New Mediport

OK, so now maybe I'll take a few minutes and get this blog up to speed. Last Sunday David and I returned from our vacation to the Caribbean. Soon I'll upload some photos from our trip. We left on Friday, April 3rd for San Juan, Puerto Rico. From there we journeyed to Bridgetown, Barbados aboard the Silver Cloud, part of the Silver Sea cruise line. When the cruise was over we spent two nights in Barbados and then two nights in South Beach, Miami. Sunday April 19th we finally returned home. After two weeks away, it was nice to be home!

Before our trip I had my 3rd chemo treatment and then had my PICC line removed. I couldn't very well go to the Caribbean with tubes hanging out of my arm! I also worked frantically in the garden, getting everything planted that needed to be planted as well as setting up the irrigation so that they would get watered automatically via a timer. All that work caused me to strain the newly healed muscles in my abdomen so I spent the cruise worried about the painful spots but after taking it easy since then I'm happy to report that the discomfort is gone. I still have some garden to set up but I will wrangle David into doing anything that requires any straining.

A couple of days ago I had another mediport put into my chest. This will be used for the remaining chemotherapy infusions instead of the PICC line. This time I consulted with a surgeon (who is known for installing pediatric ports in his patients) to ensure that I didn't get some huge device implanted like before. I am pleased to report that this one is so much less noticeable than the first one. So, I start chemo again next week with my brand new port. Yay? Don't know if I should rejoice or not.

OK, back to the trip: Usually David writes up a trip report, sprinkled with his brand of humor. Hopefully he will find time to write this one as well. If he does so I will post it here for all to see. David has found himself to be very busy since we returned because he got some surprising news the evening of our return: Most of the people in his work division had been laid off and those remaining have been "reorganized". Luckily he didn't get laid off but now he has a new boss and is trying to figure out what his new role is. This week has been interesting but eventually things will settle out. I'm just glad that he still has a job. Right now's not the time to be job-searching since so many people have been laid off in his industry lately.

Me? I am lucky that the health care field is growing. When I'm ready to go back to work (after chemo, I suppose) my job will still be waiting for me, I'm told. I do have a great boss and wonderful peers.

Back From Vacation

Just a short note to say that the lack of posts this time was for a good reason. I've been in the Caribbean! I'll post details soon.

It was dark when I got home so I wasn't able to get a good look at the garden but it looks like things are moving along out there. I gotta get more lights out there!

On Tuesday I get another mediport put in and chemo will resume next week. Just in case you were wondering.

Now I have to unpack.

Garden's Almost Finished!

I figured it was time to post again. Right now I'm feeling great. With this chemo cocktail I am tired longer than the last time and don't really start to feel completely normal until Tuesday of the week following chemo (when chemo's on Monday). Anyway, when I'm tired posting seems beyond me. It just takes way too much mental energy to put so many words together! This week, once my energy returned, I was working nonstop in the garden. I finished setting up the irrigation, added blackeye peas, some pepper plants, a couple of tomato plants, early corn, late corn, and sunflowers. I also planted marigolds and seeds of nasturtiums and borage. I read that these three flowers help keep bad insects away.

Here are a couple of pics of the garden today:All I have to do now is wait for the ground to warm up a little more and plant seeds for okra. Also, at the end of the month the asparagus crowns are expected at our local nursery. I will put 6 of them in. Plus I have seedlings growing for a couple of heirloom tomatoes, pie pumpkins, and yellow crookneck squash.

I can't wait for stuff to start growing and for my garden to turn green!

Chemo 2.3 Report

Well, last cycle (2.2) was very rough. I wasn't nauseated, per say, but I was throwing up. Plus I was so fatigued. Yet couldn't sleep. And since I was so lethargic it was hard to keep fluids going in. So I got dehydrated. Which made things worse.

