(posted by Greg)
Yesterday was our day at the Cancer Agency. Monica had some lab work done (to make sure that her treatment wasn't affecting her kidneys) and then had an appointment with her nurse-practitioner. In the appointment Monica was checked to see how she is doing physically (blood pressure, strength etc.) and is given some simple neurological tests. She is routinely asked "where are you?", "what day of the week is it?", recite the months of the year backwards etc. In one test she is given 3 words and asked later in the appointment what they were. This test is somewhat disconcerting to Marley and I as occasionally we can't remember the 3rd word.
The nurse-practitioner seemed reasonably satisfied with how Monica is doing and so the treatments will continue. Monica will have her 3rd Bev infusion today and then again in 2 weeks. We expect that another MRI will be done to see what the tumour is doing at the end of January.
To this point, we are not seeing any dramatic results from the Bev treatment. While Monica is very "bright" intellectually, she is quite weak on her right side and is not able to use her right arm much. This presents obvious logistical problems (dressing, cutting food etc.). Unfortunately, the muscles on the right side of her body don't like what is going on and Monica has started to experience some aching in the muscles and, as a result, some trouble sleeping. We have started to give her some tylenol in addition to heating pads etc. The nurse-practitioner was going to try to expedite the physiotherapy which has been ordered. I think that we will arrange ourselves for some physiotherapy and/or massage therapy
Monica has been busy transferring vhs videos to digital. (It really is neat to look back at some of those old tapes. We have visited Oma a couple of times in the last few days. She continues to do really quite well at the moment.
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