Cancer Center Event

Whoa so it's been a long time since I updated my blog. All my friends are sending out mass emails to every one about their recent lives and I guess it's about time to do mine XD

Anyway, so I quit my job and I'm back in Houston again, mom's down with cancer 3rd time. Chemo isn't helping anymore, so they're using stemcells to fight the cancer. So for those of you who's wondering what stemcells transplant is, well, here it is. First they inject you (on the stomach fat twice a day) with something call Neupogen. This is suppose to coax your body to grow more stemcells and release them into the blood stream so that they don't have to drill into your bone marrow to collect them.
*note stemcells are, from what I know, cells in the bone marrow that produce all the cells in your body. After about a week of Neupogen, your white blood cell count will go waaaay up, and then that's when they put you on a bed, draw blood from one arm, blood goes into this spin machine, it spins out the stemcells, and then pumps the blood right back to your body on the other arm.
I think after we get out of the hospital, we can become expert in medical stuff now...

Well, so last year when my mom did the stemcell transplant, they took her own stemcells, that didn't work, so this time, they got it from my uncle who's got matching stemcells. only 30% of the patients have this chance. So you think it's good news right? sorta... not!

My jerk of an uncle, he's a military guy. The stockmarket crash in Taiwan a few years back might have knocked his head a little sideways. So he came here to donate his stemcells to my mom but man, he sure caused some havoc. It took us about a month to schedule everything with the hospital and the insurance company for his arrival. After he got here, the hospital provided a translator for him and explained everything to him right? Then he was on Neupogen for about a week and then started his stemcell donation. The doctor asked for 10 million cells for my mom, 5 million for one transplant, and save 5 million for a second transplant if her cancer returns within 5 years, so that my uncle doesn't have to come over here next time when she needs more cells. Anyway, so they explained to him that each day, he'll be on the machine for a certain amount of time decided by the computer according to his weight, height, and blood flow from that day, around 2~6 hours. And then they'll count the # of cells collected at night and the next day they'll know if he needs to return for another collection. Perhaps there was some misunderstanding somewhere, he thought he would only be on the machine for 2 days, and then he booked tickets to Las Vegas with my aunt (in Austin).

But it turned out that, on the first day, the nurse at his station explained to him that on the average, each collection, they'll end up with roughly 2 million cells, although sometimes they'll see 5~10 million once a while. Therefore he was expecting at least 4 days for my uncle. Well, my uncle didn't believe him and said the doctor told him one or two days. We really don't know how many days since they won't have a cell count until after they've collected (and I did explained this to my uncle many times).

on the second day, they told us they got about 2 million cells, and he'll need to return for more. After he heard this, he was really pissed and he started yelling at the nurses and making a scene at the hospital! He demanded that he wanted to see the doctor, so the doctor dropped her other appointments and rushed over here. He told the doctor to put him on the machine for 6 hours, the maximum, but the doc explained that it's not possible because it is decided by his body condition of the day, the machine will run automatically, and that he is a donor so nobody is forcing him to donate, he's welcome to leave if he wants to. He was really pissed and said that they're treating him like a lab mouse, and said something about him having to come back endlessly because the hospital refused to draw 6 hours like he demanded. So my mom begged him to stay because 2 mil. cells is not even enough for one transplant..and he did... I left with my mom that day because she'd be having heavy sedation and I had to be with her, so my cousin's gf stayed with my uncle. When I got back, it was at the end of the collection, and I saw that his hand was swollen. He was yelling at the nurse saying he's so stupid not knowing what he was doing and that the nurse pumped the blood too fast back into his arm (which, I knew then was not true because the speed was all controlled by the computer). I pulled the nurse aside and asked him, and he said that my uncle probably moved his arm somehow and the needle popped out of his veins, and then he instructed me to give him ice and heat packs to help with the swelling, it should be fine by the next day. So I explained it to my uncle, told him not to worry and that it'll be ok, but he exploded at me too. I found out from my aunt that I was supposed to agree with him how stupid the nurse was and I was going to help him sue the hospital... And before he left, he took out his digital camera and took pictures of his arm in front of the nurses. Can you believe this? I don't know about you, but it made me feel like he was a little... immature??

So that night, he refused to speak to me (at the time I didn't even know what I did wrong) and when I offered a hot towel for his arm, he refused it and yelled at me! He even refused to eat, and when my mom offered him the bed because she wanted him to take care of his body since he's donating (there were only 2 twin beds and 5 of us in the apt), he refused and yelled at her too, so he slept on the recliner.

