When my sister, Jo, was battling skin cancer at NIH, she dropped weight so fast. In the last 3 years of her life, I know that the chemo and experimental drugs really took a toll on her system. We all tried everything from Ensure or fruit shakes or just frozen fruit pops. Now, Jo was very much into cooking, so she still tried to keep playing tennis, making all efforts to live as if she was ok.
Then when she was at the point of taking stem cells...she got her appitite back. In fact, she loved to go to McDonald's for breakfast. She loved their coffee, and english muffin w/egg sandwich (can you tell I don't go there much -lol). Anyway, I would make a trip there and get her a large coffee, and 3 or 4 of those sandwiches because I knew later on after this go round, when we were back on the chemo, she would be loosing weight again. I hated it. I hated what it was doing to her.
I bought her a teddy bear from Vt. Teddy Bear Company when she was depressed, and not bouncing back from the treatments. That was a big hit for her, but no sooner than she got that, her energy level just dropped.
I just kept trying to boost her spirits. I would sent prayer cards, plants, balloons, funny cards, tennis balls, and just tons of pictures. It was the best thing to do to keep her guessing what was coming to her next.
The pain meds only help so much. Cancer sucks. I have lost not only my sister to cancer, but my Godfather. He died from brain cancer. I just cannot even talk about what happened to him. It is too fresh, and too overwhelming to me.
Namaste to all,
Andrew
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