Present Conditions

Sitting on my porch swing at midnight watching the moon race across the sky, an illusion caused by the cloud deck, broken and gray racing through the night.  A brilliant full moon, I made another one and I just love it.  The wind on the ground was gusting to 30 mph so they say, but my home sits in a valley and we get a breeze and the howling of the front moving through.  It is February and about 60 degrees F this morning.  After a week of warming the ice and snow are gone for now.  I am up because of gas pain, which dogged me yesterday. 

Now noon and I am taking a lunch break.  I have been working this morning as I can.  Still having some double me over things going on but the growls and grumblings are welcome signs of things to come.  I feel sorry for Buster McThunderstick.  His once proud prominence now lost in the swelling and accumulated lymph.  I call his name and drag him from hiding every hour but otherwise he is a sad sight indeed.

The scan report came in the e mail.  The animal is metastatic and has spread to the colon and mesentery, the latter surrounding the small intestine and anchoring it to the abdominal wall.  This results in ‘referred pain’ or midline pain across my abdomen.  This is the animal pain, always there, sometimes better sometimes worse.  My kidneys are suffering from minor shrinkage, or atrophy.  This limits my chemo options, limits CT scan evaluation and also means I am suffering gradual loss of the organs.  The good news is this is what it was in December and nothing has apparently changed.

Thursday and Friday I suffered from gas pains almost continuously.  Taking two pain pills at night allowed me some sleep.  I am still working on getting the gas pain thing under control.  For lunch Friday I found a local diner in a nearby town and ordered up their premier burger basket.  I had to put a napkin in the plate to soak up the burger grease.  A generous helping of fries went with it.  By early Saturday morning I was questioning my choice but by dawn I was much improved.  Still this abdominal pain that comes in waves is so severe as to cause nausea and weak knees.  I changed laxatives Saturday with some positive effect.

Tucker is sick.  She slept in the dog house last night by choice.  With the warm weather she was out catting around with her buddies night before last and must have eaten something disagreeable.  I am doing what I can to make her comfortable.  I think we may move her today to her regular bed in the men’s room if she will allow.  I will likely bring the bed out to her.  It is mid February and we will have a 55 degree afternoon.  I sense the rest of the week will be temperate as well.  Inger will insist on therapy today.  I suspect she will show up around noon.