Monday 11 August 2008

A week has flown by so quickly and I realise I haven't made an entry into the blog since last Monday.

Minor progress this week. While the pain medication through the patches is not working all the time, we are using the additional break through pain medication only about 2 or 3 times a day, which is apparently not a problem. No weight gain but the dietitian says that stable weight is a good thing and it may well take another few weeks of re-nourishing and building up the essential baseline nutritional elements before weight is gained, if it is going to occur.

Some better nights' sleep to report this week as well, which is helping me a great deal, and the nursing staff have withdrawn now to attending only twice per week. This is because the central line in his arm has been removed so only his peg tube has to be taken care of and I swab and clean the tube site each day. We still haven't got the sweating under control but it seems a little less this week, perhaps due to not using a hot water bottle to warm the right side which ends up overheating the rest of his body.

Most importantly, Peter is looking better in the face each week.

We have had a busy 3 days. Peter had 3 of his oldest friends visit - 2 from Sydney (John and Judy) and one from Zurich (Imre) en route to Armidale. It was not something he was initially wanting to do but, as I thought, he warmed to the idea over a couple of days. So on Saturday I was doing the large weekly wash (it feels like we have a family of 5 now instead of just the two of us), groceries and cooking until late. Sunday, along with the usual medication, showering and other routines, I included further cooking and tidying up so that by their arrival in the afternoon for a late lunch, almost everything was done. Peter, to my surprise, said he would get out of bed and join us at the dining table while we ate - while he was hooked up to his food fluids. This seemed a bit cruel (that he had to watch us eat a lovely meal when he couldn't but it wasn't something about which he seemed concerned.)

He was up for 3 hours or more and was very engaged, despite having had a shot of hydromorphone he seemed to hold his own well and was not too exhausted when they left about 5pm. (I think he enjoyed the stimulation and so I will start to work on having some small visits from other people in the coming days, especially where they don't coincide with medical visits and appointments which he finds tiring.)

On the other hand, after giving Peter further fluids and medications, I dropped into the recliner chair and was out like a light for an hour or so before getting back up to do the rest of the evening routine.

Today we have had the physiotherapist visit to help Peter with some exercises to assist in removing phlegm and help breathing, re-establish some stability and develop strength in the legs and also provide some minor exercises to halt the withering of the right arm, if that's at all possible. Peter is very motivated to try to do some of these exercises and he was very enthusiastic about the ones which he can do in bed.

We have no other appointments until the end of the month when we see Dr Yip the oncologist again, so we have a couple of weeks of relative peace ahead.

In the last week, I have also managed to get a couple of small breaks through the volunteers and was able to go to the National Gallery with a friend on Wednesday for a couple of hours and a very quick 2 hour visit to the craft and quilt fair on Friday - enough to buy some beads and pearls for future jewellery making. It has been great to have these couple of breaks but the time flashes by so quickly that it seems no time before it's time to drive back again. I hope to do a bit of shopping and add a few more interesting visits or catching up with friends over the next couple of weeks.

Other news - it snowed here at our house yesterday (great large floating snowflakes, not the small icy spots of a couple fo weeks ago) for the 1st time ever. It was -4 degrees C to a maximum of 8 degrees C and one of our coldest maximums this year. Both Peter and I couldn't believe it. It only lasted about 25 minutes but I captured a couple of photos, which will show it up, hopefully.

Anyway, that's all for now. Au revoir - Leanne