Finally, a little sunshine!

Finally a little sunshine!

This past week has been a rollercoaster or emotions. Last Friday Toby and I tagged along with my sister to bring our mom to her first chemo treatment.  We were up at the crack of dawn to leave the house, headed for the U of MN in downtown Minneapolis.  She was to check in by 6:30am, and so we did. First thing on the adgenda for mom was implanting the port into her upper chest. This required surgery,  which went well and fairly quick. She was prepped and taken down about 7:30, and brought back to her room just before 10am.  While she was busy with that, we went down to the lounge coffee shop and had a coffee and snack.  Once she got back to the room she was hungry as usual ~ so had a bit of breakfast before being wheeled off to the Masonic Center for her chemo treatment. We arrived about 11, so a bit after what they had expected to be the start time of 10:30. But no worries....they took us down the hall to her place, and on the way stopped for the "important stuff", which was a station with a coffee pot, refridgerator and drawers full of snacks and treats.  We were told to help ourselves anytime, not just for mom, but for any visitors too. Everyone was so nice ~ exceptional care mom received.  She started with the pre-treatment, which consisted of 45 minutes of IV, Benedryl 100 mg, for allergic reactions and also made mom very drowsy.  Then a drip of two other things, one to coat her stomach, the other slips my mind.  Once those were complete, she got the first dose of chemo, which dripped and dripped for 3 hours.  This was much better than expected...no reactions, and mom felt fine. Thank the Good Lord for that...then the final drip which lasted 1.5 hours, finishing the day off about 4:30pm.  The pharmacist came with her meds, went over them with mom, and off we went. Toby walked to get the truck in the parking lot and drove right up to pick us up. On our way back to Mel's we went.  Got home about 6:30 after being stuck in cities traffic for too long...to find Jon and the girls listening to some nice smooth jazz music, which we enjoyed while eating supper. Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes and gravy it was ~ and so delicious! Mom even ate...but pretty exhausted and ice cold, she went to bed early. Mom survived the day ~ and we did too. So glad we went along, as it taught us that this was not as bad as we expected, and it was actually as pleasant as we could expect. Hoping each treatment goes this well ~ for now, we will deal with the days to come.