Day 37, Friday, 12:30pm

Hello friends,
Anne made it thru the night, sleeping in snipits, and getting up only once. It was challenging for her to get up in the night for the first time with the infusion pump attached. The digital counter on the pump read '38.3' this morning.

Anne had a 1/2 piece of toast and seedless jam, some much diluted OJ, and a hard boiled egg to eat this am. All she had to eat last night was a hamburger at dinner time, and maybe a cracker later on at bedtime.

The ride into R/T this morning was hard on Anne. She wasn't saying much, so I knew she wasn't feeling well. She took all of her meds before we left for town. She is determined to make it thru this weekends treatment however, and the Dr is just as determined for her to complete this regiment. He told us up front he would treat this cancer aggressively, and somehow, ironically, we're greatful.

As we waited, they called Anne in for R/T and she walked in very slowly. She had vomited as she got into her 'johnnie' in prep for R/T today. Very unusual. After a few minutes the technician brought Anne out to the waiting room in a wheelchair, and even helped her to get dressed. She was feeling lousy. This is when they told me that Anne wasn't able to take her R/T today, because she was unable to lay on her back on the R/T table, due to nausea. Anne said everything is backed up in her throat, and it's very uncomfortable. Vomiting is Anne's worst nightmare. She has a tremendous tollerance for pain, however she is frightened to death to vomit. She doesn't like being 'out of control' in that way, is how she describes her thoughts on that subject. The R/T folks called over to the Treatment side to let them know we were on her way over for hydration, and to prepare them re: how Anne is doing so far this morning.

Everyone on the C/T side is expecting us, and Anne gets good attention from everyone there. They're all very concerned and want to help her as best they can. They infuse some nausea meds, and begin the hydration which will last 2 hours. After 15 minutes Anne is feeling a little bit better. She soon becomes tired enough to fall asleep pretty hard. You can imagine. She just about slept the entire 2 hours.

Nurse practitioner Melany writes down a plan for Anne to take her 3 different nausea meds over the weekend. She explains that Anne can mix them, i.e. she doesn't have to just stick to one kind. She will use them all and overlap the coverage.

We're given appointments for 10:30am on both Saturday and Sunday at the Maine Med Gibson Pavilion for hydration sessions. We'll be in there for about 3 hours each time. This is probably as good a time as any, so the relief she gets from the hydration will be for a good part of the day, not just the morning.

It's time to head home now, around 11:15. Not that Anne needs a pep talk, but I try to encourage her, reminding her that this weekend is 'IT' for the chemo treatments. She is bound and determined to get thru it better than the first time around a few weeks ago. It seems the pump and slow infustion of 5-Fu is working better than the first drug that gave Anne so much discomfort last time. Unfortunately, that's not saying much. She doesn't feel good at all as you can tell.

We'll try and come up with small helpings of things she feels like eating this weekend. We look forward to Monday, that's for sure.

Keep praying for Anne, and thank you all very much for that. It helps.