Weight Down More, on Medication to Help

Today was a Radiation and then wait around for Clinic day. We were done radiation by 7:30 or so and our appointment at Clinic wasn't until 9.

Rebekah, Sarah, Mom, friend Debbie and her daughter Kelsey strolled from Radiation over to the main hospital and sat down in the Atrium to get Rebekah a little something to eat. She was still rather grumpy and didn't want much to eat, although Kelsey was able to have some luck with her. She couldn't decide if she wanted to sit in the stroller, in mom's lap, in Kelsey's lap or in the chair by herself.

Once up at clinic, they drew Rebekah's blood and sent it away for counts. Then they took her vitals and got her weight and height. Unfortunately, her weight was down even a little more. She has dropped from 35 pounds to 31 pounds - a little more than 10% weight loss. We knew that she hadn't been eating well, even over the weekend, and so it didn't surprise us that her weight was even less today.

Rebekah continued to be grumpy while we waited for counts to come back and doc to be ready for us. Rebekah's counts are on their way back up! Doc wanted us to do something for her weight loss. There were two choices - a steroid or an antihistimine. We opted for the antihistimine. It is unclear which one works better. We still may need to consider a feeding tube...

It has seemed that Rebekah's throat probably hurts and we thought that she probably had sores in her mouth. Doc didn't see any sores in her mouth and didn't get a good look at her throat. Rebekah hasn't been opening her mouth very big the past few days and doc didn't see any particular reason for it and it's too early for the radiation to be tightening the muscles up. Could be soreness/tenderness without open sores. I wish we knew for sure the reasons, but we just don't and I have to get used to it.

After leaving Clinic, we headed down to the Pharmacy to fill the prescription for the antihistimine. They told us it would be 20-25 minutes. We walked for 15 minutes or so and then came back to check. Then they told us that they didn't have any in stock. They could order it and have it tomorrow. They don't open until 9:00 am and we expect to be done at Radiation well before 8 am and we don't need to check back at Clinic again this week. We took the prescription and headed to the van. Uugh! It would have been nice if they had been able to tell us initially that they didn't have it. Instead we wasted 15 or 20 minutes.

Once we got the girls into the van, I called Fred Meyer pharmacy to see if they carried it and had some in stock. They said they did, so we stopped there on the way home. We also picked up friend Sarah who has been helping with the girls and fixed us a delicious dinner. She's going to spend the night and watch baby Sarah tomorrow while Mom takes Rebekah to radiation. She is a great help!