This time around we changed things up a bit. I took a very powerful anti-nausea drug (Emend) before my chemo infusion. Plus they added Aloxi to my drip (another anti-nausea). Then the CPT-11 dripped in slowly along with the Leukovorin. After that was finished a new chemo drug was added: Avastin. Then when that was completed they hooked up the 5-FU which is the one I go home with for 46 hours. I will go have it removed this afternoon. Anyway, so I came home Monday and was very fatigued as usual. I went upstairs to rest and tried to watch TV, but could only do so through one eye. And even that eye was half open! I was drinking water as much as I could then I asked Dave to go get me a Jamba Juice. This really helped to give me some nutrition and fluids. I did drink most of it. At bedtime I took an Ativan which is supposed to help me sleep. My nose was running (and I suspected the drainage might be upsetting my stomach) so I took a Benadryl also. I slept so well! I woke up Tuesday morning feeling pretty good and even had enough energy to accompany David on some errands. Yesterday I drank two Jamba juices and today I will do more of the same. Also last night I took the Ativan and the Benadryl again and slept like a rock. This is really helping. Before all I could do is lie in bed and grunt answers at David and now I can actually get up and move about the house. I don't feel up to doing work in the garden but I'm happy with its progress so far.

So, hopefully we have found a winning combination and will stick with it as needed.

Chemo 2.2 Report

Well, I'm only on the 2nd day of this round so this may be a little preliminary. But I do have to say that the "good" anti-nausea drug Aloxi wasn't good enough, even when I added Zofran. Next time I'll do the Emend too. I don't know what the Aloxi costs but I do know how very expensive the other stuff is. Good thing I have great insurance!

Yesterday when I came home I was already getting so tired. Which was a bummer because I really wanted to work some more setting the garden up. Here's what it looks like right now:

The bamboo tee pee is the trellis for the peas. In the plot just to the right will be the long-term dedicated plot for asparagus. Along the fence to the right will be corn - 2 varieties. Up near the peas will be squash and tomatoes. The next plot "this way" will be carrots and salsify. The nearest one in the center will be garlic and blackeye peas. Over against the fence in the shade (which will probably cause these to fail unless the earth shifts soon) are beets, shallots, spinach, lettuce, and Swiss chard. There is space up near the garage where I will plant pie pumpkins. I will also plant some sunflowers along the edge by the corn and also throughout to give the garden a nice look. Right now I have to gt the irrigation laid out and plant the seeds, then cross my fingers!

This is just a nice shot of Theo hanging out beside our small pondless waterfall:

Chemo 2.1 Report

Sorry it's been a few days since I've updated. Last week was rough and I just didn't have the mental energy to put thoughts down. And now it's all fuzzy! Anyway, I had my chemo session 2.1 last week (1st cycle of the 2nd chemo regimen) on Monday. We had some disagreements with our oncologist about the anti-nausea pre-medication. Last time I started chemo they gave me Kytril which is effective for 12 hours. What good does that do a person who is having a 46-hour continuous infusion? Not much. Anyway, they claim that the insurance companies won't pay for the better drug: Aloxi. Aloxi is effective for 3 days at least. So, I had to take Kytril, get sick and supplement with Zofran before they would approve Aloxi. This time we had to repeat that process. And it's not like Zofran is cheap. The retail price of the 15 Zofran pills (and I think we have the generic even) was just under $600.00. It cost us a $5.00 copay. Anyway, I digress... with me getting the weaker premedication (Kytril) then having to supplement with Zofran , my stomach was kept on a teeter-totter. So, it was unsettled a lot which made me even more tired than I already was, plus I just didn't want to eat or drink. Which leads to dehydration. Which can be very bad.

So, I slept a lot. Or tried to. My eyes weren't comfortable open or closed. When they were open they were so tired they wanted to be closed. When they were closed then my eyelids felt heavy on my eyeballs, so my eyeballs wanted my eyes open. It was a struggle. Usually sleep won out but getting there was an effort.

By Friday I started feeling more energy and Friday evening it was like a switch was flipped. I wasn't ready to go shopping (we did that Saturday - until I crashed) but I was ready to eat a small amount of ice cream. That was an indication that my appetite was returning because on chemo I absolutely do not want anything sweet. It really is a good weight loss plan! One that I would not recommend...

