Sunday NIght

Good evening. I know I did not post yesterday but I was at the hospital for almost 11 hours and by the time I got home I was pretty much out of commission. Right after church the boys and I went up to see Gary and the boys just love getting to see him.

The past few days have been a roller coaster for all of us. Gary received chemo yesterday and the drip lasted 5 hours. He has had minimal effects so far from the treatment. The only side effects have been a little nausea and a general ill feeling like a bad case of the flu. Gary slept through the entire treatment due to a bad drug reaction to his pain medicine.

Over the past 3 or so days Gary has been struggling with bad reactions to one of his drugs and until yesterday we were unaware of which one it was. Finally, by the grace of God, we discovered that the liquid morphine was causing Gary to have several problems.

Picture this - as we go through chemo Gary is unable to respond to anyone. He looks like he is having very mild seizures and he was hallucinating and talking and jerking. When he finally came to he was disoriented and had a difficult time focusing and getting in the present.

After talking at great length - okay, I realize he won't remember much of any conversation I have when he is in or coming out of a drug stuper - we decided that he would no longer take the liquid morphine.

The whole objective is to get Gary off the PCA dilaudid pump and to manage his pain with oral medication only. If we are successful doing that then Gary gets to come home with us! :) Well, today we maved a little farther away from that goal.
Gary, after going through a night and day of extreme pain finally got the PCA back. My suspiscion is that he will have to have the constant drip (basil) in addition to the "at will" dose which he can only give himself every 20 minutes.

He was unable to talk tonight because of the pain and we will have to meet iwth the doctors tomorrow to discuss the pain and what the plan is.

He begins radiation again tomorrow and the chemo he just had should begin to drive his cell counts down (red, white and platelets) very soon.

For the first time today he told me that he could not stand the pain and he needed more meds. He had somewhat of a desperate tone to his voice and that is very unlike Gary.

I could sit here and make fun of him because you should have seen him when he was in his "drug" coma! It was scary for a while but then I was looking at how I could make it funny. I did not have to look too hard because he was really funny!!! He managed to remodel the boys bedroom and made sure that I had eaten dinner. He was what the doctors call "reaching" for hours and hours. He looked like the karate kid - wax on, wax off! I am not being insensitive because you all would have thought it was funny - I promise!
Well, we LOVE all of the cards you are sending. His room is filled with loving cards and funny cards and inspirational cards and homemade cards and just the coolest cards ever!!!! You are all so wonderful.

Thank you for your love and supoort. Please know how thankful we are. We truly are.
I am falling asleep. I have to go.
Love and Hugs,
L