My Grandma Dian.

Many of you that are closer to me, are aware that my grandma is currently battling a pretty bad illness.

Sadly my grandma Dian, the only grandparent I have left, is not doing very well. She has a type of blood cancer that is called MDS or myelodysplastic syndrome they use to call it pre-leukemia. It is the same disease that Robin Roberts from Good Morning America had just beat. Trouble with MDS is that there is not a lot you can do but have a bone marrow transplant (BMT)... and they don't tend to perform BMTs in older patients cause the process to rid the person of the cancer cells (aka intense irradiation) often is so hard on the older person it kills them before a BMT could actually be done. So this is not something that my grandma could even do. 

MDS is considered a disease of the elderly, because more often it occurs in older individuals, when you make blood throughout your life you progressively accumulate mutations in these cells, and if you get enough 'bad' mutations you can create cancerous cells or in the case of MDS, blood precursor cells that do not do their job and people suffer severe anemia. It is interesting, or at least I find it interesting, that they are finding many patients that have received chemo or radiation to fight another cancer, like breast cancer, go on to develop MDS (just like Robin Roberts and my grandma). The theory is that the chemo and/or radiation causes another 'hit' or mutation to those bone marrow cells and the accumulation of these negative mutations causes the cells to become cancerous. There are a number of traits that a normal cell acquires to become a cancer cell, for example: the ability of the cell to grow without constraints (tumor masses/lumps), the ability to travel to other parts of the body (metastasize), and others. Some people are unfortunately born with/inherited a mutation or mutations that predisposes them to advance more easily in one or more these cancer characteristics or traits (i.e. the BRCA genes in breast cancer). 

That is exactly what happened with my grandma, she suddenly was just feeling light headed, dizzy and out of sorts, and then they found out through blood tests that all my grandma's blood cells were dangerously low! This happened in February or March I think it was. Since then she has literally been surviving on blood transfusion (SO PLEASE PLEASE DONATE BLOOD, NO EXCUSES!) anyway, I digress. For the last 4 months she has also been receiving a 'newer' drug, a kind of long shot, it is a type of chemo, but not like what most people think of chemo, but still decently rough for my 78 year old grandma. Unfortunately after 4 rounds of this drug, it was apparent it was not really doing much good for her, and her blood counts were not recovering even close to normal. 

Enter a few days ago, Monday to be exact, my mom lets my siblings and I know, if we want our kids to see grandma when she is more coherent and still somewhat herself we should visit soon. My first reaction: 

WHAT? 

That seemed all of a sudden, I am very logical, and I have read A LOT about this disease, and I am realistic, but I thought she was doing pretty well with her transfusions... well turns out the blood transfusions don't seem to be even improving her quality of life right now. For some reason (there are so many things in life/health/science we can't explain) but the blood transfusions aren't doing anything to helping her feel somewhat normal anymore.

You know what that means? 

There is absolutely nothing left anyone can do.

Like I said, I am a very logical person, I like to read about things, know about them, understand things, especially medical disorders and cancer. Up till Monday I think I was handling things really well, I was very composed and understanding, helping others understand and process, but when I saw my grandma, the only grandparent I have left on this earth, and she looked almost like a dead person already, my walls broke, and I was just her granddaughter again, not a scientist, not a logical-I-read-all-about-it-person. I was crushed.

Enter a new parenting experience: how do you explain to your 2 and half year old why mommy is so sad and crying? How do you explain death? How do you explain how a granddaughter feels when she is inevitably going to loose her grandmother?

Evelyn saw me crying very very hard and said: 'mommy what is wrong? it is ok mommy.'

I reply: 'mommy is sad' Evelyn: 'Why mommy?' Me: 'Well you know grammy Dian who we just visited, she is sick and she is not going to be here very long' Evelyn: 'Why?' Me: "Well sometimes we get sick and our bodies shut down and then we die and go to heaven." Evelyn: 'Why?' Me: "mommy is going to really miss Grammy Dian" Evelyn: "Grammy Dian going to go to heaven, and mommy going to miss her a lot."

BREAK MY HEART TO PIECES! not only is Evelyn such a smart girl (I know I am biased, but I think she is amazing) but here she is caring for her mom so much, hugging me, consoling me, telling me everything is ok, trying to understand something that is so foreign and new to her and she pretty much nails it! Evelyn proceeded to repeat this last line many times Monday night, and I just cried.

Grandma Dian is still with us at the time of writing this post, she did not receive her blood transfusion yesterday, which means she will be inevitably running out of blood soon. Now we just wait, and make her comfortable, she is not in pain, so we are thankful for that. I am also happy for grandma to be able to see her husband, my grandpa, whom she has been apart from for the last 20 years, I am happy they will be able to be together again! See I still am optimistic, even when very sad! :) 

In the words of my Grandma Dian: Love you, love you!