The First Week of Treatment

First of all, the Vancouver Island Lodge is a godsend! Mom is loving the social element. Everyone there knows exactly what she's going through, and almost everyone is there to fight it. She's getting far more moral support than I can give her. And it shows.

Mom is eating better than I've seen in a long time. For example, lunch yesterday included tomato soup, ham & cheese quiche, stir-fried zucchini & mushrooms, a glass of milk and banana bread pudding for dessert. And she ate it all!

We started with radiation therapy. The waiting room is right outside the treatment rooms. Mom is directed to a change room where she exchanges her sweater for a hospital gown. She then comes and sits in the waiting room until she's called. Into the treatment room she goes, where she's layed down on her back with her arms above her head. "Now, don't move!"

I sit in the waiting room and watch as the lights above the door come on. Solid green as they are getting her into position, then flashing green means everything is ready, then a solid red as the radiation is administered. In Mom's case, the red light comes on for 20 seconds, 3 times; one for each angle that the oncologist has mapped out. The whole thing only takes about 15 minutes, then she gets changed, and we head downstairs for chemotherapy.

Now, this is the scary part! We've all heard about how horrible chemotherapy is - blistered feet, mouth sores, intense nausea, endless vomiting, hair loss... the list goes on and on. So, with sweaty palms (or is this a side effect too?) we go to check in. We're led to a vinyl recliner (one of 12). Mom gets comfy, with her arm on a pillow. The nurse puts a heating pad on her arm.

For the first treatment, Mom has to bring the prescribed anti-nauseants with her. She takes 2 little star-shaped pills and an oblong one. These are supposed to help her tummy. An IV is started in her left wrist, with a saline drip. Once they start the actual drugs (2 different kinds, one after the other), there are lots of questions to make sure she doesn't have an allergice reaction - dizzy? any funny feeling? And to make sure the IV isn't leaking - does it burn? (um, what?! oh yeah, it'll burn your skin like acid! oh well, good thing it's just going into my blood then...)

Mom's particular chemotherapy is supposed to take about 1 1/2 hours, but in our vast experience (2 visits), it always take another hour. Not that anyone is dawdling, it's just a very complicated process that nobody wants to rush through.

Once we're all done treatments for the day, it was almost anticlimactic... Mom didn't get sick, she didn't get sore mouth, so now what do we do? We were so prepared for the hard part, it's like maybe it didn't work...

We were in Mom's room (she is sharing with a lady getting treatment for breast cancer). Mom comes out of the bathroom, "Donna! Look at my mouth! It looks like I'm wearing lipstick!" I agreed, she had bright red lips, "We can check with the nurse when we go downstairs, maybe that's how the mouth sores start..." Orrrr... maybe it's the red lip balm Rhonda gave you...!

So, we're heading into the last treatments this week, Mom is more optimistic than you can imagine, everything is flowing along smoothly... we'll keep our fingers crossed for the next 11 weeks.