Nila, My Mother-in-Law

As I mentioned in the previous post, John's mother (Nila, pronounced "Knee - la") has been struggling with her health, so I thought I'd write a post about her.

For those of you who don't know the situation, here's a brief summary of what's been going on: For 19 years now, Nila has been living with CLL. CLL is Chronic lymphocytic leukemia and it is the least severe type of leukemia ... I don't mean to minimize it, since every single type of leukemia is horrible, but at least a person with CLL can take medication and live a fairly normal life. Nila's doctor said that on average, people diagnosed with CLL live with it for 10 years before it progresses into something worse. So we consider her lucky to have gone 19 years with it!

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In January, she felt really weak one day and asked John to take her to the emergency room. Once admitted to the hospital, they discovered that her platelets had dropped very low and she was at risk of bleeding to death internally. This was a very scary time where she received several blood transfusions and underwent many tests to determine why her platelets were so low. They tested her bone marrow to figure out if it was still producing platelets and the results weren't good. They gave her the new diagnosis of MDS, or Myelodysplastic syndrome. This is a separate kind of leukemia where the bone marrow no longer produces platelets. Without platelets, her blood will not clot and she'll experience internal bleeding. Some patients with MDS endure a bone marrow transplant to treat the disease, but most patients are not eligible for this treatment method. Since Nila is 83 years old, a bone marrow transplant was out of the question. They informed us there was a new form of chemotherapy that could be administered, but the success rates weren't very high. They said it might help her body start producing SOME platelets which would decrease the frequency of her transfusions.

When she first received this diagnosis, the situation looked very grim. Nila was in the hospital for 6 weeks and she didn't seem to be holding onto the platelets they were giving her through transfusions. But slowly, things started to improve and she got out of the hospital at the end of February. When she was discharged, we knew that she would need to return to the hospital frequently for treatment ... it didn't make sense for her to return home to Union City, so we had her move in with us. John has been an amazing son to his mother and has always taken really good care of her. Since she moved in, he has taken her back to the hospital at least twice every week and stayed there with her the entire day while she's received platelets and red blood cells. Every 4 weeks, he takes her there every single day (5 days in a row) for her chemotherapy. She has now completed 3 rounds of chemo and has 2 more to go.

Several weeks ago, she was reaching up to adjust the curtains in her bedroom and she hurt her back. The pain was pretty severe, so she told the doctors about it. They had her get an MRI which revealed a fracture in one of the bones in her spine. Apparently, this can be common with older people, since their bones become brittle and can break easily (Osteoporosis). Anyway, there's not much they can do for it, other than prescribe pain medications. This has been a very difficult time for her, since it's extremely painful to move around a lot, or bend over. Yesterday, the doctors discussed some different options on how to deal with this to make her more comfortable. Hopefully, they'll be able to help her soon, since we hate seeing her in so much pain. One thing that's nice to see is how happy Reagan and Avery make her. When Avery was born, I tried to spend a lot of time with Reagan so she wouldn't feel like I was neglecting her while taking care of Avery. In order to do this, I often had Nila hold Avery, especially while she was sleeping. Nila quickly developed a special bond with Avery. As a parent, it's very rewarding to watch someone else fall in love with your child. I snapped this picture back in April (4/3/08) when Nila was holding Avery and she fell asleep too. It was a precious moment, Avery and her Abuela taking a nap together :)