Cancer Support and Caregivers Who Are Trail Blazers!

[JustJo]

Hi everyone

I'm back at home after 4 days of visiting Mom at the hospital, running her errands, taking care of things at her house and, unfortunately, having to patch up the damage that my sister did with Mom's friends as well as the doctors and hospital staff.

Overall, she's doing a bit better. She's extremely thin....skin and bones really....but she is now on a soft diet and able to keep a little food down. Nothing more than 1/2 a cup at a time, but soup, pudding, half a banana...she even wanted a strawberry milkshake enough to ask for one and drink an inch or two of it. That's huge since nothing has sounded remotely good to her for a long time now.

She's completed her TPN training (once I got her a new instructor, rewrote the instructions, and trained them on her learning style....did I mention that I'm pushy?)....but once we got that all right she sailed through and feels comfortable managing it herself.

She would like to go home for a week or two and then come here (once the Avastin clears her system and they get to see what this mass is), but that's debatable. The challenge right now is that her blood pressure is staying way too low (80s over 50s), and they are struggling to keep her fluid levels up. In the hospital they can pump her full with IVs but that won't work from home...so they're trying a medication that is supposed to help slow down the travels of fluid to the ostomy (no clue how)....but we have our fingers crossed on that.

Now that she can manage the TPN, if they can get the blood pressure and fluid levels right, then she can come here to me to get through the rest of the chemo, then build up strength and weight for a few months....and then comes the belly wash procedure (if she decides to go ahead). Right now, she's not sure. She did accept some counseling and discussion with a wonderful woman who does counseling with cancer patients for hospice....and I'm hopeful that will help her sort out her feelings and choices.

Mentally she is absolutely 100% herself, and as fiercely independent as ever...so the choices are hers, and I've committed to backing her up on whatever decision she makes.

Thanks so much to everyone for the support.