Whole Brain-Day 1: Too much

Today was a long day for our Satomi.  It was only a couple of months ago that a day like this would have been easy:  A CT scan at 10:00am followed by a short walk downstairs for her first Radiation Treatment at about 10:45am.  Out of that office by 11:00am.  A 10 minute drive to see her surgeon to fill out papers.  The surgeon’s office is in the new St. Joseph’s Cancer center; Beautiful building but the handicapped spaces are still about a hundred yards away.  Satomi made the trek both ways with her walker as usual.  We weren’t going to see the surgeon at all at first but since we hadn’t seen her for nearly 2-years, a quick exam was warranted.  We didn’t have an appointment but she fit us in after a 20 minute wait.  I had Satomi home by 1:00pm. 

There were signs that things were getting bad for her.  We don’t really have a routine for filling out her medical forms.  Sometimes I do it, sometimes she does it.  At the surgeon today I opted for her to do it because I can’t ask her questions.  Her hearing is completely gone now.  After she filled out the surgeon’s medical forms, I checked them over and was shocked to see that they were almost unreadable.  There were many instances that she repeatedly changed her mind to Yes/No questions that we’ve answered a million times over these past years.  A lot of scratching things out.

I was relieved to get her home.  She was safe and done for the day so I went to the office.  She texted me several times.  Her Mom arrived sometime in the afternoon just in time for things to get worse.  Her dizziness and nausea was so bad that she couldn’t keep down her food anymore.

When I got home, she was in bed with a wet towel on her forehead trying to sleep.  The vomiting also screwed up her medication.  We figured that most was expelled but didn’t want to risk mixing drugs so she ended up taking Tylenol instead of her normal Darvocet.  She ended up falling asleep so things eventually calmed down.  I hate seeing her suffer like that.

In retrospect, I am considering delaying the surgery until after the Radiation therapy is over.  We really need to limit her activities to one or maybe two a day.  I think I’ll start pushing her in a wheelchair to save her strength.  I’m always reluctant to do things that look like she’s getting worse.