Karen Rand, formerly of Westbrook and South Portland, was standing next to her best friend, Krystle Campbell, while the two watched Rand’s boyfriend run in the Boston Marathon last week.

Now, she’s sitting in a hospital room at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital, recovering from the loss of her leg, and her friend’s life.

“It’s a slow process,” her son, Andrew Rand, said on Monday. “She’s doing better, but it will be a long time before she’s up and at ‘em. But she’s in good spirits.”

Rand, who grew up in Westbrook before moving to South Portland, now lives in Cambridge, Mass. Rand and Campbell were at the site of the first of the two explosions that occurred near the race’s finish line on the afternoon of April 15. Rand was carrying Campbell’s identification, and for a time doctors working on Rand believed they were operating on Campbell, who had died in the blast. A funeral for Campbell was held Monday in Medford, Mass.

Authorities believe that two brothers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, were responsible for the bombings. Tamerlan Tsarneav was killed following a shootout with police Friday in Watertown, Mass., just outside of Boston. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found hiding nearby later that day. He was charged Monday with killing people with a weapon of mass destruction, a federal charge.

Rand is now facing a long recovery. Her sons, Andrew and Steven Rand, have started a fundraiser on the website giveforward.com to help raise money for their mother’s medical bills and general expenses. In six days, the brothers have raised nearly $10,000 for their mother to help her pay for medical bills and “all the extra things she’ll need now,” Andrew Rand said.

Since the blast, Rand has had a slew of visitors including President Barack Obama, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who checks in on the family every day.

“It lifted everybody’s spirits,” Andrew Rand said of the president’s visit. “It gave everybody the chance to smile when they hadn’t been able to for a week.”

Karen Rand, a former South Portland resident injured in the Boston Marathon bombing last week, is visited at the hospital by President Barack Obama. Courtesy photo