The first 48 hours

Mom left the Cancer Center and went home to pack a bag. What in the world do you pack? What will I need? Who will get the mail? A million things raced thru her head. Who do I call? How can I say those words? "I have leukemia." But it was official. No more hope that the test could be negative. It was positive.

Mom called Chad and asked him to tell me. She couldn't do it - no way would I be able to understand her words through the tears. Chad came home, told me the diagnosis and we all headed to the hospital. We didn't know anything at that point - what they were going to do, what was going to happen, nothing.

At 5:00 p.m. Mom was admitted and an IV was started. Dr. Jeong came in to talk about how he would treat the Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia. He was very concerned and tried to explain the severity of this disease. The only descriptive word that got across was "if." He explained how her white blood cells are not maturing before they are released into her bloodstream. "This is a fast growing disease and we will use aggressive chemotherapy for 30 days to treat it. IF you get past that".... and the rest of his words were lost. Mom heard that 1 word, those 2 little letters, and did not hear any more. Dr Jeong went on talking, but his words disappeared into thin air. The rest of the night is a blur to me now. Lots of uncertainty and tears.

Little by little, we contacted friends and family. Saturday was filled with many visitors and many more tears. It seemed we had bits and pieces of this process and we were all trying to fit it together into one master plan. With a room full of visitors, a nurse would come in and explain something. Once she left, we would all talk and somehow we all heard something different. Dr Siratna was on call that weekend and he explained her treatment plan:

• She will take a chemo pill called Tretinoin. She would take 4 pills in the morning and 4 pills at night. She has to wear rubber gloves to touch the pills and put them in her mouth. Don't touch them, but please swallow them...does that seem right?
• They will draw her blood every morning, test it, and watch her white blood cell count, red blood cell count and platelet count. In addition, they will watch her absolute neutropenic count. Once it is below 1 she can't have visitors. She will be too susceptible to germs and infection and will have no immune system to fight it.
• She will be on a continuous IV of sugar water. 
• Every night she will get a shot in the belly of Lovenox (a blood thinner). 
• On Monday, they would start chemotherapy through her IV. She would get that Mon., Wed., Fri. & Sun., then stop for 4 weeks. She would do that cycle 3-4 times.

With every piece of information, I felt a little better. I think it was just such a shock to get the diagnosis and worst-case scenario, then it takes awhile to slow down and sort it out.

On Sunday, Aunt Judy (Mom's sister) came up from Nashville. She is a nurse, her daughter, Kristi, is a pathologist and other daughter, Kim, is a doctor. Aunt Judy got all Mom's medical records faxed to Kristi so she could analyze them also. Kristi saw the good news she was hoping for. If we were going to go through this, she had "the best kind of leukemia to have."

Sunday was filled with many family and friends and more and more pieces of the puzzle. Blankets, lotion, books, movies, flowers, plants, cards, phone calls, CDs, pictures and a whole lot of love and support from all walks of life.

That weekend was a roller coaster. I don't remember everything that happened. I do know I have never cried, laughed, hugged and been so scared and relieved in all my life.