Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The Chemotherapy has begun


This group is the goal. The hero has so missed all these sweet faces including red beard's. The hope is he will get the strength he needs to be able to travel the 1000 plus miles to see them.
I can see that life as we knew it, is on course for change. As the chemo drugs began to infuse into the hero's veins, his face began to flush, his nose turned bright red and cold. One of the main drugs is in the class of mustard drugs classified as biochemical warfare threats. Thank goodness for the blessings of the Lord. If it weren't for faith, there just wouldn't be any vision of a horizon.

The sisters at the ward were so kind as to make him a blanket to cheer and warm him. On this scary day, he was encompassed by that lovingly done blanket. I will post a picture of him with it after I down load it to the computer. I think the hardest thing to fight is the medications. He has great amounts of pain, because the tumor is pressing on his coccyx. Sitting is out. Lying down is side only. Standing is tiring and painful. As a result the doctors keep pushing to take larger amounts of Morphine. It seems that the goal is just to numb the whole patient....then he is happy. NOT. The larger amounts of Morphine causes depression, then they want to give you antidepressants. The answer is always another drug. The pain management physician (she is an angel) has said that she will be board certified for acupuncture in the coming week. That is the hero's goal: to switch from Morphine to acupuncture. She also gave him a special blanket that reflects back your own body heat to help him through the cold challenges of the chemo. It is hard hearing him have obvious nightmares when he dozes off. I just want to hold him closely and make it go away, but of course that is not possible. I do hold him close and whisper sweet nothings in his ear to help him know he is special each morning. It is hard for him to handle my exuberance in the mornings. It has become harder to make him smile. I know he tries, but he has said that he feels so numb from the morphine. The difficultly of focusing in on reading scriptures, praying and reaching out to the Lord really bothers him. I hope he reaches his goal so he can fight better. They wonder why the treatments don't work...well, the patient can't focus well enough to fight for wellness.

I must stop for now. Thanks for listening.