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.
