Non-update Update

Hi everyone!

We apologize for the lack of posts here - there is not too much to report.  Since Mom took a break from the chemo, things have been pretty quiet.  In a typical week - Mom goes to acupuncture twice, to help with the nausea (and I am sure 100 other things if you ask Dr. Jie Wang, who does the pricking), and then various physical therapists, mainly for her arm. I am not sure if we mentioned it here, but her left arm has been very swollen since her trip to the hospital at the Cape.  On the first go round with cancer, she had to get the lymph nodes under her left arm removed - which now causes lymph to build up in her arm if something is restricting it's flow. (What is lymph you ask - well, it is a colorless fluid containing white blood cells, which bathes the tissues and drains through the lymphatic system into the bloodstream. Thank you Wikipedia)  Well, when mom was in the hospital, they put her hospital bracelets on her left wrist (bad idea), which causes the fluid to stop "flowing" properly, and since there are no lymph nodes there to keep things moving -her arm swelled up. The medical term for this is Lymphedema.  To treat this, Mom wears a compression sleeve (very fashion forward) and also does Manual lymph drainage (or MLD).  It is not as gross as it sounds, trust me - MLD is a light massage therapy technique in which the skin is moved in certain directions based on the structure of the lymphatic system. This helps the lymph fluid drain through the proper channels. See, not so bad?

Other than that, she is just sleeping a lot and trying to get some energy back. She heads back to the Dr. next week to see what's next on the chemo front, so we will let everyone know how that goes when we hear something.

On the Non-Mom update front - thanks to Blizzard Nemo this weekend, we had to cancel a shower for Beth up in Boston!  It was just our luck that the storm hit at the same time our flight was to land at Logan. However, in true Beth fashion - she did not panic or even get upset!  (Thank God she is a laid back bride!)  The wedding is only 110 days away - hopefully the weather will cooperate in June :)

Hope everyone had a great weekend!  Keep the prayers coming!

XO,

Caitlyn