The Roller coaster

So, yesterday, Kathie asks Lauren to write a very serious note, as you read in the previous entry. But then, today, like yesterday, she was extremely lucid for long periods of time. Lauren spoke with her this morning for an hour and they realized that Kathie had lost a few days - she couldn't remember any of her time in the hospital. Lauren walked her back through what she knew, and Kathie understood that she is in hospice, but couldn't completely remember her conversation with Dr. Aklilu.

Kathie even made it to the breakfast table - thanks to the geri chair that was brought over last night. She had some tea, a pancake, a bit of eggs and sausage (did I mention we completely gave up the diet?) She took a nap afterwards, but then visited with the grandkids when they returned from Ed and Melissa's. Christen sat with her afterwards for awhile before she took another little nap. Though she's still having some pain in her side, it seems that a frozen wet towel in a Ziplock bag helps keep it under control. She did ask for some pain med this morning, and a tiny bit this evening - but we have learned not to ask her if she wants some... or we get "the look." The kids had all gone to the park with Eddie, Lynette and Chris, but when they returned, everyone went into "mom's room" so Grandma could watch Emily open her birthday presents.

The hospice nurse came today and after looking at Kathie, she recognized that she looks about 100x better than she did on Tuesday. The discoloration in her feet is mostly gone, there isn't a crackling sound in her lungs when she breathes, and she is clearly more alert. However, her right lung has very little air going into it it because of the fluid pressing on the outside lining. So the question on our minds today was whether this was a "rally" (a perk-up near the end, that we've read about - it can happen several times), or if she is not as bad as we thought on Sunday, when Dr. Aklilu gave us the news. Bob and Kathie expressed this to Tammy, our hospice nurse. Tammy said she would be happy to do a conference call with Dr. Aklilu and run some blood tests to see if maybe Kathie is doing a bit better than we thought, and also so Kathie can hear personally from Dr. Aklilu what the situation is (since she only partially remembers speaking with him). Only time will tell if this perk up is a recovery from being in the hospital, if it's a "rally" or if she's actually a bit better than we expected.

Tammy did suggest that we give it the weekend, to see if mom is going to have ups and downs, since it has only been 2 full days of ups and since we know that either way, the cancer has continued to spread.

Posted by Lauren