Karen’s pain has subsided a bit over the last couple days. She’s only taken oxy a couple times today. She’s still in pain but less than before.
It’s good that she’s found a more manageable pain level, but we’re both a bit worried about her increasing troubles with breathing. As her kidney troubles progress this will get worse. And this is a bit terrifying. She tried using the oxygen last night and today, which went okay. It helped her a bit but made her nose dry. Her hospice nurse is also arranging an anti-anxiety medication, as the anxiety exacerbates her struggling for her breath.
Hospice was quick to provide another solution for her labored breathing which seems to help quite a bit. It seems that morphine helps breathing troubles by relaxing her lungs. She found relief pretty fast from the first small dose earlier, and just took another before going back to sleep.
There are a few other changes coming as well. They are going to access her port (the easy access IV device in her shoulder) and set me up with supplies to administer anti-nausea meds through it myself, instead of relying on the oral meds. The IV meds work much faster, and she can’t throw them back up. There are plenty of times lately that this would come in handy. It will take a couple days to get the supplies out here for me. This will be a great thing for her.
I’m sure it’s easy to see that Karen is not feeling well at all. I’ve spoken quite a bit about her struggles with pain, fatigue, and queasiness in recent posts, but don’t think I’ve spoken a lot about her overall energy level. She’s not keeping a lot of food down, and is spending most of the day in bed. These aren’t a good combination, and she’s continued to lose strength. I can still get her up out of bed and move her around with her assistance, but it’s getting harder for me to do so. And it’s getting more uncomfortable for her.
But even with all that we’re still doing things that she finds pleasurable. This is mostly television at this point, but we did take a trip to the breakfast nook to look out over her landscaping project (almost done).
Thinking of both of you and glad that, together, you’ve built a beautiful fortress and home (complete with guard gnomes) for Karen to live in rather than the hospital. I feel very lucky to have her in my life, and am very grateful that she has you to care for her.