Better, Worse, No to Hospice for Now

After a pretty good week last week, pain wise, the last three days have been slightly rougher. Really more emotional than anything. But the emotions and discomfort affect each other. I don't know if it was the acupuncture or a slight change in meds that helped me feel better last week. I speak to my palliative pharmacist about weekly--she is wonderful. This week we decided to go up another small step on one of my meds. I started that this morning. It'll take a couple of days to reach full effectiveness.

I have been so doggone emotional the last few days. I thought maybe this crisis had already reached its peak in toying with my emotional chemistry, but apparently not. I've finally started considering looking into the options Kaiser has offered of either talking to a mental health professional, or taking some sort of medication to even me out a little bit. There's always room for another pill in my life, right? It would be lovely to get back to being a person who can say a sentence, any sentence, matter-of-factly and without crying. Sheesh.

Last Thursday, I went to see the surgeon to get a status check on my purple-y lumpy bumps. They are close to the surface but there is still a little time. He ruled out surgery due to the fact that there would need to be plastic surgery and way too much recovery trauma. Fine with me to skip right past that. I told him we were trying to at least take care of my skin health in that area hoping to avoid or at least delay any possible breakthrough of the skin down the road. The bad cells may or may not try to break through depending on their direction and rate of growth. It’s possible it may not be able to be avoided, but delayed would be better than nothing.

I told the doc "no" on the hospice for now, but I can sign up for it anytime.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights were all very good sleep-wise. Six solid hours on all three nights! Monday and Tuesday nights, however, were back to spotty sleep. Michael reminds me to please wake him up for any little thing. I usually end up asking him to please get me some ice for my shoulder blade, which he is happy to do. Of course the ice pack goes into the bacon-themed slip cover each and every time to help enhance the magical powers of the ice.

Breanne came over early this morning so Michael could go on a bike ride. We chatted, looked at fun and beautiful pictures of a short trip she and her hubby took, had some lunch, watched an episode of The Rookie, and she read a few chapters out of The Pink Motel. I loved all of it. The visit helped to even out my emotions--like a little vacation. But only until it was time to think about stepping out of the apartment to go to my acupuncture appointment. Then the tear machine remembered to turn itself back on. Michael makes every inch of an outing as comfortable as humanly possible which I appreciate so very much. Before going I changed into a clean pair of PJs so Breanne could clean all the lunch spots I spilled on my PJs. Apparently I haven't gotten that much better eating my meals lying down even with weeks of practice. I guess I still have life goals.

I noticed I haven't been eating much in the way of veggies lately. I do keep some baby carrots and cut up bell peppers at my bedside during the night for if I take a pill. That way I can have some food in my tummy for the pill, but I don't really feel like I need to brush my teeth. Sitting in a dentist chair to get a cavity filled is very low on the list of things I ever want to do again. Sounds like a nightmare in my condition. So I'm trying to be extra careful with my teeth. What I've been eating mostly lately is oatmeal with peanut butter and berries, or non-dairy yogurt with peanut butter and berries. They never get old, and hubby makes them so perfectly! I mentioned the low intake of veggies to my friend and asked her if she would make me some pureed veggie soup. Bammo, the next day she brought over two kinds. Our wardlings have also been helping by signing up for bringing two nights' of dinners per week. This works just perfectly for us.