Bring On The Night

 Entry 1     7:48 a.m.

I woke up at 6:00 a.m. to a dog scratching at my bedroom door.  Because I am leaving for a week on Monday to backpack in the North Cascades, Jenny wanted the dogs with her last night as practice and to allow them to get used to being with her at night. She crated Willow but not Buddy, apparently. Depending on the night, he may or may not share Willow's crate. While Jenny had her door closed, many rooms in our home have cat openings in the doors, and pudgy little Buddy somehow manages to fit through them.  I took him out to the bathroom while Jenny remained asleep.  I bring him in, he has some water and it's back to bed.  For about 10 minutes.

Buddy fits through this opening
somehow.

At 6:20, as per usual, Willow is alive, alert, awake,  enthusiastic.  I climb out of bed, pull my Levis on, and walk to Jenny, who is just opening the door. She gives me a disdainful look as Willow, freed from her crate, dashes to my room and leaps on the bed. Jenny, offering no greeting or thanks for the rescue, closes the door to her room as I am corraling the dogs to go outside.

While brewing and then sipping coffee and listening to Brian Lehrer on WNYC, a daily ritual for years, the dogs wrestle non-stop.  The wrestling is also a ritual, albeit somewhat newer. They are so fun and funny, and Willow so relentlessly puppy naughty.

Buddy showing Willow he is el jefe.

Naughty puppy is
growing like a weed.

It's going to be a golden day. 

Entry 2.     12:03 p.m.

Jenny, out running around, is now down to 157 lbs.  She says she has lost her appetite completely. She has been prescribed a drug for this, and will now need to use it. Her rapid weight loss and significant lack of hunger may be a sign of cachexia, in fact, it is hard to see how it could not be.  For your reading displeasure:  

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2014.00088/full.  

I really believe this is about the worst disease one can get. It is completely terrible.  No one deserves this kind of suffering.

Entry 3.     2:56 p.m.

Talking to Jenny right now is so fucking hard. She is insufferable. It is clear her anger about her weight loss is directed at me. I went downstairs freaked out about her weight loss--and  confirmed both that she has lost 8 lbs. In 7 days and that she has eaten nada today.  I ask her what she would like to eat, offering to feed her. She says there is nothing to eat in the house, and I start citing a litany of items to eat.  I get her a high protein Icelandic yogurt from the fridge and a Creon, a drug that aids with digestion when you have PDAC. She is complaining about Abby's failure to sign up for Running Start, and noting that she, Jenny, had rectified it. She points out, as I hand her the yogurt that, but for her, Abby wouldn't be registered. She notes Abby needs to see her doctor, which I offer to handle.  I then say, what would you like to eat, I can order it from Safeway.  As condescending as Cruella DeVil to a P.E.T.A. activist, she says that ordering food online isnt working. We need to have meal plans and to shop at the store.  I offer to make meal plans with her right then and there, and she informs me that I am too busy.  Also, note we have a full fridge and freezer, with lots of good food at all times.  Also, apparently, I'm a dick for wanting to have food delivered during the peak of the D-variant when she has a 500 percent greater chance of contracting COVID-19, and an order or orders of magnitude greater likelihood of expiring if she does, given her compromised immune system.  Another day in paradise.

Entry 4     10:22 p.m.

Strange Things Are Afoot

This afternoon we went to Jenny's sister Chris' retirement party.  On the way, we stopped by Bartell's to pick up some meds for Jenny, including her Xanax.  When she came back to the car she opened the door, sat down, and said to me, "Something is going on."  I asked, "What do you mean something is going on?"  A fair question, one supposes.  "They told me I couldn't get my Xanax because I just had my prescription refilled in July 27.  I should have 15 Xanax left, but I ran out last night, someone took 15 of my Xanax."  "No one took 15 of your Xanax, there must be a logical explanation," I offer.  "No, someone took them."  "Well, I didn't take them," I say and then ask, "Did you count them when you got them? Maybe they miscounted," I suggest.  "No, I didn't count them, but I'm sure there were thirty. I dump them into my pill container when I get them, and it was filled up."  "Well, who do you think took them? I didn't take them," I repeat. "I don't think you took them," she says and then says, "Maybe it was Leiney or Abby."  So, neither kid does drugs.  To be clear.  If you know me, you'd know that I was a drugstore cowboy when I was their age or ages, and would likely know. "There is no way Abby or Leiney stole from you," I argue.  "There is no way. They wouldn't steal drugs, and they wouldn't steal drugs from you especially--their mother with stage 4 cancer."  She is having none of it.  "You don't know." I ask, why they would steal the Xanax and she points out that Abby has an anxiety disorder.  This is so ridiculous it is scary.  I reject her theory out-of-hand, tell her so and leave it at that.  She says, apropos to nothing, "i should just get it all over with and die this weekend.  You are gone, I have the dogs and the girls by myself. 

 ."  I ignore her histrionics.  At 5:30, the pharmacy called to let her know they were mistaken.  Jenny hadn't had a refill since June 27, not July 27, and the Xanax is ready to pick up.

For the first time in memory, Abby came upstairs and snuggled me unprompted. Usually she wont even allow as much as a hug.  A red-letter day.

Willow rang the bell to go outside and do her business.  It's starting to work.