Aye Eye Matey

Seth arrived on Sunday for a short visit. We celebrated last night with a full-on turkey dinner, thanksgiving-in-august extravaganza. We enjoyed each others company over stuffing and pumpkin pie. Unfortunately, Dad was not feeling up for the smells, sights, and sounds of dinner, so he stayed in the quiet of the room. At the moment, George, Seth, and Aaron are off hiking and swimming at Twin Falls.

Lately, David has had a sharp pain above his eye socket and it seems to be accompanied by double-vision and headaches. On the plus side, the massive swelling in his feet (picture hobbit feet, each looking like it weighs about 5 pounds) is completely gone and his feet are back to normal. David will be finishing the round of antibiotics for his staph infection this week and then we'll see what the next game plan will be.

To prevent his double-vision, David has begun to wear a black sweat band like an eye patch over one eye. His new accessory gives him quite the pirate air. Next, we'll see how he feels about a parrot for his shoulder.

Wacky Wednesday

On Sunday, George, Shanna, Andrea, David, and I attempted a trip to the beach.  It was nice and sunny, but a constant blasting wind relentlessly battered us and kept us closer to the protection of the trees.  David enjoyed sitting under the trees in a nice shady spot with the ocean in the distance.

Since then, David has been to the beach and to the doctor's office, but for the most part, when he is home, he tries to stay very quiet and still.  His stomach continues to cause him a lot of trouble. Also, his eyesight is blurry sometimes.

Today, Mom and Aaron are getting dirty in the garden.  I (Katheryn) really enjoyed my first day teaching ESL classes.  I have 13 advanced students from 7 countries (Japan, Vietnam, China, Syria, Switzerland, Italy, and Korea), which makes for a really fun class.  They love the diversity as much as I do.

 

August 2009

Aloha Friday

David's Comfort-o-Meter:
Sunday was grrreat!
Monday was ok/pretty good.
Tuesday was ok/less good.
Wednesday was more uncomfortable/lethargic.
Thursday was much more nauseated/uncomfortable.
Friday is very very sad stomach/not at all good feeling night/morning.

David threw up many times yesterday and last night he's been throwing up about on the hour despite taking nausea medicines. He has thrush and it's possible that candida throughout the system may be causing the extreme nausea. Even when he's done throwing up, he still feels like a horse kicked him in the stomach. Shanna is working on getting some yogurt and coconut milk in him to combat the fungus and dehydration. He currently feels a needle-like pain in his shoulder. He has also been told that his veins are collapsing, making it more difficult to give him an IV. The seemingly endless nausea/throwing up has dampened David's spirits considerably. It's hard to wonder if it will ever stop and not being confidently told, yes, you will feel better after this is over is understandably depressing.

George arrived on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. He has been accompanying David to his hospital visits. Yesterday, Shanna, David and George all enjoyed a beautiful, calm afternoon at the beach. As always, it's wonderful to have George helping out around the house and his humor enlivening the spirits on the farm.

Patrick (Laughlin) has been very busy remodeling Aunt Andrea's kitchen; demo work, changing walls, installing new lighting, outlets, etc., hanging drywall, and working hard to make her workspace the kitchen of her dreams.

Aaron has been working on the back deck and finishing up the siding project on the main house.

Katheryn has been busy preparing to teach three ESL classes that begin next week.

Three movies we watched in the last week:
1. Pirates of Penzance (We love this goofy musical).
2. Across the Universe (Very interesting, if you like the Beatles and the 1960s, you'll enjoy).
3. King Corn (Good documentary on America's shift to diet of corn, through corn sweeteners, corn-fed meat, and corn additives in processed food).

Pain Pain Go Away

Yesterday evening, David's pain level began to spike dramatically to the point of wondering if he should go to the hospital for higher doses of morphine. Eventually, with enough morphine pills, marijuana, and putting his fentanyl patch back on (a slow release pain med. patch) he got the pain under control and had a very good night. Patrick and Katheryn took night duty to let Shanna get some rest.

Today, David is feeling gggrrrreeeat! We all went out to breakfast and he has been cruising around in his GoGo surveying the property. He is looking forward to having many more days like this.

Adventures in IV Land

After his successful port removal on Thursday, David had a catheter put into his vein on his left arm that would be replaced every three days so he can receive his antibiotics/etc.  Today, a home health nurse came by to show Shanna how to give him the IV antibiotics... and what is supposed to be a 5 minute project turned into an hour long struggle to figure out whether or not the catheter was working properly.  Eventually, the nurse gave up, removed that catheter, and put a new catheter into a vein on his right hand and was at long last, able to give him his antibiotic dose for the day.  Hurray!

