Christmas Vacation

 Entry 1      10:40 p.m.

Long day.  Jenny woke up sad and in pain. She isn't supposed to have pain in her abdomen. That was the point of the procedure. At bedtime, having already taken 3 oxycodone, she was suffering so much she took 2 Dilaudid.  I hope it provides some relief. I optimistically suggested that the procedure may show results tomorrow. Let's hope.


It takes every ounce of will for Jenny to move more than a few feet. Her energy level is no better than it was before she received the 2 units of blood a week ago. She wants to help me with things, but I won't let her for fear she may fall and injure herself. Tonight, as I was cleaning up from dinner, she left the couch to try and take Willow outside. She made it 8 feet maybe, before she almost collapsed. I don't want her to help, I don't want her getting injured, she is in enough pain as it is.  I got her back to the sectional and took the dogs out myself, and asked her to please not try that again. It's so hard for her.

Chris came over today to take Jenny to get a manicure. Jenny was excited to go, but being out was too much. She texted me that she just wanted to be home. When she did get home, after a detour to eat lunch, she slept for about 2.5 hours and eventually made it to the couch.

This evening Amelia came over to spend the night with her. They have been friends since grade school. Jane and Mike came over with dinner around 6:45. We ate a baked tortellini casserole and Caeser salad as we watched Christmas Vacation. Abby even joined us for dinner and stayed to watch most of the movie.

Jenny talked very openly with Amelia, before Jane and Mike arrived, about dying, hospice care, and death with dignity. It was sad, moving, and a relief that she has so firmly turned the corner.

I am sure there is more to say, but I am tired. Terrible sleep last night, and all the cleaning before the guests arrived and then after the movie has me ready to sleep.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Life, A Cascading Series of Disappointment

Image
Jenny has cancer.  Terminal cancer.  We learned that in late July. Jenny had  dropped 25 lbs. in the spring without trying.  She had been having vague stomach complaints since October.  As a balm for her concerns, her doctor agreed to do a CT scan for her, but told her they would find nothing.  Jenny wanted to rule out pancreatic cancer, which had recently killed her dad-in the spring of 2019.  Her mother had been sick with lymphoma since February 2020.  The day of the scan, the doctor told Jenny they would get results back in a few days. When Jenny's phone rang that same afternoon, I was in the living room with Abby, where I was torturing her by playing the Rapping Duke on Youtube. Jenny shouted from the room, "Geoff, get in here, the doctor's on the phone." "You have a four cm. mass on your pancreas,"  he said. Jenny made a sound like someone had punched her in the stomach.  "There is a spot on your liver. You have a necrotic lymph nod...
Read more

Still Muddling Through Somehow

Image
At the park, I walked my dog through the rain this morning— not really proper rain— more like air that has decided to shrug water at you out of habit. It suited my mood well enough. As I walked, my thoughts kept returning to the same small universe they often do. They are not new thoughts. They orbit the same losses. They consider the same betrayals, the same questions that never resolve. They have been captured, these thoughts, never to escape, never to be forgotten, never to burn up in the atmosphere. It is simply the gravitational field of my life now. What might seem or feel like self-pity is more like muscle memory, which tells me I need more exercise. The holidays are here, and Christmas has always been central to my life, atheist that I am. It was stitched into Jenny’s life — the love of Christmas — at least as strongly as it was stitched into mine. We carried that love forward with the kids, year after year, without ever needing to talk about why it mattered; it just did. I...
Read more

Don't Do It, Don't Do It, Oh, Lord

Image
It Hurts, It Hurts So Bad.  .  . 3:44 a.m. I walked in the door last night at just before 10 to find Jenny in a ball on the floor--between the giant ottoman and sectional--agonizing pain in her hip. I had ridden to acting with the student driver.  But, let's back up. Jenny had chemo yesterday.  Her friend Jennifer took her.  It was uneventful and she received chemo.  I, as always, prepared the house for her arrival to make sure she wanted for nothing and would be comfortable as she endures the aftermath of all that poison.  Sometime before she came home, she texted, saying the doctor suggested she try Aleve for her hip pain.  Aleve.   She asked me to pick some up for her while Abby was at acting.   During the text exchange I realized she would be alone after Abby and I left for acting.  Leiney was elsewhere and had therapy at 5 and kickboxing later, and her sister Moni had bailed on chemo because she had so much to do (Wit...
Read more