My wife and mother-in-law could use some happy thoughts right about now...
My wife's aunt (MiL's older sister) found out not long ago that her breast cancer (which had been in remission) was back. But before she could start chemo, she had to have surgery to remove a benign brain tumor. She had the surgery, and started chemo last week.
Saturday, we found out she had been admitted to the hospital for what we were told was pneumonia. We found out Monday that it was actually a pulmonary embolism. We found out last night that the clot is still there. (We found out today that it is sitting where the pulmonary artery splits to go to each lung.)
Today, my MiL, FiL, wife, and MiL's brother went to the hospital to see my wife's aunt. Although the aunt may be able to leave the hospital by the end of next week, she will have to go to an extended care facility. As long as she has the clot, she cannot restart chemo. (She is on blood thinner and other meds to reduce the clot, but that takes time.) The cancer has spread more than I knew, into her lymph nodes, bone, and somewhere else I don't remember. If she sits up, her has difficulty breathing. She managed to get out of bed this morning, but had to sit down almost immediately. After that, it took about 2 hours for her to get her breathing back to "normal."
The doctor bluntly told brother, FiL, and me that she will die of cancer. (We followed the doctor out of the room to talk to him.) There is pretty much no chance that it will go into remission again. She's lucky she's still alive, as the location of the clot she had normally kills the person before they get to the hospital. As it is, she really isn't improving much, and what little improvement she has had has been very slow. (The doctor said he had hoped she would be up and moving by today.)
Aunt has refused to discuss hospice, which leads me to think she plans to fight as hard as she can. But with the complications she already has and not being able to restart chemo, I don't know how well she will be able to fight.