I would like to take this moment to send out a very warm, heartfelt "Thank You" to my wonderful co-workers. Even though I'm on medical leave (and am actually on Social Security disability for the time being) I still technically have a job since they say they want me back when I am ready. And they are so generous! Every few days some wonderful dish of food shows up. I had no idea there were such wonderful cooks in the lab! The meals are so appreciated and really help out when I just have no energy. It really takes our minds off of meal prep and has really made things so much easier for us. We do still cook on non-chemo weeks like this one but on chemo weeks having something ready to heat and eat really makes it easier for me to eat when I can and keep what little energy I have up.

One more thing about the food: a few days ago a container of mushroom risotto showed up in the cooler. I don't know who left it. I'd like to request a bucket of it next time!!! It came just as I was getting around to eating again but I bet I could eat it even when my appetite is really low. It was that good! Anyway, thank you and please share the recipe with me.

My hair: I don't really know what to expect. I have been told that there's a very high chance of it all falling out and then someone else will say it'll thin gradually but not all fall out. I know that when chemo makes your hair fall out then your scalp feels tender and yesterday it did start feeling that way. But I still don't know what that means for me regarding hair loss. I am prepared with a wig, some hats, and eyebrow stencil and eyebrow pencils. If I have to go the wig route I'm not actually bothered by that. Having ready-to-wear hair may be nice (it'll always look good) and perhaps having a fresh start to my hair color corrections would be a good thing when it comes back in.

PICC Line and Garden Update

First of all, Theo would like to extend his greetings!

OK, so last week I had my PICC line installed. PICC stands for "peripherally inserted central catheter". A catheter is inserted into a large vein deep in my arm and the 44 cm length of it is threaded up into an even bigger vein and ends just above my heart. As long as we maintain it well it should serve me well. The biggest problem with these is infection. Here's how it looks:

Generally it's kept covered up in some fashion. The company that is sending me supplies has sent me a few of these white sleeves which are very breathable. Before we got these sleeves we were using cohesive bandages. No matter what I use it isn't really that visible under the covering and to the public eye it looks like perhaps I hurt my arm and am wearing a bandage.

I started my new chemotherapy today. I am getting CPT-11 (Camptosar) and 5-FU. In a few weeks Avastin will be added. Avastin interferes with healing and it's too soon after my liver resection to start that.

On to other news, we finally got a break in the rain and tilled the fava under. First David used a lawn mower to chop up the fava. Here's what it looked like right after that:

Then he proceeded to till the garden, ensuring that the nitrogen from the fava are safely in the ground:

And he was very happy to do it!!

Here's what it looked like when he was done. Nice, dark, rich soil!

I have drawn out a rough garden plan and will need to tweak it once I go out to take measurements. In a week or two I will plant the peas, lettuce, spinach, and anything else that needs to get going early. In the meantime I am going to start some seedlings using our Aerogarden to get a head start.

Chemo Angels

A couple of weeks ago I was told of this group called "Chemo Angels" which is a non-profit organization. They send cards and little gifts to chemo patients throughout chemotherapy. All I had to do was sign up and then I was assigned to an Angel. This Angel (mine is named Sue) then will send the cards and gifts. I signed up a week or two ago and this past week I received something from her twice. The first time she sent me a box of Dots candies, some gummy bugs, and a card. Yesterday (for Valentine's Day) she sent me a cute white teddy bear with a pink sweater, some Valentine's M&Ms, some Sweet Hearts , and sent David some Valentine's candy too. She enclosed a card as well. They make it clear that we should feel no obligation to communicate with our angels and we do not need to say "thank you" but she did give me her email address and it doesn't kill me to be polite so I did thank her for these gifts. They did brighten my day!

