Wednesday

There's a light at the end of the tunnel, but boy what a long tunnel it's been. I guess the marinol didn't set that well in Andrea's stomach, so she woke at 2am with nausea issues and was mostly awake between 2 and 5 trying not to vomit. I gave her 1/2 a tablet of Ativan at that point, thinking she'd sleep until noon, but she woke at 7 am or thereabouts. Ativan having anti-nausea properties, I then gave her a decadron (also anti-nausea) and ritalin, figuring she'd be able to keep the drugs down, but it was not to be. She vomited within 15 minutes. In desperation, I then gave a cocktail of drugs via the...uh...alternative entry point: marinol, ritalin, decadron and dilaudid with a BRD suppository to hold everything in place. (For the pharmaceutically curious, I would have given methadone instead of dilaudid, but we only have that methadone in liquid form.) It seems to have worked. Andrea slept for a few hours and then said she felt much better. She's sitting up and chatting with Harriet and Alice as we speak. I even saw a smile.

So. No odd cravings and no weird effects from the marinol, except she did wake at 10 and try to phone Eric to tell him that she was bleeding in the stomach. It was probably just a dream she was waking from, though, and she went back to sleep. Perhaps the unconscious was telling her that all was not well in the stomach. Marinol IS supposed to be given with food (did I say that yesterday?) but obviously that's not an option, unless a tablespoon of yogurt or ice cream qualifies.

I'll post more tonight.

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Okay, it's night, 9pm. Andrea is drifting off to sleep with another drug cocktail inside her. It was a good afternoon and evening comfort-wise, but as I was moving her out of her wheelchair and onto the toilet her legs gave out on her and she sank to the floor. Apparently, Andrea can no longer even stand with assistance. It took a good five minutes to get her up on the toilet and she was totally winded by the effort. And depressed. It took a couple more minutes to get her into bed, and in the process she lay on the G-tube coming out of her stomach for a minute, which is not a good thing. She still weighs a hundred fifty pounds or so, despite legs and arms as thin as can be, so she's difficult to move around. I hate to think how much weight the tumor/s account for. Anyway, I will have to essentially carry her now. Perhaps a catheter is in store. We'll see. I just hope we don't repeat tonight's drama. If it does, I think we'll need to call in more and regular assistance from nurses.

Looking on the bright side, we had no more vomiting after this morning, and with any luck, none tomorrow at all.

Good night.