"How's Jane?"

People are always asking me "how's your mom?" and sometimes I just don't know how to answer. My canned (but honest) response is that she's in good spirits and is much more comfortable now that she can breathe again. But then I mention the caveat that she has stage four cancer and her lung won't stop over-producing fluid.

She's been in the hospital now for over a month. Here's the long-winded version of how she's doing:

She's in high spirits and her body is doing really well with the chemotherapy treatments. So far she's had 3 treatments. They give her a bunch of medications for nausea so she hasn't felt the ill effects yet. She was told that her hair would start falling out after the 2nd treatment...but since she refuses to have anything more than a sponge bath while in the hospital (for over a month!!!), she doesn't yet know if her hair is indeed falling out. For the first few weekends I was home, I'd spend most of our ~2 hour hospital visits brushing and braiding her hair (she loves it when people do her hair). This last visit I didn't...I think because the greasiness of her hair grossed me out and because I was afraid it would all fall out. She said she'd like to get a really short hair cut when she gets home and then just shave later her head to avoid the whole issue.

I finally spoke to the oncologist today (not because I didn't trust what my mom was telling me but because I wanted to hear it "from the horse's mouth" and find out if there was any other information that didn't get passed on). He confirmed that she's in stage 4 metastatic breast cancer (stage 4 means metastatic so that's a bit redundant--it means that the breast cancer is the origin of the cancer but it has spread to other locations, her lungs and bones). The chemo treatments are being done not to "cure" the cancer but simply to halt the progression. She'll receive the chemo for a few months, then they'll redo all the x-rays to determine if it has worked.

The only reason she is still in the hospital is because they need to wait until her lung fluid stops accumulating. I think she'll probably be home in time for Thanksgiving, but no one can be sure. It'll be quite an adjustment for her to be at home though since we've removed like 90% of the "stuff" from the house (mostly garbage she never threw away and old clothes she was keeping for unknown reasons). We've also found all of my and Edward's old baby clothes and baby toys. Many are in mint condition (even brand new in the packaging!) so we're keeping all that stuff stashed away for when we have our own kids. Since I was the only girl in the family, my grandma made me tons of clothes...poor Edward wore hand-me-downs from the Jones Family so most of his clothing didn't survive being piled-up for 20+ years. Hopefully at least one of us will have a baby girl because Lord knows we have enough gorgeous dresses and rompers for one!

Because she's not walked more than the two steps to her commode in the last month, she is much weaker now than before (muscle atrophy) but the doctor says that'll probably go away once she's not confined to the lung-drainage gizmo and she can walk around again. Her hands shake like crazy when she tries to lift anything heavier than the telephone. This freaked me out at first but today the doctor said that's probably just from lack of exercise.

She'll probably be able to drive when she gets out of the hospital (although not to her chemo treatments), but first we'll have to get her a newer vehicle and she'll have to regain her strength. For the last 22 years she's been driving what our family calls the Swedish Death Star--her tan 1986 Volvo sedan that just won't quit. (It has been in accidents, had pieces fall off of it, the seats, doors, clutch, and AC have all been replaced multiple times and the DMV even changed it's status to "totaled" after one accident but she bought it back from them anyway and got my dad to make it drivable.) We'll get her a minivan or something that doesn't require climbing into the cab (like my parents' truck) or any knee bending to get into a sitting position (like most sedans). It'll have air conditioning, a working speedometer, heat, defrost, working locks and door handles--you know, all the "regular" functions you expect from a car but which her current car lacks.

My ultimate question to the doctor was if he knew how long she would live. He said there is no way to pinpoint a timeline for any given patient but that on average (notice the bold font) patients with stage 4 breast cancer live ~3 years--many live less than that and many live more than that. He encouraged me to remain in school full-time right now since we don't and can't know what will happen until we see how she does with her treatments.

This is all I know, and it turns out to be exactly what my mom had told us all along. I feel much better after talking to the doctor--it sounds like we should hope for the best (she can return to a normal but modified life at home while undergoing treatment) but thinking about preparing for the worst (getting the house ready for a wheelchair, hospital bed, getting finances in order, etc.).