If anyone wants to look into this organization here's the link to their website: http://www.chemoangels.net/

Chemo Update, Garden

There's really been no change here in the Coleman household. I'm still recovering but have my full energy back. However, I still am not supposed to lift anything over 5 pounds until 2 months after the surgery so I still need Dave to do a lot for me. My appetite is back to normal and I am eating well. My chemo starts February 23rd and I will have it every other week. The oncologist has decided (at our prodding) that I should have an MRI of my liver before the chemo starts. This is because neither the PET scan nor the CT scan saw the 2nd tumor that the surgeon removed. Plus, the surgeon wasn't able to see the right side of my liver since it was under my ribs. So it would be good to get another image of that area.

Scarf news: The scarf is now about 3 feet long and I will make it 5-6 feet long. I think 6 feet is best. Then I will make another one like it and combine the two, to get a double think scarf. There are 2 reasons for this: First of all, it's a bit too narrow. I didn't actually plan for it to be a scarf to begin with but as my "practice swath" grew I decided it could become useful. If I had planned correctly it would have been 30 stitches wide instead of the 20 that it is. Doubling it won't make it any wider but at least what I do have will be nice and thick. The second reason for doubling it is that it is really curling up. I think blocking it should help but another way to fix it is to line it with a woven cloth or to double it like I have proposed. So, I have decided to make 2 scarves and join them. I'll be working on this for a while!

The fava are just about ready to mow down and till under but now we have to wait for the rain to take a break. Which is concerning me a bit. Once the fava are tilled then I will have to let it rest and decompose for a few weeks before planting. So, the longer I wait to till the fava the later it will be that I plant. Some of these things (like peas) need to go in rather early so I am a bit worried about that. Here's a pic of the fava now. My, how tall it's grown!

Also, here's a pic of the planter boxes:

The Brussels sprouts are growing nicely and the kale is very slowly getting bigger. I think once spring rolls around properly and there is lots of sun and some warmth then the kale will take off in earnest. So, we will be eating lots of kale and Brussels sprouts until the rest of the garden is in and growing. Here is what I hope to plant: corn, tomatoes (3 kinds), carrots, asparagus, salad lettuce mix, California blackeye pea, an heirloom red okra, salsify (description: Heirloom, native of Europe, tasty in soups and stews, or cooked alone. Plant in spring, dig in fall, a non-sweet parsnip-like root. This variety dates back to the 1800’s.), summer squash, spinach, peas, a couple of types of sunflowers. I'll also replant some of the herbs in the herb box that died off when it got cold.

Last, but not least, is a photo of the nice tulips I have growing on the kitchen island. Yes, you read this correctly. Here's the proof:

My Accidental Scarf

A week and a half ago, my mother in law, Mary, started paving a new path for my idleness. She brought over a few starter knitting supplies and showed me how to do the basic stuff. I started practicing on a light blue yarn and decided that if I keep going it will actually become a scarf. Here's how it looks today:

The dark blue band is also from a practice session. I asked Mary how to change colors in the middle of a project, so she showed me. I decided that a dark blue band on each end would look nice so I switched it back to light blue and will make the other end the same, when I finally reach it. I was also thinking that a fringe using a combination of the light and the dark blue will set the whole thing off nicely when it's complete.

So, anyway, I just wanted it on record that it's her fault when I spend money on knitting-related items. Just so my husband knows!

Decreasing Pain, Knitting, and Food

Dave said I should post... I wonder when he will start up his own blog?

OK, here goes. As it so happens I do have some stuff to say, so I guess it's time to make a new post. The pain has decreased to a point where I don't have to be on pain meds all the time. The last two days I took a pain pill only once per day, and nothing yet today. I'll only pop one if something starts to get too sore or achy. Otherwise it's feeling better. I still have trouble sleeping on my side, though. I try to roll over on it from time to time to give my back a break and sometimes it's comfortable and sometimes my ribs ache. So, I do it when I can. I am up and about most of the day now with perhaps a midday nap. I am also trying to stand straight again which will help my back a lot. We have a follow-up appointment with the surgeon on Thursday. Maybe he'll give me clearance to drive!

