Mom's bone pain had become very bad, she was having great difficulty walking with her cane. Her mouth pain was terrible too and she couldn't eat. She had a walker in storage at her friend Andy's house. She had it leftover from using for her hip replacements years before. Mom wanted it she said, but to get her to actually contact Andy seemed impossible. I asked her to give me Andy's number but she wouldn't, she said she would call her. I think possibly she did intend to call her but her memory at the time was very short. I didn't have the number of any of her friends and this worried me. I was finally able to get ahold of Andy through a Facebook message to come bring her the walker.
On Tuesday morning I drove up to Muncie early in the morning and we went to chemo. Aunt Pat sent me off with my favorite chocolate iced cream filled donut from Concannon's. First she had her port accessed and blood drawn. She was so cheerful and positive despite her demeanor the past few days. Next we went to go see her oncologist. Before she came in Mom was complaining about her mouth pain again. For some reason I hadn't actually looked in her mouth yet up to this point. When I finally thought to I saw it was more than sores her mouth was coated in thrush. It looked so painful.
When Dr. Brown first came in, she reviewed the results of Mom's second PET scan.
"Impression: Significant interval response to therapy with near resolution of the left lower lobe mass, subcarinal adenopathy, AP window adenopathy, retroperitoneal adenopathy, and several skeletal lesions. Hypermetabolic left hilar and pretracheal adenopathy remains, consistent with residual disease. There are persistent though decreased metabolic activity lesions in the right medial ilium and left lateral sixth rib. No new areas of disease."
The lung mass had shrunk from 5.4 x 5.2 cm to 1.7 x 2.17 mm. Incredible. The chemo had shrunk it from the size of a baseball to the size of an ant. My Mom was elated, her eyes welled with tears and she turned to me smiling. I wish I could go back and change my response now, but I only half smiled in return. "So what?" I thought. At what a great cost to her body and mind this had come. The chemo had done exactly what they said it would do...it would shrink it until it was almost gone...but it would come back, they had said, and with a vengeance. The chemo had attacked the cancer like they said it would but it had attacked her whole body as well. I couldn't be happy. I don't think, I hope I didn't, portray my pessimism to my Mom.
What bothers me now and what I noticed a couple weeks later when I had the actual results in my hands is this line:
"New airspace consolidation is identified within the posterior aspects of the right upper lobe, likely infectious."
She had pneumonia, this test had only been performed 5 days ago. It was surely worse by now, but I guess no one saw that one line in the 2 page reading of the results of the PET scan.
We went through all the concerns I had about Mom. I tried to let Mom talk and to not talk over her. She gave her nystatin and viscous lidocaine for the thrush and sores. She gave her a prescription for more morphine. She added a prescription for oxycodone because Mom's pain was so bad. She wrote a prescription for a wheelchair. I can't remember if anything else was discussed.
She was taken back and set up for chemotherapy. I went back with her and got set up so I could pump milk for Lydia. Oh the crazy places I pumped last summer. A social worker came in to talk to Mom about setting up the counseling my Mom had requested. She had decided she needed to talk to someone to get past her anger regarding the divorce. A radiation therapist came in and said unfortunately they were not ready to start Mom's treatments yet. They hadn't finished mapping out her plan yet or something. I quizzed the radiation therapist about every detail of why this wasn't happening because I knew Carly would want to know. He said he knew Carly from school and that she would understand. I said, "Ok but I don't think she's going to be happy." I texted her...she wasn't happy, she didn't understand.
During the middle of the session I took this picture of Mom. I thought she looked so cute, I'm not sure what she was doing but it looked like she was taking care of important business.
She finished and we went back home. Aunt Pat had taken good care of Lydia, no doubt in my mind that she would.
I drove to Wal-Mart to fill her prescriptions. I had been getting tired of Wal-Mart. The line was always long, they weren't always the nicest, and they didn't always have the medications Mom needed. They wouldn't have the morphine or oxycodone for 2 or 3 more days they said. That wouldn't work. I had planned on switching her prescriptions to Meijer so I called them. They couldn't tell me over the phone if they had the medications available, something about laws and people stealing. So I drove to Meijer and waited in line. They didn't have the morphine or oxycodone either. I dropped off the prescription for the Nystatin and lidocaine and went to Walgreens. Was I going to have to drive all over town? I had no idea it was this hard to fill narcotics from retail pharmacies. Walgreens didn't have the medications either so they advised me to try the 24 hour Walgreens or CVS on Tillotson as they tended to have a better stock. I appreciated the information. I drove there and they did have them in stock. Thank goodness.
I drove back to the apartment and Andy had bought us grinders from Mancinos. Mancinos was a place Mom and I loved to go. I'm not sure if she ate much of hers but the kindness was appreciated. I said my goodbyes and Lydia and I drove back to Noblesville.
The next day Mom would be sent home from chemo due to a high fever.
No comments:
Post a Comment