New this week

Earl has been on his chemo for about 10 days now. We have just increased his dose today to half of the full dose. I would imagine if it does okay at this level we will be at the full dose by the end of next week.Wednesday we saw the symptom management doctor for the first time. She had a lot of good information for us. She talked to us about pain and the levels of pain. If you have been to the Emergency Room lately, you might be familiar with perceived pain levels. Zero being no pain. 10 is the worst pain you can imagine. In the lower levels of pain the brain can be drawn away from the pain only feeling pain when there is nothing to draw the attention away from the pain. At the upper levels of pain you need to have stronger pain killers to help the brain not dwell on it. Untreated, high levels of pain can break down the immune system and in the case of cancer, can cause the tumors to grow more quickly. Also some pain killers are not effective when your liver isn't functioning properly.

The doctor also recommended that Earl get his abdomen tapped. Earl is retaining water in his abdomen. His belly is expanding. It hurts. So today we had that done. They drained off 3 liters of fluid. No wonder his belly was tight. We had labs done earlier in the week but the lab didn’t do all that we needed to have done so we also had new labs done today. His bilirubin in down but still higher than they want it do be to do Theraphere treatment. The ammonia in his system is really high. We will be working to get that down this week-end. When the ammonia is high, it causes Earl to be a little dingy as far as thought process. It also causes him to be very tired. His body make involutary movements. If it gets too high, it can cause him some serious brain damage, even death so we don't want the ammonia to be high.

Many have expressed concern for me in my role as Earl’s main care giver. I am touched by other’s willingness to help us. I have been thinking about things that I can ask for help with. It has been suggested that I list everything that I do in an average day, then mark off the things that only I can do. Finally, prioritize what is left. Some things may not really be that important. I have been trying to make my list the last couple of days. Although this approach makes it easier, it is still a difficult task. Why do we have such a difficult time asking for help but are so willing to offer to help others?