumor. Being the strong woman that she is, she recovered quickly from the surgery and began her healing journey. It was years bef...

"Nothing with me is simple...

but I am STILL HERE!" - Carmen Today was another crazy day for Carmen, you know to keep things interesting. The radiologists looked at the ultrasound, and based on that thought that perhaps it wasn't blood clots but the compression of the inferior vena cava instead. So they did a venogram to look at the veins to verify the presence of the blood clots. As it turned out, there were no blood clots, and the fluid retention was based on the compression of the lower vena cava. The doctors put in 2 or 3 stents to reinforce the vein that was nearly completely compressed by the tumors, which took quite some time because of a minor hiccup. The second stent only half deployed, but was attached to the stent above it, and so they had to hold the top stent from above as they pulled the lower stent to fully open it. (To all my future doctor friends--I can't believe you are going to be doing crazy on the spot stuff like this. You guys are awesome!) Because Carmen was actually half con...

Nectar of Life

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