They were very alarmed at how fast the muscles in her right front leg had atrophied. In just seven days the muscles had failed at an alarming level. Even without the MRI they were positive that severe damage to the spinal column had occurred, and the Lymphoma was the only likely culprit. Unfortunately there are very few drugs which can attack Lymphoma in the spinal column-- none of the chemos they had previously given her would work in those areas. They said it was very unlikely to be able to save her, and they had had very little success with this chemo in general, but Lomustine was the chemo most likely to be able to do something.
I really didn't have the money, but I committed to tossing this on a credit card and giving Eddie a chance. They took Eddie back to do the prep bloodwork... and couldn't do it. Lomustine is very hard on the liver. And somehow in the last week since they had seen Eddie, her liver had gone from "healing well and no evidence of cancer" to "off the charts not okay". Her ALT value had gone from mid-300s to above a thousand, which is the highest their gear can measure.
The doctor would not give this chemo to Eddie since he was fairly certain it would cause total liver failure. In short, a very painful death sentence. The lymphoma had apparently gone crazy on her system in just 10 days since the last chemo treatment. Her body was no longer capable of handing the only chemo which was known to attack lymphoma in the spinal column.
This was it. No more potentials. No more things to try. No more hope.
This was my fragile state of mind when I left for Portland.
