Day 27. Or is it “Magic Number 15”? I kind of like the smaller numbers getting smaller every day, now that small numbers are possible.
Our struggle the past few days has been with dehydration. Peter thinks he’s drinking enough, but we need to start measuring. Yesterday the radiation tech noticed something about Peter that made her think he was dehydrated, so we went to the cancer center and sure enough, he needed IV fluids. He felt better almost immediately.
He’s trying harder now to eat. He just finished a McDonald’s hamburger and a smoothie, so if we can get some more fluids down him today, he should be OK for the day.
The twice-weekly trips to the dialysis clinic for Epogen continue; “epo”, as it’s called, is a hormone made by the kidneys which helps bone marrow make red blood cells, and so people with busted kidneys often have problems with low hemoglobin. Frequent blood tests will tell his nephrologist how well dialysis is working or what aspect of his current treatment might need tweaking; that’s one good thing about peritoneal dialysis – there are lots of ways to tweak it.
It was nice having Lis with us over the weekend. She brought a carrot/sweet potato soup that is out of this world, and she pureed some for Peter. Sometimes it seems as if Peter’s throat has been burned by the radiation, if that’s possible, and he can’t tolerate foods that are too hot or too cold or too crumbly. No more English muffins, he says.
His motor skills seem to be improving and he needs little or no help with buttons and shoelaces now.
Our friends Mary and Panos from Charleston are coming for a visit this weekend. We haven’t seen them since they accompanied us to Durham in December, when Peter was admitted for his suspected brain abscess. In spite of the hard time he’s having with the chemo and radiation, I think he’s in much better shape now than he was then and we hope they think so, too.
So long for now. Some inconsiderate person must have broken into my house and dirtied every dish and utensil I own, but they left the washing-up to me, it seems!
Our struggle the past few days has been with dehydration. Peter thinks he’s drinking enough, but we need to start measuring. Yesterday the radiation tech noticed something about Peter that made her think he was dehydrated, so we went to the cancer center and sure enough, he needed IV fluids. He felt better almost immediately.
He’s trying harder now to eat. He just finished a McDonald’s hamburger and a smoothie, so if we can get some more fluids down him today, he should be OK for the day.
The twice-weekly trips to the dialysis clinic for Epogen continue; “epo”, as it’s called, is a hormone made by the kidneys which helps bone marrow make red blood cells, and so people with busted kidneys often have problems with low hemoglobin. Frequent blood tests will tell his nephrologist how well dialysis is working or what aspect of his current treatment might need tweaking; that’s one good thing about peritoneal dialysis – there are lots of ways to tweak it.
It was nice having Lis with us over the weekend. She brought a carrot/sweet potato soup that is out of this world, and she pureed some for Peter. Sometimes it seems as if Peter’s throat has been burned by the radiation, if that’s possible, and he can’t tolerate foods that are too hot or too cold or too crumbly. No more English muffins, he says.
His motor skills seem to be improving and he needs little or no help with buttons and shoelaces now.
Our friends Mary and Panos from Charleston are coming for a visit this weekend. We haven’t seen them since they accompanied us to Durham in December, when Peter was admitted for his suspected brain abscess. In spite of the hard time he’s having with the chemo and radiation, I think he’s in much better shape now than he was then and we hope they think so, too.
So long for now. Some inconsiderate person must have broken into my house and dirtied every dish and utensil I own, but they left the washing-up to me, it seems!
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