3.5.11

AYNSLEY:
I'm not gonna lie, today was rough. Mom was awake and alert in very small batches today. She slept well, waking at 1:30, then not again until 7am, when she ate a meager breakfast and fell back to sleep. Around 9:30am, she woke up again, ate two more bites of breakfast and napped again. She was up from 11:30-12:30, when she ate about half a cracker with brie and a bite of bagel and lox, then back to sleep again for the rest of the day, only getting up to go to the bathroom, until I left the home at 6pm. She's also running a low grade fever: 99 point something; they gave her two Tylenol and it dropped, but that scares me. Tomorrow is her last day on antibiotics, so the infections should be gone. They will take blood samples on Wednesday and on Friday to make triple sure everything is cleared up, then discuss when chemo will begin again.

If the infection is gone, why does she have a fever?

Chemo is contingent on the infections clearing up: they won't start it again until all of her blood counts are exactly where they need to be. So we're already two weeks behind in treatment; not sure how much of an impact that will have. The other confounding factor is the wedding; the oncologist may want to wait until after the wedding to start chemo up again-it's risky to have her blood counts drop (as they will on chemo) and then be around so many people. Plus, she'll feel like crap, which isn't the way you want to spend your daughter's wedding. Still, I wonder if that's such a good idea. Mom was responding so well. Granted, the infection is something that's non-negotiable, but using the wedding as a stall...that seems like a gamble to take. My parents are meeting with the oncologist this Thursday and will surely get more information then.

The nausea has subsided. So, though Mom was extremely fatigued today, she wasn't nauseous. Count that in the positives.

To be perfectly honest, this trip has been difficult for me. I'm the most fragmented than I've been since this all began: trying to get things done for the wedding, trying to finish work projects (tonight I finally completed a curriculum that I've been trying to write all week tonight-hence leaving at 6), trying to stay overnight as often as Dad will let me...it's exhausting. Everyone is exhausted. If I hadn't made a commitment to blog every day, I wouldn't have written at all this past week. The wedding will be over soon, which will be a relief. A happy relief to be married to Gary and also a relief to be able to focus more completely on Mom and the rest of my family (Gary included).