These sorts of stories are what I will now refer to as Adventures in IV Land.  IV Land like a video game where you wonder around a vast wilderness with a hand-written, water-stained, barely legible map translated from Latin that is supposed to lead you to your hidden treasure (magnificent hydration, invaluable antibiotics, and a genie in a bottle named Taxitare).  You have to be very careful because you are surrounded and distracted by evil bacteria disguised as an unobtrusive objects like an innocent light switch or a ringing phone, and every time you crest a mountain or round a curve in the trail, you think you're set, almost there, the treasure will be yours in no time, muuuahhahaha and then you get stuck in quicksand, have to search high and low for tiny vines (read veins) that seem to always be right outside your reach, and finally when you've done it! You made it to the bonus round!  Your queen will be so happy!  You celebrate!  And then you realize that you will be sailing off to the next adventure in the morning. 

Ahhhh, to the life of an adventurer.

(I must give credit to the newest Indiana Jones movie for inspiring me to write this story. However, Shanna and I do not recommend it, giving it a failing grade of a D+.  Thank you NetFlix).

If you have any great movies you think Shanna and the fam would enjoy, please leave their titles in the comments section.  We go through movies like Lance Armstrong crosses finish lines, fast and smiling.  (Shanna's favorite genres include happy movies, musicals, foreign films, and nothing sad, with too much drama, or scary). 

Friday

This morning David had another blood transfusion because he is anemic again. He has had fevers and today he is very weak and tired, however, his pain is low and his mind clear. His port removal was very successful and he is feeling much less distraught now that it's over.

The focus for the next few days/week will be getting him to eat. Attempting to get in supplements disguised in foods/drinks when he does. And continuing the antibiotic IV.

We're all looking forward to seeing George soon!

Aaron is off to Lanai for a two-day Pirate costume party/treasure hunt/beach day/sailing trip.

Patrick and I are sitting on the couch watching Whale Wars and eating brownies and ice cream.

And that's all folks....

Love Bugs Bunny

Thursday

Good news! They checked David's heart and it is healthy and doesn't have any of the staph infection. He is currently recovering from the anesthesia they gave him to remove his port this morning. He was very nervous about this surgery, but it seems to have gone well.

Physically, his head and body were achy last night.

Also, David told me last night that he wants me to find Donald Trump's hairstylist so he can get that magnificent poof/pullover hairdo.

And the Wheel Grinds

Well, shoot. We had that fantastic day (Monday) and we were all feeling very optimistic and light hearted. Then the wheel took another turn. Yesterday, David had some very unfortunate news.... which has brought on a lot of emotions in addition to the stress of determining next steps.

David got a call from his doctor telling him that a recent blood culture shows that David has a staph infection. Staph infections are very dangerous if not treated immediately with the most powerful antibiotics. The unfortunate consequences of this news are many 1) tomorrow (Thursday) David will have his port surgically removed because staph have a tendency to thrive on foreign objects in the body... This means that in order to get a saline drip for hydration, antibiotic IVs, and chemo IVs he will have to get it the normal way, through his veins each time, which is very wearing on his small veins and more work to set up. 2) He will need to get a high dose of antibiotics through an IV each day for a few weeks (up to a month) to kill the infection. 3) As long as he is on antibiotics, he will not be able to continue his chemo therapy.

This news has brought a great deal of fear, emotional distress, and tension for David and for the rest of us. It's especially hard because things were looking up. I think it's been even harder on David because he not only had this bad news, but it was so unexpected and that it has plunged him down from the heights we had all reached two days ago with little to cushion his fall.

Nonetheless, we all know we're riding a wild roller coaster ride and that it will have it's drastic highs, gut-wrenching free falls, spins and turns and that you have to brace yourself, hang-on to who ever is next to you, and know that it will all unfold as it will.

More updates will come tomorrow.

And the Wheel Turns

I think I'm just going to have to write quick updates nearly every day... because everything seems to change that quickly.

Yesterday, Aug. 3, Dad was infinitely better. It's pretty amazing actually. He went to IHOP after going to see the radiation doctor. He was very coherent and clear minded. He was funny and social and talkative. He wasn't in much pain or very nauseated and he didn't have a fever. A perfectly normal 98.6 (which is cause to celebrate in this house). It was heaven.

We all (Katheryn, Aaron, Patrick, and Mom) all ate dinner with him in the bedroom and stayed up talking and hanging out till 1:00am.

Dad is trying out his vaporizer (for medical marijuana) again and seeing how that feels. Today Dad will be going to see his naturpath/acupuncturist. I'm about to go upstairs and see if the night went as well as the day did.

Smile... Just Smile

A quick update:
Dad has had a very hard day today and for the last two weeks. He has been throwing up consistently. On Thursday, he was prescribed antibiotics because his symptoms had gotten so much worse early last week (scary high fevers, dramatic chills, nausea, low blood pressure, really high pulse rate, etc.). The last few nights he has slept better, the antibiotics seem to be helpful.

Mom is working on getting him the right amount of medicine (which is hard to track because he throws up a lot of it).

Yet, through it all, tonight he still smiles and says "Goodnight, I'll see you tomorrow" and Mom and I find the humor in our poor mathematical ability/memory as we attempted to figure out how many ounces a 1000mL is... :) ah, silly American metric system.

Spring & Summer 2009