Home again

Mom is home and resting for now. She hasn't felt very good the last two days, really tired, a little nauseous, a little dizziness and weakness, sore stomach and esophagus(who knew that would be a side effect?). We have to keep a close watch on her throat, a common and pretty serious side effect is sores in the mouth and throat. Her eyes have been bothering her a bit - I read the pamphlet about the eye drops, they say they help with blurred vision but they may also CAUSE blurred vision, huh? - so she's just not feeling really great. I took her to the doctor this morning to get her PICC line flushed and dressing changed; she had a bad reaction to the bandages she had previously so her whole upper arm is pink and broke out so now we have that to keep an eye on too. She had a shot to boost WBC production, which is pretty standard after chemo...it causes achiness and discomfort in your bones for awhile. She had blood drawn too, her WBC(white blood cells) is down to 2.2(normal is 4-11), her platelets are down to 21 (normal is over 100), so she'll have platelets given to her on Thursday when we go back in for another round of blood tests. I know more about blood and what it does and how it works than I ever thought I'd need to know...
I met Dr. Lee today too, she seems like a very nice, very caring doctor. She was very gentle with Mom and took a good long look at her arm, which reassured me, as the nurses in Portland didn't speak very kindly about the staff down here taking care of the PICC line(apparently it isn't used as often down here) and with it being a little less than perfect looking right now, well...

Hopefully we'll get through this week and she'll start feeling better again. I have to keep reminding her that this is a long, serious process - it's ok that she doesn't feel good right now but it will get better. She's been a little more emotional, which I think can be a side effect, but I also think could just be that the longer we all have this stress, the harder it gets to deal with it.