A Few Days Off

Unfortunately, Sheila's health has been deteriorating more and more each day since beginning her radiation treatment last week. It actually has been pretty frightening watching this happen!

The primary reason for this deteriorating health is that she picked up a cold right when treatment began and her overall health has been spiraling downward ever since. 

Sleeping has been difficult for her for a number of reasons mostly related to her cancer treatments and surgeries starting 11 years ago so she is now getting worn down to dangerous levels. This second fight with cancer has only exasperated the problem. 

She is also dealing with a weakened immune system now because she has started radiation treatment. About a week ago, she added a nasty cold into the mix which includes her radiation-induced weakened immune system and the result is that her declining health has quickly become out of control.

Her Radiation Oncologist noticed this declining health in our visit to her yesterday and bluntly told Sheila she doesn't want her at work until Monday... that she needs to rest... she needs to sleep... she needs to recover from the cold as soon as possible and catch up on much needed sleep. Then she can focus on recovering from this cancer.

I'm not going to get into all the details here but the Oncologist explained that Sheila needs to take care of herself so her mind, body and soul can recover from the cancer effectively. Running herself down at this point is dangerously detrimental to recovery.

We'll still be at the hospital each day for Sheila's radiation treatment. Treatment will continue but not having to get up early in the morning for work for the next four days will allow Sheila an opportunity to catch up on sleep and recover from this nasty cold. 

So... Sheila took the day off from work yesterday and she'll be taking a short break from work until Monday... we'll be at the hospital this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon... then, on Monday, she'll be back to half days at work and afternoons at the hospital.

On the positive side, Sheila's radiation treatment is going well thus far.