A turn for the worse

Well as if the last blog was not depressing enough. Here is the latest news. For about one week now Heather has been very sick. SHe has been throwing everything up not eating, and can hardly walk. For about a month my sister Heidi and i have been commenting on how mentally slow Heather has been. She takes sometime to process info and to respond to you. It seems like sometimes she does not even remember she was talking to you. On Wednesday night i went to Heather's house and there i had to help her get into the bath tub and i had to bathe her and wash her hair. Nobody should have to do this to there 31 year old sister. It was all i could do to not ball my eyes out. It was extremely hard because she is so disfigured from her double masectomy. While i was getting Heather out of the tub she had to sit on the floor because her left leg would not work. I begged her to go to the emergency room but she said if she was still sick in the morning she would. Well she did go to her oncologist the next day and they rehydrated her. I was pretty upset that they did not give her as much fluid as i thought she should get. She was to go back to the doctor on friday (yesterday) and get more fluid and an ultrasound of her stomach to see if there was fluid in it causing her to throw up.

I have been sick so i slept in yesterday and turned my phone off, something i never do. I awoke to here that at 0800 in the morning on friday heather had a huge seizure and was taken by ambulance to the ED. She was sitting in bed getting ready to go to the doctor and my mom handed her her toothbrush and she could not hold it. SHe then started screaming she was dying and had a good seizure. My mother called 911 and Scott (Heather's husband)kept trying to keep heather breathing while my father gave her a blessing. When the ambulance got there she had just stopped seizing and all she could say was she wanted her daddy to hold her. So my father who is petrified of hospitals bit the bullet for his baby girl and rode in the ambulance. At the E.D. they did a cat scan of her brain and found that she has four tumors in her brain. The largest one is 4 cm and is pressing right on her brain stem. Hense why she has had memory problems recently, not able to move her leg very well, and all her throwing up.

I was extremely upset by this as she just had a scan which we got the results only 4 days prior. THey did not mention any problems in her brain. As i probed for answers to this i found that her last scan two weeks ago only took pictures from her neck down which is why they did not know this. I just don't understand how come the doctor did not scan her brain after he knew her cancer was in her bones. Being a medical professional i know that once it is in the bones, the next place it takes up as residency is the brain. Heather already had radiation therapy on her brain yesterday, and will for the next 12 days or so. However, they are coming to talk to her on Monday after she gets and MRI to discuss if surgery is an option and if heather even wants to do chem or radiation. The oncologist met with Scott cause Heather was so mad at him she did not want to talk to him. He told Scott that heather's days are numbered on this earth and if everything was done to treat her the longest she would live is to the end of this year. I don't think she will make it that long. My guess is 3-6 months, and quicker if she does not get any treatment.

I don't know how to keep going on at this point. Obviously life will and others have done it when there loved ones pass, but right now i am so angry and upset and feeling guilty that i did not push harder to get her to the specialists at UCLA. She chose to get a second opinion here in orange county rather than there and i felt i had pushed enough. I now realize that is not true. I failed my promise to do all that i could to cure her. I just wanted to update everyone as i know Heather's friends and family read my blog since she does not update hers often. I feel so much for my parents who have to loose a child and for Scott who will loose a wife at the age of 32 after only almost 7 years of marriage. I am grateful that Tristan and i moved so close to them so that i can be here for Heather at this time and that I can be there for her children for the rest of my life. I have promised her to help raise them as my own children, that is the least i can do for her.

Much thanks and love for all who have our family in their thoughts and prayers and to my husband who held me til 0400 this morning when i finally stopped crying and fell asleep.