A is struggling hardcore right now. Her lower body has lost so much strength due to neropathy and radiation. She cannot walk or stand unassisted and needs to be in a wheelchair if she's going to be on her feet for more than 10 minutes. She has a walker, a cane, and a wheelchair. She's in physical therapy, but as you all know, it's an extremely slow process.
A lives in an apt. that has three flights of steps. She has to move out of her apt. ASAP because she can no longer navigate the stairs. She's housebound unless someone can come take her places, as she can no longer drive. She's defnitely starting to feel some depression set in. I think she's going to leave her apt. this week and go stay with her mom and then she's going to do a 'tour' of sorts.
She's going to go stay up north with her grandma for a week or two and then she may go stay with her dad for a few weeks and then they'll see beyond that. She not only needs less stairs, but she needs to be around people to keep her spirits up and also to motivate her to work on her therapy on her own. I offered her my guest room if she wanted it. My house is one level.
Yesterday, she and I went out to dinner. As we were making the 20 minute journey down the three flights of stairs, she wanted me behind her. I was also carrying her walker. She got to the second landing and stepped wrong and fell down. I felt SO FREAKING BAD! I took her walker all the way down the stairs and then went back and picked (literally) her up off the floor.
We went to dinner w/o incident. When we got home, I left her walker at the bottom of the steps and again followed her up as she requested. We got to the first landing and she pitched forward before I could catch her and fell down again! I almost cried. I apologized like 20 times. She said I'm not the only person this has happened to. I still felt bad and continued to almost all of last night.
I'm glad she's going to stay somewhere where she doesn't have so many steps. On a postive note, I had a ton of credit in one of my survey accounts and I decided to order her some magazines with my credit. I also hope being around people will help her get her strength back or if it doesn't come back, she learns to adapt and can get around better.
Cancer is a motherfracking bitch!