Background to Joy

As the totally cool, clued-in reader knows from reading our site at CaringBridge (www.caringbridge.org/visit/davekaty), the universe has made a U turn for us. I am now home -- 2 days early -- and loving it. 2 days early makes me a superstah.

Less stated is that it makes Katy a Megastah. With this news, she has needed to get the house ready, drive to pick up Rx and palliatives, pick up the dog, ensure that her helpful brother Steve is not entirely neglected and has tasks to fill his willing hands, come to the hospital, talk to the PAs, help get my stuff home, sorted, put it away; organize my meds by day and hour, sanitize bathrooms, kitchen, handle communications with folks, clean dishes, do laundry, worry about separation of stuff between me and the rest of the world, tidy the house, and more.

Consequently, she is at the end of her rope. I worry (and have worried) that my early return and heavy-duty proscriptions against nearly any kind of useful work just make it too much. She is at the end of her rope, and I have no rope. {lus any independent action on my part just makes more work, reasonably enough, in that she has been saddled with caregiving.

She is doing a marvelous job, and of course I love her giant loads. Wonderful friends make open-ended and generous offers of help. There is no going back to the hospital (not that I could bear that), and it is wonderful to be home. The thought of nearly anything generous, loving, beautiful or comforting pretty much puts me in tears; the thought of most anything else makes me queasie. So I may seek help in mindfulness or mindlessness, but I need to be out of my mind right now.

stream of bloggishness

AM, PM, big difference, why. Why does PM get to screw up AM. Pills in the morning, pills in the evening, pills when the sun is gone. Maybe oh, a dozen today? Plus god knows what thru the damndamndamndamndamndamndamndamn IV lines. Tonight mild hope of new headache drug, thwarted by simultaneous explosive puke and diarrhea. Almost had it fixd by combo of surgical mask and humid air duct, but not enough. Air here is stunningly dry. Breath through your mouth for a moment and you need a drink.

However, thanks to chemo taste buds, all sweetened stuff tasts like excessively sweet paste. Water bears resemblance to strichnine. How is it that they can use dryer lint to make Italian Ice? Food has no appeal at this point. If I even look at the menu I feel ill -- and it's not that bad a menu.

Coughed now as water made me choke, which pounded my nearly-continous headache untreatable by any means known to medicine. Headache, of course made me briefly nauseous.

DIdnt hold a candle to the preceding event of retching out meds. Told the staff I want no more pills tonight.

Then IV pump began its escalation pattern of complaint: beep beep BEEP FUCKING BEEP DO YOU HEAR ME! After 3 iterations staff decided to disconnect me. O Frabjous night, you fucking bite!

Have adjusted HVAC for the quadrillionth time. Apparently it achieves proper temperature at the high end by blowing cold air (on the patient) until the trip point is randomly reached. It then follows some sort of hysteresis curve following the law of Mandelbrot. There is no OFF on the fiendish thing. And the space between these two characters:>< translates into the difference between ol-man-winter and summer in calcutta.

fuck it all, think I might go puke again. Just to save time later. And it would be a valuable way to lose water weight. I am now carrying 2.5 GALLONS of water weight. My fingers are pudgu and stiff, my legs and feet likewise, and my genitals do not warrant description. So, yes, one recurring theme is LASIX which results in frequent appalling visits to genitals. So, ready to puke yet? Join me. We'll make it a traditional Roman event in the Olympics.