Life After Windbird, Day 14: Repeat of Do-Nothing Day
Date: Friday, August 26, 2016
Weather: Partly Sunny, Afternoon Showers, Hot and Humid
Location: At Home in The Studio #8, Falmouth, MA
Today was a repeat of yesterday—basically another do-nothing day. I guess since I have been providing child-care for the Goldpebbles this summer and they are now on vacation, I am on vacation as well . . . and enjoying the lazy days with Mark. We met with a nurse from the Visiting Nurses Association this morning and got Mark signed up for a first round of palliative care. This means a nurse will come once a week just to check on Mark to see how he is doing. But it is really up to us through research and trial and error to find ways to help him through this tough time. He has a lot of pain in the abdominal area and the pain meds are only half-way doing the job. What I think we are finding that is the more he eats, the better he feels. His worst time is in the morning after going without food all night. His best time is in the evening after eating a big dinner. So we are going to work on upping the amount of protein he is getting early in the day and see if that helps. Cooking the right foods for him to eat is almost a full-time job, so I guess I had better quit saying that I do nothing. I shop and cook, shop for more food and cook some more. And we take walks. We have definitely found that the edema in Mark’s legs and feet is helped by walking, but walking is hard as he has very little energy. But we will keep working to figure out the best routine and best diet for now.
