life in the old lane

Mr C continues to eat everything in sight and do most of his normal things. He is going to have a nontrivial chunk of cancer removed from his head on Thursday. The little cancer doc – the only remaining cancer doc – since the big cancer doc told Mr C byebye – will be doing the surgery in his office. Mr C will whine a little bit, but he has had this done lots of times.

After my great day of no worries yesterday – today, I started to worry about the infection that started exactly 3 weeks ago. I worry that it isn’t gone. Just hiding. Waiting to spring out again. There is something I can do. I can monitor his temperature like a mother hen.

Enjoy Every Sandwich: Today’s offering will be turkey, lots of cheese and cranberry sauce on a fine buttery croissant for the patient. Turkey, a hint of cheese and lots of mustard on whole wheat pita for the caregiver.

Great fireworks last night. I didn’t begin to do them justice. Heck, I didn’t even set up the tripod. So, I can not complain.

I will complain about winter. I am tired of winter. Today to took the winter liner out of my raincoat and I stored my fuzzy bathrobe away. And my heaviest leggings have been banished to the back of the sock drawer. I’ll just be cold. Enough already, Mother Nature.

Another good day – that is two in a row. We are on a roll.

I took the day off from worry. And taxes. I was going to go shopping. But, I went to the grocery first. Ended up getting a chicken, sweet potatoes, and cauliflower. So, I cooked. The chicken spent an hour in the oven. I did yoga while the chicken was roasting. After 60 minutes – me and the chicken were both done. Mr C ate hardy. I exercised restraint.

Carlton took his bike for a ride today.

Fireworks tonight. Cherry Blossom Festival Fireworks.

I looked into renting a real photo-scanner. Realistically, I have more prints than I can scan the way I was doing it last summer before Carlton’s recurrence. I can rent a quality Kodak “professional grade” photo scanner for about $300 for 3 days. That might be about what it would cost to send everything to India to be scanned. But, I like the idea of doing it in my kitchen.  The scanner rental folk have been scanning medical documents for years. I think they are legit.

Enjoy Every Sandwich: Today’s Sandwich. Turkey with guacamole on English muffins. With lentil soup for Mr. C. Gotta pack in those calories, you know.

Spring seems to be hiding. But, it is a still a wonderful day in the neighborhood. Mr C made huge steps towards returning to his old perky self.

He spent most of the day out of bed. He ran the vacuum. He tinkered with his bike. He went for a little walk. He went for a bus ride. He is Carlton again.

Enjoy every sandwich – today’s sandwich was tuna on a nice croissant for the patient. On a pathetic 100% whole wheat pita for the dieter. With a nice cup of tomato soup. The patient got a big dollop of sour cream in his tomato soup. I got Tabasco.

It is a wonderful day in the neighborhood – except the Nats lost their home opener.

OK, put your aloha shirts back in the closet. Mr C’s funeral is on hold for now!

Today we saw 3 of his doctors. The cancer surgeon told him that he had done all he could. The radiologist was happy with the results of the PET scan. (The radiologist and I both thought that his cancer had progressed much farther that it has.) The radiologist really can not do anymore either – but he wants to see Carlton again in 6 months.

Carlton also saw his dermatologist. That doctor is going to do some “routine” skin cancer surgery. Yesterday, he saw his primary care doctor. She is trying to get is blood counts back in line. I think they got wonky as the result of the infection he had.

It has been suggested that he see a medical oncologist – but the only thing those doctors do is chemo and stem cell transplants. Carlton isn’t going that way. And, there is certainly no evidence that indicates he would benefit from either treatment.

I believe his short term prognosis is fine, longer term not so. But, I haven’t a clue what the time frame is. Nobody is willing to hazard a guess.

I intend to do everything I can to help him get his energy levels back up and to watch for any recurrence of the infection. And, the cancer, we will just have to wait and see what happens with the “tiny” areas suggestive of metastasis mentioned in the PET Scan report.

Back into “enjoy every sandwich” mode, until the next crisis.

Life is good.

◊Spring flowers are popping out

◊The Airness is back, and they didn’t wipe the disk.

◊Mr C continues to eat and regain his strength.

Life is good today. Seeing three doctors tomorrow.

