Faith Hope and Love?

Wednesday
10:00 a.m.
Radiation Clinic
Our wonderful Radiation clinic is called 
Faith Hope & Love.

So many of you have written those sweet words to me which always brought a smile to our faces that you would use those words.
My husband has a new and improved name for the place.
Doom Death and Destruction.  
He's a clown I tell ya.

Summer seems to be passing us by. Everything is now "before" he got sick or the present.
This nightmare.
 I have to admit, I really liked the "before"... The After he got sick... Not so much.
Our lives have gotten a bit of a pattern. Up not so early like we did when we were fabulous.
I set out each morning and crush pills. I have gotten good at it. The best way is to put the pills on a paper napkin and take a spoon and crush the life out of them. I add them to a kiddie glass then add a bit of water which will then be put into the feeding tube.

Easy Breezy. 
They gave me a lame pill crusher to use but I didn't even open it. 
My way works. Vitamin B6 for energy. Valium for relaxation for the 45 minutes in radiation wearing that mask he hates so much. (We are going to use it as a pinata  and bash the thing to smithereens when this is over. Ole')
Anti-puke pills, blood pressure pills. Diflucan for the thrush that is invading his mouth which is as dry as the Mojave Desert.

Next I help my husband unbandage his tube and get his cans ready and water to flush.
We've got it down to a science. I can dump that liquid food in and flush it in and out in under 20 minutes. Who needs to know how to cook anyway?
Next we get cleaned up and that involves bandage changes to  Franklin the Feeding tube and I have to put Press and Seal over the anti-puke patch for a shower.
After a shower, I rebandage him up once again and then out the door for Radiation.
Fun stuff.

His throat and neck are getting more and more painful. He's 15 treatments in and 30 more to go. 9 weeks. That's almost unheard of in the radiation clinic. Nine weeks is a LOT!
This is how he describes his neck to me when I ask how it feels...

Poor thing has gone for over 3 weeks now with NO food by mouth. Could you even imagine?

Food is my friend and to be without it would be like losing a big part of me. He just has zero appetite but he couldn't eat the real way anyway. His entire mouth throat and neck are being shredded by radiation. 

I still hide when I have a meal. My new place to do so is in the car in the garage. I usually take my meal outside, leave the garage door down and eat by the dim glow of the dome light in the car.  When I am feeling really perky, I sometimes turn on a CD for ambience. Fun French restaurants, appetizers and champagne seem like a lifetime ago.

It just seems so WRONG to eat in front of a person that can not or will not eat.  I can't and won't do it.

Tomorrow is Chemo day.

I dug into my closet for every fabulous sweatsuit I own. 

This one was too cute to pass up. I needed retail therapy anyway.

I have uploaded and downloaded books, movies, games, and  his favorite music into my iPad and will hopefully have the inclination to write in my blog.

Lately, it has been hard to motivate. I feel this dark cloud of doom looming over us. It's eerie in nature. Each time I go to sit close to my husband, I get this chill that runs thru me. Remember when we were kids, we would say those "back of the spine tingles" were someone walking on our graves. The kind that start at your toes and make your whole being shiver inside? I hate them. I dread even sitting near him for that reason. 

When he asks me what's wrong I have to make up some lame reason why I cringe. 

Get the F off the grave whoever you are!