and to think HELL is worse than this

Well, I hope by now Tom and Judy have made it home safe. It was such a blessing to me to have them here, to give me a distraction, to pray for Jim, and to encourage him. As I said months ago, and to Judy today, nothing has staying power, tho. They would have stayed longer, but I encouraged them to go home as planned. They weren't gone 2 hours before the next new "what in the heck do we do now" struggle comes.

In the last 24 hours, Jim has thrown up 1900 ml. And he is throwing up his pain meds, and many others, so pain is up, etc. And he's not moving his bowels.

He had an Xray today. The bowel obstruction that has always been there is larger. THE ANSWER:

The doctor wants to put in a nasal gastric tube up Jim's nose, down his throat and into his stomach so that he stops throwing up bile and brown stuff that should be going down, rather than up. Unfortunately, it stays there. How long? Could be days...weeks..... It's painful going down, and uncomfortable while it's in. Jim also has thrush in his mouth and throat from the chemo. So, that would be added discomfort.

Benefits:

• Less nausea
• No throwing up
• AND THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS that will help protect Jim's bowel from rupturing, or leaking into his blood stream. With Jim's white blood cells going down the tubes because of the chemo, if either of those things would happen, it would probably mean that Jim would die because his body could not fight off the poison, since his immune system is compromised from the chemo.

The non-benefits:

• Hurts going in.
• Can cause the thrush to go to the esophagus, which is painful
• Hurts while it is in
• Jim will have to receive all his meds by IV, including the pain medicine. It takes tons of dilauded to make up for 450 Mg's of Oxycontin a day. And since there are no oral meds, he can't get his stool softeners, lactulose, milk of mag, etc. So, HOW DOES THIS HELP THE BLOCKED INTESTINES????? It doesn't. Only the tumor shrinking will help that.

Jim's decision is :

• No tube. They can keep giving enemas, or whatever. If the bowels perforates, then that's the way it's supposed to be.

They will continue to give enemas and that might work at the obstruction, or not. They can keep him on his bowel regimen, and hopefully he won't throw it up. And if the chemo starts to shrink the tumor, then that will help his colon. And if it doesn't, then it doesn't matter anyway.

I told Judy, "I'm fried." That's all I say. I'm fried. And I am. But I also told her that I wake up every morning with a smile on my face, ready to fight, what comes. I'm just a bit battle worn, and by evening..."I'm fried."

So, "I'm fried." I'm going to the lodge and going to bed...after I do some of Jim's laundry. I don't ever want my dear husband to die, ever. But I do want this insanity to stop. I don't want this to take me to where I lose my morning smile. I used to have a morning until 10 p.m. smile. Then, slowly, it's started to get shorter, where it only lasts until about 3:00 p.m. or until some medical emergency sneaks in. Lately, it's been gone before lunch because of all the emergencies Jim has been in since he got here. If all of this saves his life, well, won't we be glad. If it doesn't, we can at least know we've done our best. If the Lord should take Jim, I know then, too, I won't wake up with a morning smile either. Not for a long time. And I'll be working backwards to that goal. I know the morning smile will come back eventually, but it will be a little off kilter, cause no one can make me smile like my Jumbo.

Pray for Jim.

Us