Topotecan Round 2 – Mid/Late Week Update

Karen received her second dose of Topotecan earlier this week, and spent several days recuperating. The Topotecan doesn’t knock her completely out, but makes her feel generally icky and sick. She’s been taking anti-nausea and pain meds around the clock for about a month, so that’s helped.

Monday she had an infusion of two units of blood, since her hemoglobin levels are dropping. It looks like this might be a bi-weekly necessity.

Today we were visited by home health to help Karen use the right parts of her body to stand and sit up. It was rather helpful. It’s been a bit challenging for her to move around much, and the tips about body posture and the new ways to do things should be a big help. Some of that isn’t really intuitive. All our lives we simply stood up without thinking about it. Now she has to stand up with concerted effort. The tips included things like changing positions and shifting into a different non-standing position, to shift into another position, to lean a certain way, and then stand from that new position.

Karen is eating a few semi-solid meals. Things like noodles and eggs. She’s getting calories from things like the carnation instant breakfasts, and from juices. We’ve been making some homemade juices but nothing much other than apple juice seems tasty for her. But we have a whole new spread of things to try over the weekend. I picked up a wide variety of melons and other fruits. Plus a couple veggies we’ll try.

 

4 thoughts on “Topotecan Round 2 – Mid/Late Week Update”

  1. I never know what will taste good juices but I feel like the juice places always make such tasty concoctions. Sending love to you and karen.

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