It's been a while since I've updated. About 2 weeks ago we met with the palliative/hospice doctor to talk about pain and anxiety management for mom. Although mom isn't quite there yet and still continuing chemo the doctor thought it would be beneficial to begin to get to know the team so eventually transitioning would be easier as unlikely as that may seem. From the moment he walked in our front door with a smile on his face I'd knew she'd like him. He was very attractive mid-fourties with blonde hair and blue eyes almost reminded me of an older version of my husband except he had an Irish accent. Right off the bat my mom broke the ice by saying he was too young and goodlooking to be a death doctor and had she known they came this cute she might have switched over to hospice sooner. He laughed and yet was very empathetic, knowing her joking was just her way of dealing with her scared feelings. He had an awesome bed side manner to say the very least. Best of all he came in asking all the right questions and took control of mom's pain issues, and modified most of her pain medications so she's been pretty pain free since ,while still being able to stay awake for a better portion of the day.
I'm crossing my fingers it's not a short lived tolerance and this feeling lasts for a while.
One of the biggest issues she's struggled with over the past few weeks has been the pain in her feet. Which has kept her practically walking on her tippi toes and is more than likely caused by the 5fu in the doctors opinion. The Dr. ended up giving her lidocaine patches which are worn 12 hours on & 12 hours off and can only be used when she isn't planning on getting out of bed because they completely numb her feet. Her morphine is up to 100mg three times a day and Dilaudid 8mg as needed every 2-3 hours. He also switched her from 2mgs of Xanax to 2mgs of lorazepam (I'm just praying she doesn't have hallucinations like most people do). The Marinol has helped bring her weight back up to 120 this week which is always welcome.
October 17,2013
Although, mom's cancer hasn't spread any further as of our last ct almost 8 weeks ago. After chemo this past Monday she was pretty tired and out of it, having a pretty hard time walking without holding on to me.
Today her oncologist called me to ask me
If I thought it was time to have a discussion with mom about stopping chemo to enable her to have a quality of life. I explained to her that as long as she's of right mind and chose to continue chemo I would continue to support her no matter what. But at some point you have to stop and wonder to yourself, how much can one body take?
In the meantime we hold our breath and wait for her ct scan on Monday and it's results ...
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