Thursday, Mar 5th, 2020…… Ed and Tia said their goodbyes and
headed out about 8:40am for their drive back home to Wausau WI. It was a busy
week but Lydia was so glad to see everyone!
She says thanks to all!!!
After they
drove out, I left by myself to go see Lydia. We had a few things to do today.
But first up, the nurses had come in to take out her feeding tube! What a
relief! She said that it was very
uncomfortable with that thing in. Ya think! She is now on a 5-day trial of a
regular oral diet to see if she can sustain food by mouth. If not, she will get the more permanent peg
(stomach inserted) feeding tube.
One of our
goals today was for me to get some Credit Union banking details from her. These
are the ones that she handles monthly. The other was to sit down and work on
our advance directives. She’s never done one before. I did one and it was filed
in California. Turns out that directive is good in 42 states and Oregon is not
one of them. I think it has to do with Oregon being a right-to-die state.
Anyway, we worked on that and got it done. Just need witness signatures
tomorrow.
Next up is
a meeting with oncology doctors. They will be talking to us about future chemo.
That’s going to be a significant and pivotal meeting. Fingers crossed!
Friday, Mar 6th, 2020…… I got up and showered and got
ready. Lydia thought we had a 10:00am meeting time but was not sure. No one on
the nursing staff could tell us. They made calls to try to find out. Anyway, I headed over early in case they did
early rounds.
Today we got our next round of news. Not so good. The oncology
doctor confirmed that she cannot take the same level of chemo as round one. While that is not good news, he did say that
there is another type of treatment that she might be able to tolerate but she
needs to be much stronger than she is now for that to happen. It can’t be put
off too long because the cancer is very aggressive. That’s the bad news. Next
phase is to get her well enough in the next week or two to get moved to a skilled
nursing facility (aka snf) for rehab to help get her ambulatory again. From the
snf, she will be going to and from dialysis. The goal is to be strong enough to
go home and then back and forth from home to dialysis and then later for
whatever chemo they can try. It’s a tightrope and we are plenty scared! Lydia
understands and we are both dealing with it and have accepted whatever comes
from here. She has had some times of weakness and, at times. wanted to give up,
but with everyone here for her, she became a fighter once more and is
determined to go another round!
Saturday, Mar 7th, 2020…… Today was a really good day. She
is eating good and finishing her meals. They want her eating several light snacks/meals
rather than 1 or 2 big meals which will upset her stomach. She says everything tastes
like cardboard but they are finding foods that have some taste that she likes.
Yesterday, she ate an entire taco salad! A really good positive spirited day!
Sunday, Mar 8th, 2020……
We heard from Maryanne and Cherrelyn that they have travel arrangements
made and will be coming up this week. Lydia is looking forward to seeing both
of them. Sis and I spent a few hours with Lydia a couple of times today. They
do her dialysis Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, so she is in her room and
relaxed on the weekends and ready for visitors. She has complained about her
nails which haven’t been cut, only painted when the family was here. Penny cut and used the dremel on them this
morning because she was having trouble texting. I think she is happy now that
she can go back to Facebook and read emails and such. She is taking calls but
sometimes she will turn the phone off or on vibrate when she needs to rest – so
don’t get discouraged – just call back another time.
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