2007 — 15 September: Saturday and sunnier

I allowed the central heating to kick in for a while this morning as it seemed almost frosty outside earlier. All rads seemed to heat up, and all meds1 will soon be onboard for the morning, too. I'm delighted and relieved to see that She slept almost continuously through the night, and without breakthrough pain. I currently sleep very lightly, but seem now to be better able to re-enter the realm of Morpheus once I'm sure She doesn't need anything. I mostly wake when She changes position since this often triggers a fresh burst of pain. Last night was a pleasant exception (after upping both the morphine and the amitriptyline).

I'm less delighted (but not surprised) to note increasing signs of confusion and wooziness, plus some mild (hallucinations is too strong a word) half-waking "fidgeting"2 for want of a better word. She is sometimes pushing non-existent buttons (on a cooker, She tells me) for example. We can still smile about this (our present cooker is only a year younger than our marriage!) but She remarks that She's "losing it". Frankly, if this is the price we pay to banish pain, so be it. We're both agreed on that. And late evening breakthrough pain yesterday prompted Her to say She just doesn't want this to go on any more. It breaks my heart to write this, but I have to agree with Her. Pain is not remembered. This means when (as now) She's resting or dozing peacefully without pain and we chatter amiably, or simply hold hands, it's not so bad somehow. But just before the 12-hourly morphine topup (for instance, 40 minutes ago) the word I'd use is "brutal". This is a loathsome disease.

Welcome, Junior!

Peter has come down from London for the weekend, so we'll pack in a small adventure or two. There's a new network wireless router to be installed, and (as one of the PCs in his flat has died) he's going to "nick" the server PC I bought earlier this year but which (now that we've decided to use a hosted service) is just sitting in the garage. These are going to be very useful distractions for both of us. I know from my own experience when my Dad was dying that this is very far from easy for him, but he's doing well. We've also just decommissioned the original "molehole" email and web server after nearly seven years of faithful service. Not bad for a student lash-up, heh?

  

Footnotes

1  Including the 8mg of steroids (which the GP warned us might make Her a bit "high") but which should tackle the radiation-induced inflammation.
2  There's a term for this precise behaviour, but I'm too tired to research it. I observed it with my Dad, many years ago.