A little bit shaky

'Up and down' is the order of the day right now. 

Since her last radiotherapy treatment, Mum hasn't been quite right. Although the radiotherapy seems to have been successful in alleviating the pain in her back and hip (which is why she had the treatment), there are a couple of new things that have emerged since the treatment. I'm not sure if these new symptoms (light-headedness and a colicky pain in her gut) are the after effects of the radiation therapy, which will eventually resolve, or if they are part of the next stage of the overall disease progression.

On Friday morning, Mum had a fall. After feeling light-headed, she lost control and ended up hitting the floor hard. She wasn't injured, but was shaken up pretty severely, and has lost a lot of confidence since then, often needing me to support her ('just in case') when she walks around the house. She's also been feeling miserable, wishing to die now, rather than going through all this pain and misery.

It's been as if Mum is crumpling in on herself, both physically and emotionally, and that's been so hard to watch. I've cried a lot in the past few days, whilst all the time trying to remain strong in front of Mum. I'm grateful for the incredible support of the Greenwich Hospital Community Palliative Care Team, who have responded to my latest cry for help more promptly and thoroughly than I expected, or could have hoped for. 

Some of the allied health professionals from the team will be visiting us at home during the week and given how shaky Mum's been feeling since her fall on Friday, it's good that they can come to us this time, rather than having to take Mum out to Greenwich.

Meanwhile, I still try to tempt Mum to eat, as her appetite continues to decrease, and at the moment she derives no joy at all from food or eating. We have started trialling some different nutritional supplements in addition to the vanilla Sustagen Mum's been having, and some of these have been quite well received, so that's good (especially since the Resource Plus and Fortisip varieties are even more nutritionally dense than the Sustagen).

In addition to the medical appointments that have now popped into our calendar for this week, tomorrow (or today, technically) is a day of excitement, as we are having Foxtel installed, so Mum can watch her favourite sports (ie ALL the cricket), which are ignored by free to air TV. I'm hoping that Mum will be able to get excited about this 'new toy' and that that might lift her mood a bit. 

Through everything I remain hopeful that Mum will be able to latch onto the good things to celebrate amidst the pain and difficulty that she finds so exhausting.