The other day my mother-in-law, Mary, came over to hang out with me while Dave was at a hockey game with his dad. She brought me some beginner knit supplies and an instruction book and tried to teach me how to knit. After practising yesterday I am finally getting it but I still need to learn how to hold the needles. I do this thing where I sort of prop the left needle up in my lap to free my left hand to manage the yarn. It's actually working quite well for me. They say everyone develops his or her own techniques. OK, I guess I'm developing mine! It may be a while before I can make anything useful. I'll start out with a scarf attempt and see what happens.

The people from work have taken up bribery! They have organized to make wonderful meals to bring for Dave and me to eat. I suspect the underlying goal is to guilt me into returning to work when my treatments are over! That's a joke, but no matter the motive, Dave and I are so touched to have such great people supporting us. Probably soon I can (and will feel like) meal prep again. But having ready to eat food in the fridge has been a real treat and has taken one task out of our hands during this difficult time.

A visit to the Oncologist (the second adventure begins)

[David adding his nickels worth]

I was going to start this with “here’s the poop”, but then I got derailed about what a crappy situation this was and I it just went down hill from there. So then, I restarted with “ok, here’s the scoop…”, but then I got sidetracked because guess what I am always using a scoop to pick up (think Theo here) and I ended up going down the same stinky path. So I’m trying to restart it again….

Laurie and I saw the oncologist this morning and got the scoop on what we can expect moving forward. We don’t have the pathology on the tumors, but that will probably come when we see the surgeon next week. The oncologist wants to have the tumors tested for a specific strain. It may make it possible to do a more targeted chemotherapy regimen. The current plan though is to use the following triad of drugs:

• CPT11 – side effect is about 50% risk of hair loss
• Avastin – due to the metastisis; can effect healing, so won’t start for 2 months
• Xeloda/5FU – similar to before so we can expect the tiredness, like we had before; the two treatments are pill vs intravenous and we have to figure which we want to deal with.

The oncologist is looking at 3-4 months of treatment. We’ll assess as we go along, but apparently research shows that the extra 3 months doesn’t really help that much and the key thing is monitoring. Laurie will get scans every 3 months for the next year or two, then go to 6 months and eventually yearly. They may also begin doing MRIs in addition to the other scans to ensure that we see any undesirable developments. For some reason one of the excised tumors didn’t show on CT or PET scans, so MRIs are going to be needed.

The other thing to decide on is if we want to go with a “pick line” or mediport. The mediport means doing the surgery for that again and we’re not a big fan of the bumpy chest syndrome. The pick line means having a line in Laurie’s arm and some form of bandage around it.

We asked if our April vacation is still feasible. The answer is YES. Now we really need to see how Laurie is feeling, but since she won’t be on Oxaliplatin she won’t have the neuropathy issues. We should be able to manage the other side effects and that may mean wigs if she loses her hair. We’ll have to see how she feels in general though.

So, that’s about it for now….

Bizzaro-World

There's not really anything new to report. The new pain meds are helping a lot and I am more comfortable. I also sleep a lot. And the pain meds seem to have a strange side effect: I'll call it "auditory hallucinations" though I may be using the term in the wrong way. What I mean is when I am sleeping (or rather on the edge of sleep) I hear things that are so real, like I am sure that David has walked into the bedroom to check on me, or something like that, but when I open my eyes he's not there. The first night it was more bizarre: I kind if doubled the dose. Meaning I took one pill on time and then took another one an hour or so later when I headed to bed. That night I was hearing things when my eyes were closed. I don't remember all of what I heard, but one thing was a radio. When I opened my eyes the radio stopped but as soon as they were closed again the radio started again. The effects were gone by morning. And me hearing Dave by my bedside was during this afternoon's nap. I'll see what happens tonight. I suppose this is harmless. I will probably mention it to the oncologist tomorrow during our appointment if it happens again tonight.

Speaking of the oncologist: we have an appointment in the morning. I'll let you know what she has to say.

Thank You David, and Come Back Anytime!

