Lisa's pre-chemo blood work showed that all of the important things they test for are good, and Lisa was given her chemo treatment as usual.

Before chemo, we saw the oncologist, and he agrees with the general surgeon that the root problem for Lisa's hip and leg pain is probably reaction to the underlying bone damage, and he also agrees that getting an opinion from an orthopedic oncology specialist is a good thing to do. Meanwhile, Lisa is to keep weight off that leg as much as possible and continue the anti-inflammatories. Ultimately, unless the bone improves, she'll probably require hip replacement surgery because some of the damage is in the femoral head (the ball that goes into the hip socket).

Because of the swelling and being less mobile, along with the chemo treatment, Lisa is at slightly more risk for blood clots, so she is to be put on a blood thinner. Common blood thinner pills like Coumadin and others could interact with the chemo and require even more frequent monitoring of blood effects, so instead he's prescribed a daily injection of a more mild blood thinner, Enoxaparin... and that means that I have to give her the shot each night. We'll see how that goes.

Another new complication, though minor, is that the chemo has caused "thrush", which is an imbalance of the normal micro-organisms in Lisa's mouth. In her case, it makes her tongue feel "burnt" with some soreness. She's been given a mouth rinse to use daily for about 2 weeks.