It started yesterday. Mom was having a hard time keeping food down. By night time, she couldn’t even hold on to a few tablespoons of simple vegetable broth that I’d made. This morning, it started all over. My mom has nothing in her stomach and yet keeps coming up with something. We had a 10:30

Over the last year, I have read a lot about cancer in general and bladder cancer specifically. While most of my “day job” is focused on advances in pharmaceuticals, genomics, and biotechnology, I have noted an interesting trend in what I have been reading. “Establishment medicine” has finally recognized the role of integrated medicine in

Easter weekend was relatively quiet. My dear friend JS came on Saturday, bringing positive energy, familiar stories, a smile and laughter to mom’s house. What a breath of fresh air. I had decided to make traditional Portuguese Easter bread, even though my mom would not be able to eat much, if any. Something about that

The house is quiet. I used a clothes pin to attach a sign on the front door: “Sleeping. Please do not disturb.” It’s Good Friday, and a high chance that unannounced visitors may drop by on their way home from church. My mother is in no condition to receive guests. I’ve put her to bed

Technically, they call it Day 8 because they count from the first day of chemo. But today was mom’s second treatment day, another long (9:30 AM to 5:30 PM) day of pre-hydration, gemzar, cisplatin, post-hydration and electrolytes. In between, I did some light housekeeping, laundry, and some grocery shopping. We got home and I raced

It’s perhaps one of the most delicate issues when you’re seriously ill — how to graciously accept the flood of concern and help from friends and family, while not allowing yourself to be smothered by it. My mother’s phone rings all day. Her next door neighbor calls multiple times a day and if my mother

For all the advances in cancer care over the last several decades (not the least of which is in the field of genomics), most of the time we are still reduced to three choices: poison, knives or radiation. You either kill it, cut it or burn it. Cisplatin, which is one of the drugs my

Arrived at the infusion center this morning at 9 AM. I got up at 6 AM to do some yoga, which I’ve found extremely helpful physically and mentally. The infusion center is at the doctor’s office. It’s an open room with nine reclining chairs, so you hear the side conversations of everyone around you. The

We had our appointment with the oncologist today, in preparation for mom’s start of chemotherapy on Monday. Her bone scan looks good. There was something suspicious in her chest CT, but he said he was not worried about it. My mom’s had a couple very rough days, feeling very uncomfortable with her distended abdomen. He