This is just a quick note to let everyone know that I am around still, and to say hello. What, a collective groan? I know, Dave is actually much more of an eloquent writer than I am and I know that you'd rather he keep writing. He's good, isn't he? But he keeps pushing me to take back over the posts. Hopefully he will feel welcome to pop in here whenever he wants to spread the word about something, or has an unused soapbox that he has found. I would like to publicly thank him for posting what he did and for maintaining the blog overall. It was a big help. There's no way I had enough energy for all that. I would have said "Yep, still hurts, check back tomorrow" or something like that. Which, by the way, it does, and I'm hoping that tomorrow is a better day.

Well, that was all a bit random, I know, but he made me do it while on drugs!

Morning Update

[David again]

We had some success with medications yesterday. Finally we got the muscle relaxant prescribed and that seems to have helped last night (although I know she was up a couple times, so I'll have to follow up after she wakes up). She's sleeping soundly right now and that's a good thing.

We also heard from the oncologist late last night. She knew the doctors aren't great with pain management and she prescribed something stronger. Unfortunately, it's an opiate, so we need to pick up the prescription and take it to the pharmacy (some things can't be called in) and it was too late for me to get it from her. So in about 45 minutes I'll be the one standing at the door to their office as they open....

Overall, Laurie is doing much better, but still having some pain and muscle spasms. We're getting the pain levels down though between time, getting better meds and knowing how to apply the meds.

What's Your Pain Level??

[David for Laurie again]

Laurie is consistently reading the blog and responding to brief emails. She's still pretty tired though, so don't expect too much if you send her a note (that ties into the subject of the post later on).

Our first night home was a rough one. I was really close to taking her back to the hospital around 1am. There are some simple instructions they should have given us that they failed to do:

1. Do not under any circumstances lay on your right side. You can cautiously tilt to the left and sit in a chair to make your back more comfortable. However, rolling onto your right side will be EXTREMELY painful.
   
   
2. It's OK to take two Vicodin at bedtime instead of 1. The real guideline is to take the Vocodin for pain, but due to the acetaminophen content and it's effect on the liver do not take more than 6 pills a day.
   

When we got up and going Monday morning I called the clinic right away about Laurie's pain and my concern. I got to a triage nurse at 8:30. By 10:30 I called back and was told they were still trying to reach the team. At 12:30 the Surgeon's assistant called and said she wasn't working that day, but got the message and called us anyway. At 4:00 we got a call from both the triage nurse and the lead Resident Surgeon on the case. They were trying to reach me to talk about Laurie (they didn't know the Assistant had called). WTF?? Fortunately, Laurie got better as the day went on or I would have been totally balistic and sitting in the Stanford ER asking for them (with Laurie of course).

[brief break here while I get out my soap box on another topic]

How many of you have been asked by a nurse or doctor "on a scale of 1 to 10 what's your pain level?" What the heck does this really mean? How many of you were actually told how to use the scale? They say "10 is the worst possible pain you can imagine". How do I know what that is? I did some research last night and got a bit of useful information. Here's a good link: http://painconsortium.nih.gov/pain_scales/index.html.

I think the best guide I found was in a nurses blog. A male patient replied that his pain level was a 10. The nurse stepped back and said, "OK, let me be clear on this. If I took two bricks and slammed them together on you testicles, that would be a 10. Now, what's your pain level?" The patient meekly replied "3".

Unfortunately, there is almost NEVER a clear explanation given to the patient. Not once did I hear an explanation provided when we were at Stanford, but I heard the question almost every 2 hours and Laurie often replied 5 or 6. Having now educated myself I realized that Laurie was consistently low by about 3. If I'd known I would have spoken up at the time. Laurie was pretty out of it, but I know her well enough to have said she was really much higher. Lesson here: if you're in significant pain and someone asks this "wonderful question", always error on the high side.

