More of the pleasant day

When Rebecca was a baby, my friend Madeline and I went grocery shopping every Friday, and this was the highpoint of my week. Now that I am a working woman, I generally don’t really like shopping at all, and marvel that I once found it to be such an adventure. However, the last few days, I have been more or less confined to the house, and grocery shopping has exponentially gained in appeal. When saintly Suzanne came to visit Tom, she suggested that I might like to run some errands. Wow! A trip to the grocery store! I was thrilled. I visited my favorite grocery store, and this was a little sad because I usually go with Tom. We chat with our favorite checkout lady, and I was relieved that she was not there. She would have asked where Tom was, and I would have cried. But they had a deal on mangos, the true food of the goddesses, which that comforted me a bit. Yesterday, when Rebecca was here, I walked to Safeway to get some of the odd foods that Tom is craving. Since the last chemo, he does not like any of his usual favorites, and things that he used to reject now have appeal – i.e. Cocoa Krispies. (Ick!) He has always been a salty guy, and now he is a sweet guy – foodwise, that is. He actually has always been both of those things in daily life. On the way, I took some pictures to immortalize my trip. I saw lovely grasses, and this young man sitting on his front porch. He looks a bit crabby, but actually he was very pleasant, and told me that if I made a lot of money with his picture, I must share it with him. I told him, that it was unlikely that I would (make money, I mean.)

A pleasant day

First off, Tom and I are really grateful for the prayers and kind thought you have been sending our way. The prayers and goodwill of others are very strength giving.
Yesterday, Rebecca was very strength giving in a more immediate way. She cooked a magnificent dinner, most of which Tom could not eat, but I managed to wrap myself around it quite nicely. Tom had asked for watery bean soup, so Rebecca made a sort of vegetarian chicken noodle soup, seeing as chicken soup is a world renowned cure-all. She also served an amazing cherry focaccia, and we topped it off with some Vietnamese Coffee ice cream. This latter was a wonderful recipe in that it was delicious, elegant, and took about two minutes to prepare. The things Rebecca cooked were delicious, and elegant as well, but they were not two minute dishes at all. They were filled with the labor of love – lots of both, I am sure.

A newish day

Tom has decided to forgo chemo and start hospice care. What this means is that a team of hospice folk will be giving us assistance and support, both physical, material, and spiritual, right here in our home. The first thing they provided was a hospital bed. What a boon this was! Tom was really not comfortable at night, and now he can be. With the fluid in and around his lungs, lying flat seriously impacts breathing. With his head raised, he can get more sleep. Minutes after we got home from the doctor’s appointment, Rebecca arrived for a visit. I told her about the bed coming, and she said, “You can put it right there by the window where it’s light and bright. You’ll have to move that table upstairs. Let’s go!” Tom and I had moved this table upstairs several times to accommodate the Christmas tree, and it took us at least half an hour and a tremendous struggle every time. Rebecca, all hundred pounds of her, picked it up and whipped it upstairs and through the bedroom door. This had been a major obstacle for Tom and I. We had trouble lifting it, and the technical issue of finding an angle at which its legs would go through almost stumped us anew each time. At Christmas time, we both marveled that she had done this alone every year. How did she ever do it, we wondered. Now we know. She had the space arranged in minutes. What I would have done had she not been here, I don’t know. Within a couple of hours, the bed arrived. What service! A nurse will be coming today for an initial assessment and I am not sure what else. I will report to you later. The fact that I am a nurse seems pretty irrelevant right now. My patients have very different needs and problems, and also I am too involved to give the dispassionate thought that good nursing are requires. I do know how to give a bed bath, however, and that is helpful.
The second picture is of Tom and Becca in hungrier days.

