Mom update

Chemo is over and she seems to be doing well. Dad says she's a little dizzy and tired, but doing well. She seems to be able to breathe better already, which is excellent news.

Also, I love LOLCats. Here is one for you today. The cat in the background looks like my Kismet. We all have days like this:

Photos because apparently Picasa hates me this week

Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! There was so much for us to be thankful for this year.

There are some photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Melanie.Simmonds/Thanksgiving2007

Mom had a good day. The other guests were Mark's dad (in the red shirt) and Betty and Bill Stoddard, longtime family friends. My DH Mark is not pictured, and I was running around a lot so I only made one and look irritated!

Spent time with mom on Friday and again yesterday. Today she starts the next round of chemo.

Doctor Visit Today

Mom is doing well. Doctor visit today. Will do another round of chemo starting next Monday, in his office unless something goes wrong and we have to go to the hospital. We got a Thanksgiving reprieve.

Nothing else to report really. Saturday was a good day.

I'm kind of dreading going out there tonight. I'm really tired and am having my seasonal allergy attack.

Weekend

So dad calls last night. He's lined up a potential caregiver and he's having her out tomorrow. At 8 a.m. Ok, that is SATURDAY. What do normal people my age do on Saturday (those without kids anyway) - SLEEP IN. I get up at 6:30 every day of the week to come to work. And it's been quite a week here. I see my house on Thursday nights and Friday nights and whatever time I eek out on the weekend - Tuesday nights I skate and Monday and Wednesday I go to moms. I have not put my laundry away in 2 weeks. My animals miss me. And my husband misses me too.

I told him I most assuredly was not getting up at 6:30 to be there at 8 on a Saturday. He said ok but be there by 9 because what if she needed something.

Where will he be? At the "land" he owns out in Whiteville. Because it's the opening day of deer season and he wants to watch for poachers.

WHATEVER.

Sorry - I've been bad

I keep meaning to post but it's been a bear of a week. The power keeps going out at work, which means we sit in the dark for an hour or more and then have to play catch-up.

On to what you really want to hear about - Roller Derby. I skated on Tuesday and my fanny is not broken yet. But my legs hurt.

No, seriously. Mom - she is doing fairly well altho I can see her getting a little weaker each day. Mentally, she's all there sometimes and not so much at others. She's more tired and sleeping more.

The doctor will decide on Monday if she is going to get more chemo. I'm not getting my hopes up - we'll just have to see.

We are working on a Thanksgiving feast and I'm going to be washing china this weekend. She's had the china since she got married (almost 50 years ago this December) and has used exactly 4 plates of it exactly once - about 2 years ago when I forced it on Thanksgiving. So we're going to have a blowout and try not to break the dishes :)

I knitted my second ever hat and gave it to mom. She was not really impressed. I'm trying again with a better (read EXPENSIVE) yarn. I let her pick from the colors I had and hopefully she will like it. It's blue.

And now, back to the closing binders.....

Things are going well

Mom is enjoying being home. She still has good days and bad days. Yesterday was a really good day. I visited with her last night and had to do a Hard Thing (tm). I had to cut off her hair.

Now anyone who knows my mother knows that she has beautiful, thick, and remarkably brown hair for a 70 year old woman. But it was falling out in clumps and she couldn't take it anymore.

It would have been a lot harder if she hadn't been so wonderful about the whole thing. She has a great attitude and was more relieved to be rid of it than sad to see it go. She loves having no hair. She also looks pretty cute that way - she has a nice shaped head. She has a chemo cap and I plan to knit her a couple myself. Need to hunt down patterns for that today. And some wonderful soft yarn......

Mom is home

Mom came home on Friday. She is doing well at home. Dad got her a recliner and she is able to use the walker to make it from the bedroom to the living room to sit there and relax as well. Her hair is starting to really fall out now. But she is so glad to be home. Dad is learning that being a caregiver is harder than he thought, and I'm struggling with the guilt of having to walk away and let him handle things. I know it will all be ok.

Back at work today and struggling out from under a pile of work now!

Update 10:30 on 11/1

Mom has been pretty out of her head for the last two days. Yesterday was really bad, and today appears to be about the same. She knows who she is, where she is, but then says things like "Pete needs to put those dogs up and keep them from running through the house." She's said some other, more disturbing things as well but I'm not repeating them here. Suffice it to say she has been crazy as a betsy bug.

Last night when dad was there around 8:30 she wanted to go to the potty chair. He called the nurses, and after no response he helped her onto the chair. He called the nurses again to get her back to bed. After about 1/2 hour, he pitched a fit. And I don't blame him. Now he sees what I've been dealing with the whole time. Well, apparently they didn't listen. Last night mom tried to get up to go to the bathroom by herself. Her bed alarm went off but nobody responded. Typical. She fell. She's ok they said, but still. When the bed alarm goes off on a patient like her, you run your fanny into the room. Period. I'm really tired of them. I told the nurse today that they either needed to move her down by the nurse's station where they could watch her or get somebody to sit in her room with her but this is unacceptable. We'll see what happens.

This afternoon I may get my boss to call the charge nurse. She has a track record of getting things done and it won't help for them to get the picture - I work for lawyers.

Will she get the port-a-cath put in today? What will the psych evaluation today say? Will she be going home tomorrow? Stay tuned - I'll let you know as I find out.