New Medications

I took Melody to a doctor appointment followed by an IV infusion February 11^th with my cousin Jenny. She is a respected nurse practitioner here.  I was thankful that someone else was going that would be able to ask appropriate questions regarding Melody’s health and care she should be receiving.  Jenny asked about services such as home health that could do blood draws and physical therapy for strength building exercises.  We left with little comfort because the doctor said that she was going to be getting stronger on a new medication, Decadron, and that he did not think she needed either of those services.  Decadron is a steroid that decreases swelling and causes weight gain and increased appetite.  She had 10 radiation treatments to her brain from December 15-24^th to shrink the lesions.  The five lesions in her brain have in fact not shrunk but have grown and have increased swelling around them.  This is what is causing her to not be able to problem solve.  When we came home that day I was extremely worried about her because she was so weak she did not have enough energy to even climb up three steps to the front door.  It was just the two of us so I stood behind her and used my foot to help her lift hers then I pushed her holding onto her with my whole body to get her up the stairs.  I did not think we would make it and we had to take a couple breaks to just get in the house.  Later that night my dad had to carry her two times because she was so weak.  I could see that she was going downhill fast and I did not know how much more time we had.  Because of this I found people to cover my shifts for at work for the next two weeks and had FMLA papers filed at work.  The next day home health called, to my surprise, and set up an appointment for the following day.  Melody started on the Decadron and we were waiting to start a Chemotherapy pill that was coming in the mail from a specialty pharmacy.  The past couple days Melody has been walking around with increased balance and strength and she has been eating more and more solid foods than soups and protein smoothies.  Yes, is appears that Decadron is a miracle drug at this time giving her extra energy.  The chemotherapy will cross over the Blood Brain Barrier that her other medications have not so it will attack the brain lesions.  She has another MRI of the brain in 7 weeks and that will show us how the chemotherapy is affecting the brain lesions.  I am trying to be optimistic about it all and hope that the medications have their intended effects.