Waiting outside the CT room and I can hear the machine whir into action. “Breath In” says the 1990’s era synth voice. I think after this one she gets a free nuclear powered toaster, having filled her loyalty card. Kathleen is massively doped up to try and deal with the intense pain of laying on her back. She is medicated as much as possible once again so she can stay still while they image another area. Its not as long as the MRI thankfully.
The latest theory (this time by a very earnest Neurologist) is an abscess in her sacrum. The MRI showed a relatively normal back “unfortunately / fortunately” depending on how you look at it. Some age related degeneration and some fluid but nothing that would account for the massive pain she has. If it is an abscess, it can be drained bringing almost instant pain relief. After so many tries– and they really are trying— Kathleen needs this win. The pain is grinding her down.
I think about some of the intractable work problems I have faced in the past. You come up with a theory, put in all sorts of effort to implement the plan only to have it fail. You think you have it. You get your hopes up…. no. You get beat down. You pull yourself up somehow, only to get beat back down. Repeat. Thats just money and equipment at work. This is very different of course. Its easy for me to say we will keep trying, as its Kathleen that has to endure.

More pills to try and get her through the symptoms. She took this photo this morning– her AM regime. I havent had a chance to ask her what was on her mind yet, but I will include it here.

Upstairs now and Kathleen is sleeping off the drugs. She had another rough night. On top of the pain, they are trying to get all the excess fluids out of her tissues which means more trips to the washroom. Her one leg has started to get better, but not the other raising some concern of a blood clot somewhere. But they are on it. They dont shy away from doing ultrasounds to make sure.

Lovely visit from her maternal aunt and uncle from Montreal this morning. They were in Toronto visiting their grandchildren and came up to see Kathleen and Elaine. They brought her a St. Patricks day drinking hat 🙂

—Mike