The next morning he got to the hospital, found that they've collected just enough for the first transplant. Usually they would like minimum of 4.8 mil cells for each transplant, and they've collected 4.7 mil from my uncle at that point. Then he told the nurse he refused to donate anymore and he's leaving town (to go to my aunt's in Austin). The nurse told him that he should wait an hour for the lab results to come in so they can make sure he has enough plalette and magnesium before he leaves the hospital, and if he's low, they could give him some, or it could be dangerous. He refused it and called my cousin to pick him up immediately and drive to Austin. Ohhhh I was so freakin' !@#%%^!@!! Then I went to my mom (who was somewhere else in the hospital waiting for her appt. She pretty much collapsed when she heard that he left and she was so angry that she was refusing the whole transplant! I didn't know what to do and I was freaking out because the doctor said my mom cannot be emotionally traumatized this way or it could be bad for her condition. Then I ran into a really really nice doctor from China. He's an observer and he's spoken to my mom a few times before. He'd been talking to us explaining a lot of things. So I told him about this and brought my mom over to talk to him. I figured that he could explain the situation better to my mom... and he did! It was a miracle!!! Not only did he make her feel better about the situation, he also talked to her about how to take care of herself after she gets out of the hospital and my mom actually listened to him!! After talking to him, my mom has the mind set that since she has this one opportunity, she's going to take care of her body (finally!!) and not come back to the hospital anymore!!! In the past, no matter how many times I tried to tell my mom to take care of her body, she just wouldn't listen! now the doc finally changed her mind. I really felt like he was an Angel, an answer to my prayers!

Since that talk, she's felt a lot better, although still mad at my uncle, she kept a pretty positive attitude and she's doing great!

Now the second half of the story....

So after my uncle left to Austin, he started to bad talk my mom and me. He told all our relatives that we treated him like crap and that we didn't even let him use the phone so he was cut off from his family and that his body couldn't take this anymore. He even call grandpa in China and lied to him that my mom wanted his bone marrow and that they've sucked the life out of him!! My grandpa got so worried and upset and he called my mom. Then my mom got upset because she didn't want grandpa to worry like this. She kept saying what's worse than knowing one of your children dying and the other one is refusing to save her. So my uncle kept lying about what happened to him that he's helping us and we're hurting his body and he had to protect himself. All our relatives in Austin started calling my mom and me day and night to yell at us, mostly me since I'm not the patient. I was so distraught that I couldn't sleep for days and with the phone calls coming in, neither my mom or me got any rest and they just kept yelling at us and believing everything my uncle said about his health. At first, I even went to the doctor to ask him about my uncle's condition, and the doc said that he's running fever and feel fatigue are just side effects of the Neupogen, just flu like symptoms to tell his body to produce more cells, but otherwise his body is absolutely fine and the symptoms are not even close to severe that he couldn't continue, it's all psychological. I explained it over and over to them in Austin to the point that I was just absolutely exhausted and just left the cell phons off because the calls wouldn't stop all day long.

After a few more days, I heard that my uncle was coming back (unwillingly) for one more collection, since the doc said that 4.7 mil is on the lower side and her body would have a higher risk of rejecting them. And also because my aunt's boyfriend refused to take them to las vegas after hearing what a jerk he is. So my uncle gave us "conditions" we had to agree to before he comes back, which was to have Steve (my stepdad) take 2 weeks off work to stay with him, that we had to get him a hotel for the time he's here, and that he's only giving 1 more mil by watching the clock and stopping the machine half way! When he came back the doctors were trying to convince him to donate a couple more days but he refused and he booked the ticket back to Taiwan the day after the scheduled collection so that they couldn't do anything about it.

So they did all that, Steve entertained him for two weeks, just 2 Neupogen shots a day at the hotel, and the last day a few hours for collection. Steve talked to the doctor and he knew my uncle is only going to do it just this last time, so he gave him a higher dose of the shots so the body would produce more... of course my uncle didn't know or else he wouldn't do it! Then after a few days, his while blood cells went way up, and my brainless aunt told my uncle about it and he was pissed saying that the hospital was cheating him of his cells!! Steve asked my aunt why she had to tell my uncle and she said she had to protect her brother!!! Steve was like what?!! why the @#$% are you trying to protect your healthy brother and not your dying sister!? So Steve just told my uncle that they weren't cheating him, just his body reacts differently, the nurse didn't know why. Since then, my uncle took every chance to make Steve's life miserable. I wasn't there for any of these, so no more juicy details, but I just heard that after the collection, he told Steve to lick his penis because it was itchy, way to humiliate people to make himself feel better.

Anyway, so after the last collection, it was about 1 more mil only (just like what my uncle had planned), but my mom still didn't have enough for back ups, so it's just this one time, the risk of rejection is lower now since she had a total of 5.7 mil. She just got the transplant on Sept. 11th (her new Birthday!). She's doing really good now and so am I, we're looking to leave the hospital soon in a week or two, and we'll be in the apt until end of this year or early Jan.

We're just glad that my uncle is gone, and God's answered two of my prayers! One of them is for my mom to realize that she needs to take care of her body so she won't get sick again, since nobody can do that for her, and another one is for her to accept that it's ok for me to get pregnant! She's actually kind of looking forward to it, since afterall being sick and not knowing when your last is, she kinda want to see her grand kids, and also the doc from China told her something about Chord Blood as an alternative if her cancer comes back and he brother refused to donate, so she actually told me that I could have a baby and save the umbilical chord to see if it'll match hers. I was very happy she said that, since everytime I mention anything about having babies before, she'd get so upset and think that I'm screwing up my life... I think now she's a lot more accepting.

Phew what a long blog. Thanks for reading and and thanks to all of you who's been praying hard and long for my mom.