Sad days to come

First off, not really sad, but a bit annoying -- the Creepy Man seems to have extended his hours of operation. When I brought Tom home from the hospital today, the Creepy Man was out there in his usual spot, but in a much more casual stance. Actually, not a stance at all, as he was sitting. Usually, he stands and faces south to perform his orations, but today he was sitting, orating rather tepidly, but still facing south. The midnight crowd is probably a more tolerant group, and he must feel fairly comfortable unleashing his venom to them. The afternoon set is another matter entirely and perhaps this cramped his style, as he was venomous in a subdued way, relatively. Here is a picture taken from inside my house, so you can see that he is Right There .
I brought Tom home, as I said, and he is not doing well. He is having trouble breathing, is on home O2, and nothing tastes good to him. As a nurse, I have always felt that if patients don’t want to eat, then they should not have to eat, and while I have understood why they do it, I have been annoyed at families who pester a very sick or dying patient to eat. Now, I am a bit frantic because Tom won’t eat. I know intellectually that when the body is shutting down, food and even fluids are counterproductive, usually do more harm than good, and can actually cause quite a bit of discomfort. But when it is our own loved one who is not eating, intellectual knowledge flies away, and it is so difficult to act on what we know rather than what we feel. Our instinct is to nourish, and it goes against the grain to be unable to do that. I tell families that the most important thing they can do is be there, and now I am having trouble remembering all my own nursely preaching.
In the picture of Tom, note the tail in his lap. That is Nurse Michael. The third picture is of some Tibetan prayer flags which Rachael's friend Jake gave Tom.

A question mark day

This picture is not related to my post today; I just thought you might like it. The related picture is below: my new radio. One of my big beefs is instruction manuals (i.e., for computer things, Photoshop, cameras, etc) which tell you: open VQR and attach LMN, tab down to OPI and type in the proper code. They never tell you, however what VQR, LMN, and OPI are, or what the code is though, so you can’t possibly do it. The instruction manual for the radio was quite different. The basic safety instructions had 18 steps which began: 1. Read the instructions; 2. Keep these instructions; 3. Heed all warnings; 4. Follow all instructions. At that point, I read no further.
As you can see, I am trying out colons and semi-colons. Rachael came home from school yesterday and I asked her what was happening in her classes. “We talked about colons,” she said. Being a nurse, I was rather astonished, and asked in what possible context could they be talking about colons. “Not those colons, “ she said, “It’s the ones that link sentence parts together and start lists!” I felt rather foolish. I think I have rather overdone it with the colons and semi-colons. I am way more fond of dashes and parentheses, and I usually overdo them – so I thought I would overdo something else for a change.

An interesting day

I went outside to inspect our tomato plants and see if there were any blossoms yet, and what should I find but actual tomatoes!! Green, of course, but miraculous in that yesterday, they were not there, I am certain. Not even blossoms! I have been looking every day. It is amazing how those little fellows can sneak up on you. I took this photo to the hospital to show Tom and he was equally amazed and pleased. Later, as I was coming into the house, I called to Rachael that there was a package for her on the porch. I knew it was for her because they are all for her. She looked at it, and said it was for me. Hmmmmm, I wondered, what could anyone be sending me? Then I remembered that I had commissioned Rebecca to order me a cute radio to replace our kitchen radio which was on the verge of death. We couldn’t find another red one, but this one is sufficiently outré for my taste. I was excited and rushed to try it out, planning to initiate it with The Mikado. To my dismay, it didn’t work! However, I had just been cleaning a rug with my Shark, and I suspected that the Shark had overburdened its circuit. I called faithful Ken to see what to do about it, and he patiently explained circuitry to me. And so it did work after all, and the Gentlemen of Japan are singing now.
Tom is feeling much better today, and thanks you for your prayers.

A not so happy day

My friend Tom, whom my faithful few readers will know, has had leukemia for several years, but it has been under control. However, in the last few weeks it has suddenly gone over the top. I took him to the emergency room on Sunday evening, and he was admitted to a monitored unit (i.e. for very sick patients), and now is on the cancer floor. Earlier on Sunday, I went to Rebecca’s house for dinner (see below) leaving my friend John to watch Tom. When I returned, Tom looked so terrible that I insisted that we go to the hospital right then. He had been reluctant to go all day, but by this time, had reached the point of being to weak to argue with me. While staying with Tom, John prepared a lovely bouquet for Tom from flowers from my garden. Unfortunately, I am the only one enjoying it. Please keep Tom in your prayers.