Mama Marian has been fortunate enough to have her "leetle seester" come and stay with her for three weeks. Aunt Beth arrived on the 8th and is staying until the 27th of June. This is Beth's third journey to visit with Mom since December and we just learned that she and Uncle Al plan on coming for Chincoteague too! I would have to say that one of my favorite memories of Aunt Beth and Mama Marian involves the two of them watching Saturday Night Live (during the height of its quality years) in our basement laughing hysterically and doing "It's Pat" renditions for the next couple of days. That, and Massive Headwound Harry, became a pretty common routine for a few months.
So, Beth is visiting and giving Mama Marian top notch quality care! She has been taking her to and from appointments, helping her with the PT exercises, managing the dozens of pill bottles, and driving to Boston, Rhode Island, and back with Mom and Dad. They went this past Tuesday to see the neurologist at Brigham and Women's, where Mom had her EEG a month or so ago. The neurologist believes that Mom continues to have seizures and is experiencing muscle spasms in her leg and foot that may be causing some of the pain and discomfort. He gave Mom a new medication, a muscle relaxer, to help with that and is keeping her on all of her anti-seizure meds for the time being.
Since Tuesday, Mama Marian has had doctor appointments and an ultrasound to further follow up on the pain. One of the side effects of the Avastin is blood clotting and so they have been trying to rule this out. In fact, because the pain continues and does not seem to be getting better, Mom returns tomorrow for another test; this time it is an arterial ultrasound of her lower body. She will meet with Dr. Rosenberg again tomorrow afternoon for the results and follow up. Hopefully Mama Marian will get some relief from the pain she has been experiencing.
Mom continues to have some confusion and has difficulty with short-term memory and word finding. This frustrates her to no end, but is a symptom of the brain tumor itself, medications, surgery (scar tissue forming), and seizures. She seems to go up and down with regard to the confusion. I was lucky enough to get to share a very cool evening with her this past Thursday when I called her to let her know that Jody and I had gotten engaged! I had spoken with her previosuly in the afternoon and she sounded the best that she has sounded in weeks. Then again, when I called her after dinner, she was again very clear and much more herself.
I must also thank Mama Marian for prepping me for the caretaking of Jody, my new invalid patient, who tore his ACL and may have dislocated his knee yesterday in a baseball game. There really needs to be more professionals in this world simply to advocate, barter, beg, and maneuver through the health care system for people. I'm glad to have learned some of the ropes, so to speak, but it surprisingly doesn't get any easier (or less frustrating) each time around!
I just wanted to send a quick "thank you" to Jeannie and Mary, who have been unbelievably awesome in coordinating an event to help our family... We continue to be amazed, grateful, and inspired by the people around us for all that they do for us. Honestly, even what may seem like the smallest of things makes such a difference, and serves to remind that we don't have to do this alone.
