Day 1

I'm sat in an empty hospital cubicle waiting for my Mum to come back from the X-ray department. I have some time to kill and no Internet or phone signal so thought I'd write something.

Today was our first visit for her chemotherapy treatment. It's a simple injection and a few tablets and that should be it, however, 6½ hours later and we're still here! There was a 2 hour wait for the pharmacy to send her pills over to the chemo unit and then, following a review of her blood tests from a few days ago, they discovered her sodium levels were way lower than they should be. This subsequently meant she had to be transferred to the Major Treatment unit in A&E whereby she had further bloods taken, an ECG, hooked up to a sodium chloride drip and now is having X-Ray's taken. She will be kept in overnight for monitoring and possibly further blood tests tomorrow morning. As a result of all this, one of the chemo elements of her treatment couldn't be administered today so that will start next week on her 2nd visit.

So, what was expected to be a 2 hour visit is looking like it'll be a 24 hour visit. Not an ideal first chemo week!

Couple all this with the fact she also has to visit the dentist next Tuesday for a tooth extraction (after she's been back to hospital in the morning of course for some more routine tests), before then resuming week 2 of her chemo next Thursday, I just can't imagine what's going through her mind at the moment. I repeat, she's 94 (I have to keep reminding myself of this).

Speaking of her mind, the low sodium thing is a new one on me. The suspected cause is dehydration (although a number of things can be at the root of it) because she doesn't drink anywhere near enough fluids, despite our badgering her to do so. As a result of this condition, a loss of cognition can result and this solves a mystery for us because literally the day after I wrote my last blog where I banged on about how fit and on the ball she was for a 94 year old, she completely changed, almost overnight. Her mood had darkened (not in a sinister way, more a negative outlook way), her memory and awareness of what was happening around her started to fail her periodically and she became so very frail. Both of these could be attributed to the Myeloma but the doctors told us today that, certainly the cognitive issues, were most likely a result of the low sodium.

Quite alarming I must say. Having had a Mum who, all her life, has been fit and very sharp mentally up to age 94, barely been near a hospital (besides visits to give birth on 3 occasions) to suddenly encounter a lady who could no longer fend for herself and barely know which day of the week it was, is extremely upsetting and very difficult to deal with all of a sudden.

So, fingers crossed, the sodium transfusion will improve that, albeit whilst the chemo kicks in and simultaneously makes her feel poorly in different ways! All the fun of the fayre eh?!

I have moments of frustration with this, not aimed at my Mum, just at the situation because I hate not being able to fix things. I'm powerless to mend it and that's really tough to handle. I have a newfound appreciation of carers, my god what a tough job these people have and they probably deal with way more difficult people and conditions than my Mum and her sudden affliction (which I'm hoping will prove only temporary anyway). That all sounds a bit horrible but I mean it in the nicest way. It's not like we're having to bed bath Mum or anything, but having to more or less watch over someone and help them most of the time, all day every day, is both physically and mentally tiring. I don't begrudge it one little bit, I can't do enough for the woman who has done so much for me all my life and never asked for anything in return. It's just a shock to the system when it all comes about so suddenly. Three months ago, we were blissfully unaware of her diagnosis and were trecking around the Isle of Wight with her, climbing castles and walking along beach promenades, visiting old haunts we'd holidayed at when I was a small child.

It's all very sad but I guess such things come to us all eventually. I just hope when it comes to me, it comes quick and is over quicker.

It's now half an hour since Mum went to X-Ray, it's 9pm,i have no idea when she'll finally get back and then be allocated a bed for the night on a ward. I haven't eaten since about 1pm and I was up at 4am to go up to London to squeeze 4 hours of work in to earn some money before returning to Kent (where Mum is currently living with us) to then take her over to East London to hospital for her 2pm appointment. It's been a bit of a day, this Day 1!

But hey, it could be worse. I could be 94 and having chemotherapy for Multiple Myeloma. So wind your neck in sunshine and crack on!

Peace x