Day 43, Thursday, 5:45pm

This has been a pretty good afternoon for Anne with no real sickness or diareah.

We had lunch together. Anne orders from room service, and I go to the caf. Anne had some humus, a plain wrap, and some oatmeal. She tried some hot chocolate but never finished that. It was a good lunch which she seemed to tollerate pretty well. There was some nausea which was treated with meds, but no real sickness.

Mid afternoon Dr. Ebrahim came by. He is a good Doctor. He is setting it up so Anne can resume R/T on Monday. He said "the R/T is not being done to cure the problem, rather it's a pre-surgery step to improve the situation, so, it isn't so important that Anne's R/T program has become interrupted". He said he is 'on' all this weekend, so when Anne is ready to go home, he'll be here to release her. He said she needs to be eating, processing food, and walking.

The Dr is going to discontinue her hydration IV for the night to see if Anne can do will without that.

Anne is ready to get cleaned up this afternoon. She wants to take a shower by herself. When she is all set for this, Nurse Cheryl will assist and will remove her medi-port. It has been in for 7 days now, and it is time to replace the access mechanism to the port. All of this happened this afternoon. After her shower Anne had some nausea, and she has had some Ativan thru the IV for that. Now she is resting comfortably contemplating something to eat. She must order from room service before 6:30pm if she wants something tonight.

Anne is concerned about the water at our house, with all the heavy rain today, 4" to 6". I guess she thinks the house might float away, which it almost has a couple of times over the years. Maybe she'll kick me out of here early tonight. Adam went over to feed Dixie on his way home from work tonight. Anne has decided to just have a pnut butter and jelly sandwich tonight, nothing from room service. I can make that here on the floor. If she's a good girl I may trim the crust off of the bread for her.

Day 43, Thursday, Noon

I got here for 9am today, and Anne was a sight for sore eyes. She looked great and had good color in her face. She had ordered something to eat, and she was waiting to have breakfast with me. It looked like all she had was plain yogurt, a small banana muffin, and some cranberry juice. She was feeling good. We have a new roommate this morning. I told her I was bored with the bobsled racing in the Olympics, and she lets me know it involves skill, she likes it, and she likes all the events. She always has been a great race fan. She sees things I don't even notice when we go to the stock car races in the summer, she knows her stuff. She's having a good mornin.

Anne couldn't finish the cranberry juice because of the mouth sores and sore throat. She said it's not the ordinary sore throat, rather it is definately related to the chemo, and different. She swishes with two liquids every so often to help with this, but it appears that she is struggling more and more with this particular side effect, so I looked into it and read where it can very painful, even to where pain meds are needed just for that. We hope it won't get to that. Whatever develops, Anne will get by it. She is known for saying "this too shall pass".

At 11am a Reiki practitioner came by. I had requested this for Anne yesterday. She asks him to wait till her meds come.

At the same time Anne is having discomfort, pain in her chest, and is needing to use the bathroom. She requested pain medication from Nurse Jess who seems wonderful. Anne didn't vomit or have any diareah this time, progress(???). We've been tryin to time her nausea meds better so that she can tollerate what she eats, and maybe that strategy is working. It was Anne's idea.

At noon Anne is having a hard time keeping her eyes open. She wispers to me "one more week". I'm sure she is thinking about finishing the 7 more radiation treatments. I didn't have a chance to ask whether she enjoyed the Reiki session. She's was on the phone with Luke when I came back into the room! She's pretty tired, she reminds me to get some lunch, and she falls asleep.

I want to let Luke and Erika know that when they call it's like rolling dice. There's a chance it might be a strong moment, or a weak moment, and they shouldn't be discouraged if they happen to call at a weak moment. They could just as likely call when Anne is 'up' and have a great conversation with their Mom. As we have said, Anne is on a roller coaster this week.

It's 12:30pm, Anne is resting, and it looks like she'll sleep thru the lunch hour.