The story so far . . .

To get everyone up to speed, Mum is currently in hospital being treated for myeloma. On Friday, 21 August Mum awkwardly stepped off a bus onto her drive way and felt a twinge in her back. She thought nothing of it at the time but the pain progressively got worse. By Saturday, Mum was not able to move without debilitating pain in her back. A friend popped over Saturday afternoon for a visit and called an ambulance because the pain was so bad.

It took a while for the the PA emergency to see her but they were able to do little and referred her back to her GP on Monday. On Monday, the pain again was too much and Mum caught another medical taxi to the PA but was diverted to the Royal Brisbane Hospital. This was probably a good thing because they decided to actually perform some tests to look for the problem.

So a few tests later they diagnosed myeloma and her pain was coming from a lesion on her spine which had resulted in a fracture. The doctors at the RBH were excellent. Throughout her care there, she saw Dr Bennett, Dr Bushby (but he liked to be called William) and Dr Wainwright. Each of them were caring and very good at explaining to Mum what was going on.

Mum had made an early request to be transferred to the PA as this was the hospital that all of her other procedures has been performed and is also much closer to home. This has eventuated and she is now at the PA as of Sunday 12 September.

So, she has had a skeletal survey (which is fancy medical talk for a full body x-ray), a CT scan, a bone marrow biopsy in the hip and an MRI. She is waiting on the results of the MRI and waiting to have a biopsy of the spinal lesion (which fingers crossed will be very soon today). This will allow the doctors to formally diagnose the lesion on her spine (which is strongly suspected to be from the myeloma). This will then allow them to design a treatment plan.

Mum has seen the PA's occupational therapist who has talked through options to make her house more livable with the the spinal fracture.

So, if anyone wants to contact Mum, she is in the Princess Alexandra hospital, Ward 2E, Bed 55.2. Also, feel free to leave comments here for her to read. Keep checking in here to get updates on her treatment.