day 20

morning.. though we feel like it's never been night.. there was NO sleep in room 5419 last night.. poor mom!! she'll nap well today.

right now she's enjoying breakfast.. fruit, oatmeal, a danish.. sips of coffee..

she looks even better today than last night.. we're heading in the right direction.. only one chemo wednesday left! she'll also get the intrathecal (spinal) on day 28 or 29 (next week) which, other than having to lay flat for 1 hour, has no major side effects. she'll start feeling better immediately! We are glad this week will be the last really rough week.

we're going to focus this week on getting mom out of this orthostatic state and not get tachycardic anymore.. that means she gets an elevated heart rate... hers only happens when sitting or standing. A normal, healthy person has a resting heart rate between 60-100 with some super athletes being in the 20's. anyone over 100 is considered to have tachycardia. (i hope i'm saying this all right.. this is a result of my 3 am research!) It's really relative to mom's normal resting heart rate, so now it's a bit elevated. she doesn't feel it while she's lying or sitting, but she does when she's standing. They've got her hooked up to a heart monitor so they're keeping a close watch. Our goal is to get her up walking without fainting!

Mom wanted everyone to know she's doing pretty well with her shots.. she's getting them in her belly (finally) and she said they're not bad at all. as long as the alcohol wipe dries first!!

Paul bought me an egg crate for out here, but when I brought it in, mom asked if she could try it! The mattress isn't very comfortable and her back has been hurting a little.. so now it's not perfect, but she did say the egg crate helped! Maybe we'll try to find the super deluxe model!!

We heard last night that Target and Walmart are within 10 minutes from here, along with the Galaria mall.. I might be doing a frozen shrimp dinner run later if Sheila ok's it!! We just saw coconut shrimp from outback.. i do think there are extra shrimp commercials on out here... no lie. we might also need some fudgesicles!

There was a young mother (maybe 28ish?) with two small girls when we arrived 22 days ago, mom just felt so sad for her to be going through this away from her children all the time... well we heard she's going home! She's finishing course 1 and will hopefully get to rest at home with her family for a while.

The other patients have noticed that mom has visitors all the time and have said she's so very lucky.. and mom agrees.. she feels blessed that everyone is so willing to help however they can. I said we wouldn't have it any other way!!

Dyle just called to check in on mom... he's so worried and wanted to hear her voice.. isn't life strange, not too long ago, mom was the one calling Dyle to make sure he was ok.. I'm sure Dyle misses mom terribly, they've spent the last year (at least) with each other several days a week!!

Food network is on.. no more espn or golf (hmmmm.. wonder who that could have been). I brushed up on some knitting skills online last night, so we're going to attempt that this week also.

The sun seems to always shine out here.. it's another beautiful day. (lets hope winter is listening and taking notes) I'm going to get mom over to the window so we can look out this afternoon.


Mom is sad to hear about Nancy Sheppard. Our family sends our love and prayers to Dan and his family during this tough time. We know Nancy is resting peacefully.

we'll go now. make it a good day, everyone.

love.