My mother has a lot of nagging physical issues. Pain, in her back, in her legs, in her hips. Nothing that by itself is a problem, but all combined it makes things tough on her. She sits down until it bothers her, then she walks around until it bothers her, then she sits down… you get the idea.

Yesterday she spent over six hours plugged into an IV to get her first dose of chemo. She was sitting, but when she needed to walk around she couldn’t. By the time the treatment was done she was a mess. Ever since the brain tumor hit nine years ago, she’s had some memory issues and sometimes gets a little confused. The events of the day yesterday made that worse too.

At one point after she got home from the hospital she fell and couldn’t get up. She needed help. After that she was way worse all around. She didn’t seem to hurt herself when she fell, but it just made everything that was already bad worse. We called the doctor and got an on call doc who wasn’t much help. He tried, but he just wasn’t very helpful. Eventually we got a decent set of marching orders, and she was allowed an extra dose of pain meds. It took a few hours but she finally went to sleep. My sister stayed at my parents’ house last night just in case, but nothing happened.

That was treatment number one. I don’t know how many more there will be, but we were told that the following appointments will move much faster than the first one. We’ve got that going for us, I guess.

It’s too soon to tell, but there might be some good news. She hasn’t had any obvious side effects from the chemo yet. She handled this drug the last time, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she will this time. So far so good though.

This blows.