Scared and full of questions....

lishman

Hello,

This is all very new to my family. My mother who is 61 dx March 19, 2003 with AML. She finished the first round of chemo and did and bone marrow yesterday and are anxiously waiting for the results to see what our next steps are. She is having a rough time after the chemo, bad mouth sores and platelets are real low, they have dropped as low as 2. I have enjoyed this board to see there are many survivors of this disease. She is a fighter and not a complainer so I know our family can make it through as well. She is at Mayo Hospital and I know she is in good hands. I don't think it's hit us or my mom yet and again....thanks for the posts on here to learn more about what she is facing.

Live, Laugh and Love....Lori

dickl

lishman,
My son was diagnosed with aml in 11/95 and underwent three grueling rounds of chemo. All in house at Children's in Cincy. Sores from his sinuses down through his g.i. tract. Platlets and whole blood given pint after pint. His comfort was contolled with anti-nausea drugs like zofran and pain with a morhine pump. We stayed in the room with him every minute.He went into remission in 5/96 and undrewent a transplant from his mom in 6/96,it was a tough road but we tried to enjoy each day as a family. We laughed,cried,and lived. He is now 14 and considered cured.Be your mom's advocate and always ask every question that comes
to your mind.Feel free to contact me if I can be of any support or help.

**** Lukens
"dickl"

Roswell3

Lori,
I was diagnosed with AML at 53. I have just finished my third round of chemo at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo,NY. I have had almost all of the side effects possible with this treatment. The one thing I can tell you is that things WILL get better with time and it's important to keep a positive attitude. The mouth sores are the worst part of the treatment. I insisted on having a salt-water rinse for my mouth and that cleared things up more quickly than any of the other medications or rinses the doctors recommended. I actually went 5 days without being able to drink even water. It's hard, but it will get better with time. Give your mom all the love and support you can and always keep a cheerful attitude when you visit. Good luck. If you want to visit my web site, you will see what I went thru to get where I am now. Your mom probably won't have all the problems I had, but you can get an idea of what to expect.
http://www.bluemoon.net/~reynolds/rpci

lishman

My mother is still hospitalized after her 26th day of the induction treatment. She had a very rough go around. She is in the ICU for the third time and 2 days ago her counts finally started increasing so we are hoping that she is out of the most critical part of the induction. I am just worried...as hard as this was on herbody, will her body can stand 2 more rounds of the consolidated treatment? Her last bone marrow was clean but will do another at the end of this week to see if she is still clean. She has been on so much medicine with her reactions, lung hemmorage, fungo infections, low potassium, etc. She continues to have a great attitude still with all she has been through. We are hoping to have our Mom home soon.

mr8cl

I am an AML survivor myself, morphology M4 Inv 16. It's a very tough road, but it is possible to get through. Keep the faith....if it weren't for Jesus, I'd be dead.

Unknown

Roswell3 said:

Lori,
I was diagnosed with AML at 53. I have just finished my third round of chemo at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo,NY. I have had almost all of the side effects possible with this treatment. The one thing I can tell you is that things WILL get better with time and it's important to keep a positive attitude. The mouth sores are the worst part of the treatment. I insisted on having a salt-water rinse for my mouth and that cleared things up more quickly than any of the other medications or rinses the doctors recommended. I actually went 5 days without being able to drink even water. It's hard, but it will get better with time. Give your mom all the love and support you can and always keep a cheerful attitude when you visit. Good luck. If you want to visit my web site, you will see what I went thru to get where I am now. Your mom probably won't have all the problems I had, but you can get an idea of what to expect.
http://www.bluemoon.net/~reynolds/rpci

I go to Roswell Park too. I am from the area and go to college there. I would love to talk with you, if you have time. By the way, I have Acute Lymphocytic Leuekemia.. but I just found out I am in remission only a month a half after being diagnosed. I still get treatment though. Take Care. Hope to hear from you soon. Katie

Roswell3

unknown said:

I go to Roswell Park too. I am from the area and go to college there. I would love to talk with you, if you have time. By the way, I have Acute Lymphocytic Leuekemia.. but I just found out I am in remission only a month a half after being diagnosed. I still get treatment though. Take Care. Hope to hear from you soon. Katie

To Kate: sorry I took so long to reply, just been busy with treatments and other stuff.
Send email to me at reynolds@bluemoon.net and we can talk about leukemia and any questions
you might have.

niavas

lishman said:

My mother is still hospitalized after her 26th day of the induction treatment. She had a very rough go around. She is in the ICU for the third time and 2 days ago her counts finally started increasing so we are hoping that she is out of the most critical part of the induction. I am just worried...as hard as this was on herbody, will her body can stand 2 more rounds of the consolidated treatment? Her last bone marrow was clean but will do another at the end of this week to see if she is still clean. She has been on so much medicine with her reactions, lung hemmorage, fungo infections, low potassium, etc. She continues to have a great attitude still with all she has been through. We are hoping to have our Mom home soon.

I was diagnosed with aml last year, and everything that could go wrong did. I ended up losing my splean, I had the mouth sores, i gained 70 lbs of water from low potasium. and i hemraged for 1.5 months strait. in one day I had 5 blood transfusions. What type of AML does you mom have? you can E-mail me at red_headed_hysteria@hotmail.com