Saturday, October 21, 2006

1:30 AM

Thursday night was awful, again. Having a real tough time finding a comfortable position. Spent most of the night sitting up, or repositioning. Made it through the day Friday with a breakthrough med because she is having more abdominal pain.
Sleeping comfortably at the moment. Mostly because she just got out of the hot tub again. Another hour long plus floating session.
Paula came up tonight to visit and gave me a hand to get Penny down to the tub, and then back to bed and tucked in.
That may have been Penny’s last hot tub, unfortunately. They are moving the entire palliative care unit downstairs to renovate up here starting Wednesday, and there is no tub on the unit we are moving to. The renovations will take 6 to 8 weeks. She was upset to learn that. The hot tub has been her only reprieve, other than sleep, from the constant discomfort of being stuck in bed.
This afternoon she lost the ability to focus clearly. Having trouble making out faces unless you get quite close to her. That persisted until bedtime.
And if losing the hot tub, and her vision wasn’t enough, she is also having difficulty now drawing fluids through a straw. A very short straw. Just a few sips and she is out of breath.
Penny just woke up and we sat up for a while. Her breathing is so raspy that I can feel it vibrate right through me when she leans on me to sit up in bed. She started taking some meds for that today. Sitting isn’t helping much tonight though, so she is calling for breakthrough meds again right now. That’s twice today.
That is not a good sign.
She was inserting one or two word punch lines into the conversation we had with Paula tonight. There is nothing wrong with her sense of humor. And she still manages a smile for everyone that comes to the room to see her. Doctors, nurses, visitors. It is a little crooked sometimes because she is losing some control of her facial muscles, but she is still smiling. She still says thank you for every little thing you do for her, even though it requires so much effort for her to speak at all.

Michael