Hold My Be'er Sheva

Entry 1
Dreams of living near the water must be met another day for Jenny.  We got beat by 15k.  It was a beautiful home near Be'er Sheva Park, but I have perverse satisfaction (mixed with ample doses of disappointment), after what I disclosed in my last entry.

Entry 2. 8:21 a.m.

Jenny woke me at 4:30 a.m., pain off the charts.  A sharp constant pain in her upper abdomen.  I was sleepy. I rubbed my eyes and said, "Let me get dressed, we will go to the ER."  She was moaning, doubled up on pain, bent over the far end of the sectional, kneeling on a cushion. No relief.  She laid down on the couch, writhing. I suggested that walking around has helped the pain in the past. She tried, walked to the bedroom and back, no relief.  She told me she wanted me to stay with the kids,  and she reached out to her sister Chris to come and take her to hospital.  She got down on her knees on the floor between the ottoman and sectional,  leaned forward, elbows on the floor, and moaned.  She got back on the sectional, this time sitting down, facing the fireplace.  I sat up, soldiering through my own pain from pulled muscles in my side and back, and rubbed her hand.  She told me she feared this was it, she must have a new tumor.  I explained, sympathetically, that she just had a scan a week ago, and they hadn't found any tumors in new locations.  My lawyer's phrasing served me well there, given new mets have been found on her liver.  .  . I said you aren't dying. She said maybe she has two months.  "More like 2000," I said.

Nervous, she stood up and went back to the bedroom to change.  Her sister arrived and they left, Jenny.

IV dilaudid and morphine did the trick.  A CT found no new tumors.  A celiac plexus block is likely next.  If so, it won't happen today, they would need to schedule the procedure.

And her cancer antigen marker went from 3713 on May 6 to over 8000 this morning.  

Entry 3    9:29 p.m.

We have made it through the day.  A new regimen, and hope for pain control.  Tomorrow we return to the Folfiri. Well, we don't return to the Folfiri, Jenny does. She gets a short infusion at the hospital,and then wears a pump for 46 hours.  Then back to the hospital to remove the pump and close her port access.  That sounds like she is a shipping dock.  "Hey Mikey, go close the port access, it's time to go home."   Fingers crossed it goes smoothly.


Entry 4  10:00 p.m.

Jane came over with Mike and Emily tonight for dinner.  They just come up whenever, no plans.  It was low key and lovely.  I am so sad. 

I was supposed to visit one of my dearest friends, Paul tonight for dinner.  I didn't feel I could, given the events of the day, which turned out to be true, for a host of reasons.  But, as one of my closest friends, really about the only person I have seen in months outside of family, it sucked. I cleaned the house, mowed the lawn and cooked dinner.  Jenny was immobile, and then retching. She laid in bed much of the time my sister and her family were here, but did rally and join us.   

This life is so hard.  I don't think my listening to Phoebe Bridgers sing helps.  

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