Day + 2

Last night I fell asleep with thoughts about what would happen if this doesn't work. And what if it comes back next year. And what if one cancerous cell slipped through. And how long will it take for her to feel normal. And how do you even live a "normal" life with the thought of relapse. I wish I can let go of these thoughts and focus on simply getting through this. They just keep creeping in.

I resigned to begin the day more positively this morning. It's imperative to for my sanity and for my mom's recovery. My sleep last night was better but still broken. My favorite night nurse took care of us. He is OCD like me and cleaned the entire room and checked every detail of my mom's records/vitals. He also gave us some great tips on good exercises for her while she's in bed. Unfortunately, I pried a little too far into the treatment of the patients a couple rooms over and learned that they are both being quarantined due to serious infections. We have noticed that the rooms (about 3 rooms down) have bright green papers ont he door and the nurses don't enter unless dressed in gowns and gloves. Doctors have been crowding around the rooms during their rounds for longer than usual. So, I tactfully asked our nurse about it. According to HIPPA laws, he couldn't say much but generally mentioned that one has the flu and the other has some bacterial infection that causes diarrhea. This is pretty scary since they have the same nursing staff as my mom during the most vulnerable time for her. This has haunted us all day. Think positively, right?

Back to the day... My mom woke up with a decent amount of energy today. I got to go home for a few hours to shower, do some laundry and regroup while Tim stayed with my mom. It was strangely difficult to be home. I worried about her the whole time and felt that I was cheating or something. When I got back, my mom was able to eat a greek yogurt and a couple lemon popsicles. It is all she can tolerate at this point. This evening we took two trips down the hallway. We took the IV cart with us, which I now affectionately call her octopus (it has 8 wheels). She was completely worn out by the time we got back. She later confessed that she really had to work to get back. Her white blood counts are .6 this morning (healthy people will have a million wbc). They are suppose to drop to 0. Her doctor thinks they will be at .1 tomorrow, which will be pretty close to bottom. They plan on giving her a nuepogen shot tomorrow morning which will help the count climb over the next 10 days.. that sounds so impossibly far off.

I am pretty exhausted at this point, so I don't have much energy to finish this. I hope to continue tomorrow. I notice if we keep a routine, the day goes by a bit easier. I think I will try to blog in the morning from now on.

Back to my bench for another night of napping.