Post #15: Not better, not worse

Hello everyone,

Sorry for the lateness of this posting, but it has been a long day and this has been my first opportunity. The day started out at 4:00 a.m. in order to get John to the airport on time. Anita woke up as well to give him a proper sendoff and off to the airport John and I went. He has safely arrived in Napa, as did his paintings which were shipped up separately, and he will be at the winery tomorrow hanging them in that wonderful space that the Mondavi winery has for exhibitions. He is back in his and Anita's old stomping grounds, seeing friends, and as Anita wished, getting recharged. We can hear it in his voice when he calls that he is relaxing and getting his spirits rejuvenated.

Meanwhile, Anita has remained about the same today as she was yesterday. For breakfast she drank a 1/2 glass of milk, ate 1/2 banana and topped it off later with some papaya and a glass of a new combo of diluted Ensure and skim milk. In the later afternoon she managed a bit of cottage cheese and pears. For dinner she had some chicken ramen soup (she usually drinks the broth and has very few noodles but tonight she had noodles.) Prior to the soup she asked to have a little beer (Coors Light) and a couple of potato chips! She has been drinking water, albeit in small doses, but fairly continuously all day.

She stayed in bed all day except for getting up to go get the doppler echogram of her heart. She is still experiencing the same dizziness and shortness of breath when she gets up. When we got to the parking lot of the doctor's offices, I was able to call up for a nurse to come down with a wheel chair, so she was wheeled in and out of the appointment. All went smoothly and quickly. The results will not be available for 10 to 14 days (here we go again)! However, they did say that should the reviewing doctor discover anything needing immediate attention they will notify us and Anita's regular doctors earlier than that and refer her for further examination.

She is still experiencing stomach pain, only it has shifted from her stomach area to her abdomen. She can only eat in small quantities as she feels it sort of stops at her stomach level and isn't going down any further. This morning she said that she feels as though if she tilted her head over, it would all come up.

She describes the dizziness as not so much feeling her head spinning around but feeling like the floor is spinning. She has had hiccups for the past two days but no coughing. She says that when she is standing and moving it feels like something is being drained out of her straight down the middle. Today, after getting home from the echogram, she went straight to bed and napped. Before going to sleep, she indicated that she had a new pain in her mid-chest area on the left hand side. At the time I asked her if she wanted to go to emergency and she said no. By evening this had subsided.

I placed a call today to the onocologist's office to get some answers as to what may be causing these particular symptoms. A person transfered me to the oncologist's medical assistant but all I got was her answering machine telling me she was on another call. So I left a message and phone number but nobody called me back. I called back later and at the getgo got an answering machine of one of the receptionist people. Rather than leave a message, I have decided to call back tomorrow morning.

After she woke up from her nap, she was talkative and alert. Her mind is clear and sharp. We caught the end of "Sylvia Scarlett" on one of the old movie channels and just finished watching the 1940 comedy film "Turnabout" about a half hour ago. Throughout the movie she was alert, making comments and laughing at the slapstick humor. She has now gone to sleep but not before asking for a nectarine. She keeps a piece of fruit by her bedside to take a bite of or to get the juices in order to get the chemo taste out of her mouth.

Her mood and attitude seem up. She is cutting back on some of her medication (e.g. the nausea medication and the morphine drops) a bit to see how she does. She has had no or minor nausea today. Tomorrow she wants to get up a bit more to see how she does (e.g. go sit in the living room) and to see if she can't start getting over this dizziness thing. I am watching her closely and insisting that she not exert herself too much. So given her determination - as you all know - I will have to be on my toes tomorrow to make sure she doesn't attempt too much! Patience is not Mama's most abundant virtue!

But I am very encouraged by her attitude. She is such a trooper! You really can't keep her down for long! I will try to get tomorrow's posting up a little earlier as I know how you all want to find out how she's doing every day. You all are wonderful! Thank you - it really makes her feel better to know so many persons care so much!

Melissa