Friday, September 7, 2012

My New Normal



What a day! I'm simply just exhausted with a day filled with ups, downs and more questions.

Woke up at around 5:00 a.m.  Both mom and I had to get ready and mom also had to drink her radioactive cocktail for her CT scan at 6:45 a.m.  We arrived at the hospital around 6:30 a.m, got registered, filled out paperwork and then waited. We were the first to arrive so it didn't take long for them to call her back. Mom went in at around 6:50 a.m. and the scan itself just took around 15 minutes.

Once mom was done, I dropped mom off at her place and then went to work. My mind wandered about what these results would show and how much it would suck waiting until next Thursday to find out results (the next time we met Dr. A). My stomach felt like a bottomless pit.

At around 11:30 a.m., my phone vibrated. It was Dr. A's office calling. My heart sank as I answered the call. It was Dr. A's nurse and she said that mom's scan came back and Dr. A reviewed it quickly. The scan showed that mom had a blood clot in her chest and they wanted her to be admitted to get it taken care of asap. She said she'd set up the orders but to prepare to come in this afternoon. She also said that the cancer shows that it spread to some more lymph nodes and the cancer progressed a bit on the new chemo regime. I tried to get more answers but she didn't know for sure but she'd arrange for Dr. A to meet with us to discuss the results.

I called mom and filled her in. She took the news as best as she could. She was at least thankful to get news back so quickly. I told her to pack an overnight bag just in case they wanted her admitted into the hospital. Since Stan was nearby mom's place, I called him to pick her up and give her a ride to our place until we knew more from the clinic. At around 1:15 p.m, the nurse called back and confirmed she set everything up and for us to come in at 3:00 p.m. Before coming in though, she had put in a prescription at the nearby hospital for us to pick up and bring with us. It was for blood thinner injections and she wanted to train me on how to administer the shots.

We arrived at the clinic with injections in hand and met with the nurse. She showed me how to correctly give mom the blood thinner injections. I was a bit scared to jab this needle into mom's belly and cause her pain but I knew it had to be done. So, I had to suck it up and just do it. And,  I did and it went fine. Mom even commented on how proud she was of me for doing all this medical stuff.  Her telling me that, made me look back at myself and see how far I've personally come from just a few months ago. Who knew I had the strength in me to do all this? To be constantly thrown in a whirlwind on decisions, all the learning, training and research, being on top of every symptom, drug, treatment etc. I sit back and close my eyes and think how much my life has changed to a "new normal" since May.

To Be Continued....Meeting Dr. A and discussing the CT scan results and what it all means.


2 comments:

  1. So proud you can do the injections! My sister does them for me and it's one less thing for me to worry about. I can do them myself, but it is strange stabbing myself. And don't worry, it doesn't hurt us one bit.

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  2. Mom's hands tremble if she does them herself so I am taking care of them. They aren't that bad to do but it was scary to jab the needle in her tummy. She said it doesn't hurt that much, and it only burns from the medicine.

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