Ah, the joys of modern medicine. A couple of PET Scan CDs arrived via snail mail today. Did any of the docs call or email – nope. Seems to me, there are some areas of concern. But the brain, liver, kidneys are OK. So, I am hoping that if we can get him eating and if his energy comes back, we can get some more good times for Mr C. We will see what the doctors say tomorrow and Thursday.

Now, about my computer which is still at the apple store. When I pick it up it will have had the disk wiped and Mavericks installed. With any kind of luck at all, my time machine backup is good. If I were not dealing with Carlton, I would reinstall all my software and just pull data from the backup. But, I am not sure that I am mentally up to that. SO, I am thinking about either doing a complete restore from my backup or and I think this is doable – fire up migration assistant and just “migrate” my data, programs and settings.

Input please. Thanks! My time machine backup has mavericks

I got home from volunteer job and discovered that the patient had eaten crackers, potato chips and trail mix plus an Ensure. Never mind that the fridge had yogurt, cottage cheese and deviled eggs right in plain sight. Next to the Ensure even.

So, I got some veggies and some chicken into him for lunch. And some ice cream. He might not be better, but he will feel better if he eats something. Something better than potato chips.

This just has to be good, doesn’t it?

Took The Airness to The Apple Store today. Unfortunately, It is down there waiting for parts to arrive. I should have brought it home and made a redundant backup. (They said they would do a clean install.)But, no, I just left it. Oh please, Mother Hopper, make sure my time machine backup is good. My brain is all caught up in this Carlton thing.

Thank goodness the taxes are done. What was wrong with Airness? Battery was at 50% goodness and one of the USB ports is wonky. Why they have to clean install, I don’t know.

When I got out of the shower, I couldn’t see across the street because of  snow squall. Earlier I walked to Trader Joe’s in a howling rainstorm. What’s next?

On the Carlton front. He is the same. I am worried that he blood pressure is getting way too low. So, I told him to stop the BP drugs for now. He got really dizzy and collapsed last night when he got up to go to his bathroom. He recovered with no apparent ill effects. Nevertheless, I have ordered him to use my bathroom and will try to wakeup every time he does to ensure safe passage. We usually take our BP meds at bedtime. I am hoping that if he doesn’t take his – he will do better.

One of his many doctors may call with the results of the PET Scan tomorrow. The primary care doc might have more information about his blood cultures.

We talked a little. About the most likely outcome of this.

It was another good day – using our new scale of goodness.

 

It rained all day. So, I finished up and eFiled our taxes. And then I took a two hour nap while the patient watched a movie… Bernie It is a fun movie. But a slightly dark selection.

Mr C has no pain, no fever, and no energy or appetite. And some ominous lesions and bumps.

All things considered a good day. (And Amazon delivered the Super Strength Ensure.)

 

Mr C went to his PET Scan today. Will not know anything until Monday soonest. Maybe not until Thursday.

I went to the see Lenore the Dental Hygienist. Highlight of my day was when she declared me “stable”. Can I get a notarized affidavit as to my stability please?

The blood work came back today. No sign of infection in the blood stream. Normally, that would be a good thing. But, we want him to have an infection. So, this good news is maybe not so good.

Last night I was mostly awake. But the moon and Venus made a nice image.

I started doing Mr C’s taxes today. That is one of the things I was worried about last night when I wasn’t asleep. And he said that he checked over his will and is happy with it and his Advanced Directive if it comes to that. And, he still wants to go to Georgetown Medical School – if they still want him. A little gallows humor is starting to sneak into our world.

He is the same. Well, I guess he weighs one pound less than he did yesterday – we don’t have a scale. He says he feels the same. He still isn’t eating. But, he is drinking his Ensure.

The Kindle has been a blessing. It is light. He is too weak to manage much of a book. And, I can get him new reading material any time. Amazon, the caregiver’s assistant. (And, Amazon has black ballet flats too.)

In the last 24 hours, we have seen 3 doctors. And none of them has had anything really positive to say. I have never seen Mr C as sick as he is right now. He has lost 10 pounds in as many days. I ordered a case of industrial strength Ensure from Amazon today.

The PET scan on Friday will tell us if the cancer has gotten into some place important like the brain. Lab work was started today to check out the infection.

Everyone is hoping/pretending that this all a massive infection.  Next week will be reality check time.

Nothing medical tomorrow. I hope.