Sorry for the lack of updates, it's been crazy getting kids ready to go to school and now having 3 in soccer!
I was able to go and visit with my mom for a little bit on Monday. I haven't even had a lot of time to go and be with her which I feel bad about. I'm so thankful to all of you who have come and visited and called, it helps her to not be so lonely especially when we can't be with her as much as we would like to.
It has been a rough month to say the least for mom. After she finished her radiation treatment in June she started doing a lot better. She was getting up and doing things around the house and going to the store here and there but things started going down hill the last 5 weeks or so. While she was doing her radiation they had to put her on a steroid because there was a lot of swelling in her brain. This actually helped her a lot! Her headaches were better, her nausea was better and she was actually eating a lot! All around she just felt better. Well the week after she finished her radiation they decided to start slowly taking her off of the steroid. After a few days of a lower dose we noticed she wasn't doing well. Her headaches got really bad and she wasn't hardly eating anything. We were really worried about her. So we talked to the doctors and they decided to wait a little longer to start taking her off of the steroid. So she did ok for the next few weeks. We met with the doctors in July and they said that they really wanted to try and get her off of it because it wasn't good for her to be on that high of a dose for that long. So again they decided they were going to start taking her off of it over the next month or so. We thought that she was far enough out from her radiation treatments that she would do ok this time. Well that hasn't been the case. Once they started taking her off again she started getting bad again. On top of that she had to do another round of chemo as well. She takes chemo pills 5 days out of every 28 for the next year or so. So she finished her five days and didn't feel very well. We've talked to the doctors on and off for the last month and they're still trying to figure out what to do to help her feel better. Mom is really struggling right now. Because she was starting to improve a little bit after radiation and was able to do some things, now that she is getting worse and hardly able to get out of bed she has become very depressed. They think the depression make be causing some of her symptoms so they started her on an anti-depressant a week ago. She's been handling it pretty well which is a plus since she hasn't been able to take them in the past. They made her kind of crazy! So because it takes a few weeks to notice if it's helping we wont know for another week or two if it's really helping. If it is they're hoping they can start taking her off of her steroid. They said that because she has been on the steroid for so long it is causing severe weakness in her legs and that's why she having troubles walking and standing. This is really frustrating to her because she spends a lot of time in bed when a month ago she was actually getting her strength back and getting out of the house a little bit.
So the doctors are still trying to figure out meds. Hopefully they'll be able to figure something out soon to help give her some relief. She still has headaches and doesn't eat a lot because of her nausea. She's learned how to cope with the little seizures she is still having so that has been one good thing.
On Sept. 9th we have an appt. to meet with the doctors and they will do another MRI to see how the tumor is responding. We're hoping for some good news then!
Thank you all again for your love, support, and prayers during this challenging time. Please continue to pray for my mom as she is struggling right now. We just continue to pray that the doctors will be able to figure out some solution to help her.
