I have updated our How to Help page for those of you who have been asking.
Thank you everyone for your kindess and generosity!
I have updated our How to Help page for those of you who have been asking.
Thank you everyone for your kindess and generosity!
14 days in the hospital was a new record. Now he is adjusting to life at home with a fancy hospital bed situation, weekly occupational therapy, physical therapy, and nurse care, many medications to take, and a pretty sweet walker that is actually tall enough for him. He remains in pain but it is manageable with a whole lot of painkillers and (cross your fingers) a medical air mattress we are getting. I don't know what part of the BED SORE WOUND and PAIN FROM SPINAL TUMORS isn't clear enough in the notes for insurance, but I am confident it will get worked out because this is Dan. And the Universe loves Dan.
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ADDITIONAL GOOD NEWS
He has completed his 10 rounds of radiation! For that, he recieved Little Debbie's Easter cakes. He was so excited. He beamed at me and smelled the box. He was so brave. He told me he would mostly close his eyes, say to himself a mantra "You can do this. You are medicated. It's only 15 minutes. You can do this," over and over again. Despite all of the painkillers, he still needs an additional special opiate dose right before the procedure so that he can lay flat on his back. This was a delicate situation with timing and sometimes it didn't work out very well. Instead of rescheduling, Dan laid down and stayed still, clenching his body, grunting, crying, and at times yelling out. I can't express to you how much he just wanted to get it done. So he got it done. It is my hope of all hopes that the radiation works and his literal sweat and tears will be worth the sweetest, lightest ease of pain in the coming weeks.
After a week here, we have an answer to the case of the unrelenting pain Dan has had. It is the once dormant cancer of his spine—industrious cells once again growing, crowding inside the dense bone and stretching, spreading out into the soft tissues surrounding it.
When it IS cancer, it is like we are being lifted from the ground, detached from any root system, left to the whim of the wind like a tumbleweed. Everything begins moving quickly, rolling, flipping, and I feel numb like the dried, brown ball of sticks and leaves.
As soon as we heard the results of his thoracic and lumbar spine MRIs, I felt that lift—buoyed, outside of my body, disassociated—while I listened intently and still asked questions, trying to understand this rapid change in what had only been 10 weeks. And after the conversation, after Dan and I sat together in silence with occasional thoughts or jokes, after informing some friends and family, the numbing feeling also sank in.
I walked out into the sun toward the parking garage, gripping my keys as if they were a fiercely solid weight that could hold me down to the ground. I sat inside the hot interior of my car and tested my broken A/C while talking to a friend on the phone. What I remember now was how I carefully focused my breathing as evenly as I could as I talked, letting my throat stay soft and my voice steady. I was going to drive to work and make sure I could have the rest of the week off and then drive home to pick up Raine and bring him back to the hospital to see Dan. I told her we were going to simply explain that the doctors determined the pain was from the cancer in his back and he would need radiation and medicine for it to start to feel better. We don’t know anything more than that for now, so I have to avoid getting ahead of myself.
A tumbleweed’s dead tissue is functional—it is necessary for the plant to degrade gradually and fall apart so its seeds can drop about, deposit themselves, perhaps into a moment of promise that is moisture.
So here is our little family, with Dan getting whisked into more scans, biopsies, radiation treatments and infusions, as we move with him. There will be appointments and a lot of driving back and forth and questions and trying to find answers and changes to how we do things and then changes to how we do things again and what will and won’t be possible at times as we adjust, tumbling along together on a new undetermined path.
As we roll on, we will be dropping seeds. Hoping our hopes. Thank you to our community near and far …. Please share patches of water. :)
Peace be with you,