Hi Kellie,
Everything that you describe is pretty much to expected. Fatigue, sleeping all the time, nausea, constipation, depression, thrush, mucositis, dry mouth, mouth sores, weight loss, opportunistic infections, etc. (and probably a few others I didn't list)- they are all well known and expected side effects of treatment. It is very important that the doctors are informed of all of these developments so that they can be properly treated and managed.

She needs to know that things will get better - the hardest lesson to learn is patience and it takes a lot of that to get through this. The last week of treatment and a month or two after that are the worst phase but it will pass. We have all been there and many of us are doing terrific today - we just had a survivor gathering in Vegas and that brought it all home.

As far as the waiting game goes, the official name for the followup visits is "watchful waiting". It gets better the further away from the original treatment date.

I am not surprised that she is "less under the weather" since they increased the patch - this is exactly why pain management is so important.

I would just focus on each day right now and the best way to manage the things that come up, rather than the future scans, tests and all of that stuff.

As far as work goes, some have managed to keep working and others have not - it is a highly individual thing, personally I took a year off and at 20 months post Tx I am just now taking on a full schedule. I did not have surgery to recover from.

You said you lived near the Mayo clinic - are you going there for treatment?