And now, Radiation

Tomorrow will be mom's first radiation appointment. They will likely not start radiation tomorrow, but do tests and get the machines set up for when she does start. Several months ago, if felt this step was so long away. And, especially for mom, it has been a long road. I know that she is excited to get this started as it is another step towards completing treatment.

Follow up with Doctor

Monday was actually the third follow up with the doctor since surgery. This has been an exausting two weeks for mom. Of course there was the drain incident. Then last week, she went in and was told that there was not enough fluid to insert another drain and that the opposite drain would remain until at least the next week. Monday mom went to the doctor and was able to have her drain taken out. This is huge as it allows her to be able to have some freedoms of going places and eliminates the stress that the remaining drain would also come out. She has had some pain near one of her arms and the doctor told her this was due to nerves near the site the lymph nodes were removed. The pain extends down her arm, but since she has been able to do her arm exercises, she reported the pain has shown some improvement. The official pathology came back as well. She had one spot in tissue that has less than a two millimeter spot of consumer and something like ten of the lymph nodes removed had a trace of cancer.

This was expected. Even though her MRI did not show any cancer, her doctor had told her that there could likely be traces remaining that were not large enough to be detected by the tests at this point. This is the reason that it is so important that she continued with the surgery and with the radiation that will start in the next 2-3weeks. She has been doing well and in fact, told me that yesterday was the best day she has had since May! Her toe is now fully healed, so she has mobility to go a few places with her siblings and friends. She certainly has to be cautious to not do too much as she still is in pain and still gets tired very easily. I think that being done with the chemotherapy and the surgery has made her feel that there is an end in sight as far as the treatment. She is expecting a call in the next week or so to get an appointment scheduled to start radiation.

Another Trip to the Doctor/Hospital

I will start by saying that everything is now okay.

Friday in the early evening Addison and I were packing up our things to head back home. Mom had been doing really well after her surgery. I will skip all the details of her drains, but will summarize by saying that it was clear something was not working right. Mom called her doctor (it was around 5:00pm) to see what she needed to do. The doctor called back and told mom to get there right away. This was not necessarily an emergency situation, but more that the doctor had to be somewhere by 7:00pm and if mom were not there by 6:30 she was have to go to the emergency room instead. We were staying at her sister's house in Sand Springs and needed to drive to the hospital where the doctor's office is located. We made a very quick trip there. It seems that on one side, the drain was starting to come out which was the reason for it not operating properly. The doctor tried a few ways to fix it, but was unable to do so and took it out. She will need to go back Monday to have it put back in. She must have a certain amount of fluid built up before they can put another one it and this is the reason she was unable to place a new one Friday. Mom was discouraged about this, but it should not set back any of the recovery process. We left the office a little after 7:00pm. Mom is blessed to have a fantastic doctor that always will stay extra if needed and really puts her patients first. Mom is still doing well in her recovery and is being careful to restrict her activity so that she can fully heal.