L7 Tumor & Radiation

This morning everything has gone fast and crazy. Mom is still not responsive and it is scaring everyone. The pharmist (Adam J) suggested a drug that reverses the impact of vallum. Once that was done we were able to wake her up and bit and she did respond though very weakly. Dr. Hagemeister ran in with a CT scan from Wednesday. It was a scan of her thoracic and lumbar spine. It showed a large soft tissue mass on the right side of the T7 vertebral body with extension into the pedicale and the right transverse process and the lamina. There is extension into the spinal canal towards the right likely resulting in cord compression. In English ... this means that this nasty cancer has not only taken over her entire skeletal structure but now it is after more real estate producing tumors (plasmacytoma)that are pressing against her spinal cord. Dr. Dabaja immediately came to Mom's room to evaluate her and she was able to act based upon the MRI from December 10. This was a huge exception to how these guys normally operate ... they dropped everything and got her into radiation. The reason ... the spinal cord compression could impact her ability to walk and control her bowels. Needless to say we are sweating bullets. Mom was awake enough for me to explain it to her and she replied "now we know what the problem is". Once we finished radiation they sent us to ICU.