This Calls for Wine

I suspect this night that calls for wine will be followed by many nights that call for wine. Hey, but it’s a serving of fruit, right?

Husband came home this afternoon with medication for his heart rate and a new dose of morphine for the pain. To be administered every eight hours. I have set up an alarm on my phone as a reminder, because time tends to get away from me. In the hospital, they were controlling the pain and the moaning had stopped. Now he is home, the moaning has begun again. I think it is in large part because he will not just settle and rest. He is up and down. He is fighting using the oxygen all the time and he is fighting using the walker. Both are essential. He is a fighter, indeed. But he’s fighting a lost battle now. He chooses to continue treatments for the cancer – treatments which his oncologist says will do nothing. What he needs to choose is comfort – palliative care – hospice help. He is, however, not going to accept that the “magic” pill is not out there – that the disease is going to win. That even if it could be stopped, his body, his bones have suffered so much damage there are many other risks.

The nurse in charge of palliative care met his stubbornness. She does not agree with him, but she can do nothing. So we are home, where he will fight being reasonable and fight using common sense – because acknowledging would require acknowledging the disease and the inroads it has made into his life. His body is ballooning – there is a tumor pressing against the veins in his right leg, which inhibits the blood flow. His body is unable to rid itself of the fluid produced by the cancer.

It will not be easy. I have a two-year old again. But nobody promised me easy, I have an amazing support system, and I will find – enough.