And we're done.

So...by 11 pm Mom's systolic BP was back up to 97 and she was feeling a lot better so she okayed a third dose.

Almost immediately that BP number fell down to the 60s and she was put on Neo (the hard-core blood pressure drug that requires titrating every 15 min). Though she didn't get any nausea or diarrhea, she did have chill/rigors that required Demerol and then an excruciating pain radiating down her right arm that took 3 doses of Dilaudid (if I understood correctly) to control.

By the morning her BP was back up in the 90s (still on Neo), the pain was under control, and she was working on getting all the drugs out of her system. But it wasn't fun.

When the head of the IL-2 program stopped by he had a different message than usual. He said that he thought they could probably safely get her through 2 more doses (to a total of 5) if she wanted to wring every last possible dose out of the treatment, but that he was very comfortable with her stopping. She had received 13 doses over cycles 5 and 6 and showed definite signs of responding and there's simply no data or indication about the incremental benefit of a couple of doses by the last cycle. And with her crashing hard with each additional dose at this point it wasn't necessarily worth it.

She had Jon and me come over and we talked about it as a family and were all very at peace with the decision to call it a day for IL-2. Two months ago (after Cycle 4) we had all pretty much decided she was done then, so the fact that she went back and got 13 more doses(!) is all icing on the cake and hopefully will be that extra bit she needs to keep the cancer at bay for a good long time

I'm sure she's feeling a lot of relief right now (under the feverish yuckiness) and all she has to focus on now is letting her body and systems recover. If she improves at a decent rate they'll even let her come back home to our place tomorrow; if not, she ought to be released out by Saturday.

Thanks to EVERYONE for your help and support through these 6 cycles. All of you who came up to be with her in Portland or took care of her in Corvallis are particularly appreciated, but really, it was the love and support and energy sent from everyone, whether you came to the healing breakfasts or sent emails or just read this blog and sent good thoughts. We can't thank you enough.