I found myself really ticked (understatement here) at the Surgeon who kept countermanding the residents and others who saw Laurie. They saw her and understood that her pain levels were much higher than she was verbally saying. It was crystal clear when he saw her Thursday night. He seemed to actually give her less pain medication when countermanding instructions prior to seeing her. He didn't want her to be groggy. Well, if you're in extreme pain and unable to sleep wouldn't you be groggy?? Lack of sleep does that to us, right!! Needless to say, I'm going to have to be very careful what I say to the surgeon when we see him in a week. He was way under medicating Laurie and it was just cruel to see the pain she was in because he has a conservative approach to pain management.

[carefully descending from soap box]

I talked with an oncology nurse who has been in touch with Laurie over the past 6 months. It's part of this wonderful Cisco benefit program where someone checks in with Laurie to see how she's doing and ensures that she has what she needs and gets all the information on what's going on. She was livid on the phone. She said doctors in this situation are notorious for under medicating pain. She spent a while on the phone with me explaining the pain scale and helping me to understand things.

The good news is that I now understand the pain scale and I have a better understanding of how to ensure we keep Laurie around a 3 level so she can rest and recover. Now I just need to get them to give us a muscle relaxant so that her muscles will quit twitching when she's trying to sleep. That's today's mission.

Laurie is getting better each day, I just wish I knew from the beginning what I know now so that I could have helped to avoid some of her pain and discomfort.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jog

[David again, at Laurie's Request; which reminds me to get the wireless working decent for the bedroom]

OK, no jogging for Laurie just yet, but she is home. We left just before 11am this morning. Theo was very excited to see Laurie and we let him come meet her in the car. We wanted to ensure he got some of the bounces and wiggles out before we tried to get Laurie into the house.

We got Laurie settled into her bed and then I went out to get some groceries and the one medication that we didn't already have.

About 3 Laurie came down (yep, down the stairs on her own with no warning!! That was a nice surprise) and said she was hungry. We got some graham crackers for her and she went back up stairs to munch and watch some more soaps.

An hour later and I got a message from Laurie requesting that I write this update. I'd say she's feeling more like her normal self now... :-)

Rise and Shine

I see that Dave has been doing a fine job posting updates on here. I am very quickly discovering that I am not very coordinated right now so all I intend to do is say "Good Morning".

Saturday Night Update

[David here again]

I just wanted to put in a brief update at Laurie's request and a correction.

First the correction. I misunderstood the surgeon on Wednesday. The second lesion was actually on the liver over the gallbladder, but they removed the gallbladder as a necessary precaution.

The update is that Laurie was up for 4 walks today. The last two we did the "wedding walk" around the nurses station a couple times. No IV stand for support, just my arm like we were walking down the aisle. Somehow I think it was a bit more romantic and the scenery was much nicer when we did that 3 1/2 years ago.... She's getting stronger. Every walk helps to get her blood moving better and she is more alert (although it's tiring). Hopefully she'll have soft food for breakfast. I won't take her home until she's had something besides clear liquids. I want to ensure that she doesn't have nausea issues here at home.

The only other thing is to explain our posts and Facebook comments about the "3 martini's" and drinks. I don't think either of us realized that this probably went over most people's heads since we're the ones on the inside joke. The first bolus of drugs that the anesthesiologist gives you makes you feel like you drank 3 martini's really fast. So that's where the references comes from.

[David for Laurie one more time]

I'm hoping that starting tomorrow Laurie will be up to doing this herself so you can get her perspective on things. We'll see though.

Laurie is continuing to get stronger and more pain free. She sleeps a lot, but one would expect that given there's not much else to do and she needs to rest to heal. She's been up a couple times to walk around the nurses station and to do the necessary things. All critical bodily functions are operational and that means that we're clear for departure tomorrow. Dr. So was in today to check her out and said things look good. After her latest walk she got back into the bed without my help and that's really important. The more she gets in and out of bed without me the easier it will be for her in the long run (I won't be here in the middle of the night if she needs to get up to got to the bathroom and we all know one doesn't want to wait for the nurses as that could cause messy delays).

Nothing else new to report though. A couple more walks today before I leave and she's getting better.