What, you thought it would be smoothing sailing for all ? 😉  Rough night for Kathleen.  Her TPN was changed to have less calories since she is eating a little more.  Smaller volume infused over 8hrs.  If we do it at night, that means no more than 8hrs sleep.  With some early AM nausea and vomiting, we were up for about an hour… I forget when. 3 ish ?  Had to hook up some gravol, but it was not soon enough so emergency barf bowl got used.  We are both pros at this.  Even before the Cancer, my job often gets me up in the middle of the night, so that part I am used to.  But we are all humans of course. So you get irritated.  Me, lack of sleep will add up and make me irritable. Betty, our cat was irritated as well since I had to get up and disturb her happy sleep.  The dog was annoyed because I had to turn the light on.  Kathleen was irritated by the pain, the pain meds, the nausea, the vomiting, the somewhat uncomfortable sleep in the chair, and oh, I guess the cancer in there as well.  The nurse too had a nice start to the day with her car window breaking.  I only spoke to Elaine briefly on the way out, but she had forgotten her purse at our house last night with her cell phone in it, so that too no doubt irritated her.  So, a grand intersection of irritation. 

You forget that inside the cancer bubble are all the ‘normal’ problems of life. Before having been taken away in the bubble, I would have thought that ‘little things’ would no longer be bothersome, but in some strange way, they are no different. Its true, some ‘problems’ are no longer on our radar, but oddly enough there is a class of annoying things that are the same– annoying. I will have to think about it more on the dog walk tomorrow. Orville always has an answer 🙂

—Mike

Woody Allen has his moments for me. His unabashed sentimental love of things like the city he grew up in, and warm sepia tone childhood memories really agrees with me. Lately I had been thinking about this clip of a young Woody Allen character expressing the ultimate existential angst about life and death. You can watch the video clip here. For those without video access, here is the snippet.

    DOCTOR 
   (Nodding) 
Why are you depressed, Alvy?
 
    MOTHER 
(Nudging Alvy) 
Tell Dr. Flicker. 
(Young Alvy sits, his head down.  His mother answers for him) 
It's something he read.

    DOCTOR 
(Puffing on his cigarette and nodding) 
Something he read, huh?  

    ALVY 
(His head still down) 
The universe is expanding.

    DOCTOR 
The universe is expanding?

    ALVY 
(Looking up at the doctor) 
Well, the universe is everything, and if 
it's expanding, someday it will break apart 
and that would be the end of everything!

Disgusted, his mother looks at him.

    MOTHER 
(shouting) 
What is that your business? 
(she turns back to the doctor) 
He stopped doing his homework.

    ALVY 
What's the point?

    MOTHER 
(Excited, gesturing with her hands) 
What has the universe got to do with it?  
You're here in Brooklyn!  Brooklyn is not 
expanding!

    DOCTOR 
(Heartily, looking down at Alvy) 
It won't be expanding for billions of years 
yet, Alvy.  And we've gotta try to enjoy 
ourselves while we're here.  Uh?
He laughs.

I love that bit in the script. He laughs. I feel like all three of those characters sometimes. My aunt Eva was like the doctor, my aunt Katie was like young Alvy– philosophical, but afflicted with a lot of meloncholy and my uncle Gabor, like the doctor– philosophical and always ready with a good insightful joke.

Nothing but the quiet hum of the hospital tonight. Kathleen’s new room mate is drifting in and out of sleep with the headphones on watching TV. Kathleen has been sleeping since I got here after a long day of visitors. She still had a rough night and morning. So more med adjustment. Gallium scan tomorrow as well as yet another CT. This time of her head. She has some double vision going on which is unusual. Possible spread to the brain ? Its unusual. The heavy sedating drugs might just be making her muscles relax too much and she cant focus. When the main chemo doctor was here this morning, he said spinal involvement was rare, but… Well, you never know. So they aggressively check for these things here. Honestly, what more can you ask for. The gallium scan tomorrow will look for active and recently active infection sites as well as look for some types of cancer sites. He is somewhat doubtful about the efficacy of this test. I think the Neurologist wanted it more.

Actually, our chemo doctor says, “I dont know” a lot which actually gives me more confidence in him. Its hard to tell people who desperately want answers that they dont have them and really, with this type of rare cancer there just isnt enough data to predict how it will go. Ultimately, it wont go well, but we dont know just quite how long. So Kathleen and I will alternate through those roles above. Sometimes being the depressed kid, sometimes the “here and now mother” and sometimes the laughing doctor. Hopefully more of the laughing doctor, all in the rapidly expanding universe.

—-Mike

Its back to the panel of metaphorical flashing red lights again. On top of all the horrible back pain, now pancreatitis once more. Nausea, diarrhea, additional pain. The CT scan unfortunately did not show an issue. So Spinal Tap tomorrow to look at the fluid in her spine and see if there are cancer cells there. It would be nice if this were an episode of House. Three incorrect theories, then the “aha moment.” But its not like that of course. Sometimes there are no ‘aha moments’ but we hope the immense training and experience of the various health care providers involved will come through and at least help her win this battle. Its hard enough to face the mortal issues Kathleen has when they are hazed in pain and fogged over with heavy pain relief.

—Mike