Mom had her lab work and doctor's appointment today.

Her blood counts are good and the doctor said that the fatigue and weakness that she is experiencing is consistent with the new treatment that she is getting.

He wants to do one more treatment on March 22nd, then do another series of CT scans to see what effect, if any, the new drug is having.

If the new drug is performing well, then he will schedule another treatment. If it is not, we are going to have to discuss whether or not to continue chemotherapy.

We reviewed briefly the results of the comparison between Mom's initial brain MRI and the one taken a couple of weeks ago. He said that there were still numerous spots, but that overall, they were smaller than before. This indicates that the radiation was effective. However, chemotherapy has no effect on brain mets due to the brain/blood barrier.

This led me to ask his opinion about Mom's cognitive difficulty and whether he thought it was caused by the brain mets or by the chemotherapy treatment. His opinion was the brain mets. This means, if true, that we can expect little to no improvement in Mom's cognitive capability.

So, where do we stand? Mom is tired, weak, and not all there some of the time. But she continues to express the opinion that she wants to continue treatment for as long as it is practical to do so.

The next two weeks may see an improvement as the effects of the last chemo treatment fade.

I hope so.