Today my mother has her one radiation treatment to take care of the brain tumor. First I need to take her down to LabCorp to get her bloodwork done. She is very nervous about the radiation treatment because she has to have her face covered with a mask to hold her head in position for the treatment. Last night I took her down to the pharmacy to get a prescription filled for a mild sedative to help her through the procedure. The prescription was 4 pills and cost $0.52, that was far less than the cost of the gas to drive there.
She took the sedative an hour before her procedure and by the time we go there, you could tell she was out of it. Funny thing was she kept saying that it wasn’t working, but her slurred speech and the stumbling (more than usual) said otherwise. Dad read the nurse there the riot act for not giving her something stronger. They explained that while they understand that she is terrified of this mask, they could not give her anything stronger because they needed her to be able to keep herself on the scanning table and hold positions. Mom tried to calm him down and reassured him that she was going to be ok.
When the procedure was done, I asked for a wheel chair. She said she didn’t need it, but I told her she was going to sit in a chair and I would wheel her to the car. We got her in the car and got her home. Now comes the first of two scares for me this day. I ran around to the passenger side before she could get out of the car so that I could help her. The driveway is sloped and that slope did not work well with her wobbly condition and she started falling backward. I was able to catch her and hold her up. This was the first time since all this stuff started that I actually had to use some force to keep her upright. I finally got her stable and got her in the house. Damn if she wouldn’t sit still. Finally I told her that she needed to stay put on the couch until the sedative wore off. To that she replied, “What sedative?”. Ya, she wasn’t out of it still!
Later that evening a couple people from the church came over to give her a priesthood blessing. When they arrived, I heard the doorbell and ran out to get the door. The living room was dark and mom decided it would be a good idea to make her way over to the light to turn it on. I knew this couldn’t be good and rushed passed the entering guests to make sure she didn’t fall. Scare number two for the night. She just sort of leaned into me like a drunk person, so I held onto her and told her to sit down. The guests were suggesting she sit in a different chair (she was now sitting on the ottoman). I said she would be just fine there as long as she was sitting. They did the blessing and chatting for a few minutes. Then something strange happened, my mother lost the ability to be a polite host and let them know in a direct manner that it was time for them to leave. Something like, ok leave now. It was a little strange coming from my mother. Little did I know she had to pee really bad and just wanted them to leave so she could stumble her way to the potty, hahaha.
She does not remember most of the things that were said or done after taking that sedative. Poor thing.