Loose Strife

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this past week has been the pits for Laura. Laura’s 2nd chemo round seemed to start out well, but it’s been down hill since Monday. The nausea and vomiting are back with a vengeance. Every morning and now often throughout the day. We’ve tried two drugs and will try a third starting tomorrow. I’m getting angry with her oncologist.
Laura is awfully disheartened. After throwing up for most of the past 6+ weeks, she’s really shaken, I think. Now it’s down to just a pack of jello per day and one or two Ensure drinks. She’s not losing weight (last we checked), but I wish I could convince her to have some rice or tea or something. After a long period of nausea, I think there’s a psychological effect where the mind just convinces the body that nothing is safe except for a couple comfort foods.
In addition, she has troubles swallowing — especially liquids. As I said in a previous post, this is apparently a common side effect of her chemo drug. But it’s a big disincentive to eat.
This has left her weak and resting all day. Earlier in the week she was up and outside. Yesterday and today she was up a couple times to visit guests or sit at the table with us, but for the most part she’s in the recliner resting — without the inclination to even read or watch TV.
So, do consider giving her a call to let her know you’re rooting for her.

On the brighter side, being home with the kids has been really good. Instead of preschool and day care on Friday, the girls and I went traipsing all around meeting with friends, baking, taking a dance class and generally having a great time. Yesterday Natalie took Lily to the malls to buy some winter clothes and she had a ball. I’ve enjoyed putzing around the house with oddball jobs and finally cranked up the chain-saw this afternoon, which was fun. My rye and vetch cover crop has come up thick already, thanks probably to the mild autumn so far. Joe has now refinished three pieces of furniture that he brought up in pieces from Virginia, and they look great. And I picked up a bookshelf and finally unpacked all our boxes of books today. So our place is looking a little more homey. And the Red Sox won and the Patriots keep winning and the fall weather has been beautiful.
I’ll finish with a story from last night. With Laura sleeping in the recliner, I sometimes check my email before going to sleep and leave the laptop lying next to me on the bed. (No psychoanalysis, please.) Anyway, last night at just about 3AM, I was sound asleep as time was about to fall back an hour. I wish that there was some magic where you could literally relive that witching hour instead of just set your clock back because in the quiet of my deepest sleep Lily let out a blood curdling scream for “Daddyyyyyy!” and I bolted out of bed like a bat out of hell. And my laptop bolted, too, flying clear across the bedroom and smacking down on the hardwood floor.
Lily had wet her bed. No big deal. But my laptop with all my university files is dead dead dead. All I can say is good timing. Won’t be needing those files for a while anyway.