dp, Kevin, and the Goblet of Fire

When I told Dr A about the three-to-six-month prediction, she said she thought that was awfully optimistic. "Days to weeks" is her analysis.

There are times when I think even that's optimistic. We're working on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but I'm not stopping when she dozes now, cause it's a fitful in-and-out sort of dozing (and she says it's a nice way to wake up.) Her throat seems to have gotten worse -- even thickened liquids seem to start her coughing, so we've gone back to the little lollypop sponges. Her blood sat is low, even with an oxygen mask on, but when she does wake up, she's pretty coherent, and generally manages to crack a joke or two. And then there's that smile, which still lights up the room, to the comments of more than a few staff.

I think we can have our cake and eat it too, though -- we should be able to do most of the radiation treatments outpatient -- Dr A says that Hospice will pick up the cost of the ambulance to transport her daily from home to the hospital. Social Work was supposed to come visit us today for a referral to Hospice, but it was a pretty busy day, so it's quite possible they just missed us. Still, if I don't hear from them pretty early tomorrow, I'll just go call Hospice myself.

I'm getting pretty good at working this hospital. When it seemed to take a long time to get through official channels that we wanted to proceed with the radiotherapy, I just walked over their office, found Dr. B's nurse, and told her what was going on. Shortly after that, dp's nurse came in to say (somewhat incredulously) that radiotherapy was sending a person up to transport her there. We got the aiming CT done, and he'll compute the best paths to hit the tumors before we go back tomorrow. They like a week to do that, generally. Dr. A was also pretty pleased that he could even get it down to five treatments, saying that twenty or more had been the norm not too long ago.

Despite all the frustration that goes with any inpatient hospital stay, we're truely grateful to most of the staff here. Dr.s A, B and C have all been phenomenal, and the vast majority of nurses and NA's we've worked with have been fabulous. Still, we're both ready to go home. There's only so much sleep you can get on a reclining chair, and a view of da woods beats a view of the fieldhouse...

Me? I'm doing okay, so far. It took a bit to reframe from fighting cancer to accepting cancer, but I've still got my tasks. I'm dp's advocate (and a damned good one, too), and we've got Hospice to set up and stuff to get done. I'm planning on leaning on a lot of people when my tasks are completed, though...