Not much news since the last post. Nina is nearing the neutropenic stage of this round of chemo. That is low white blood cell counts, extreme fatigue, risk of infection (no flowers or unpeeled fruit allowed). All normal and expected. It's not a real good time for visiting but we'll leave it up to Nina, so you can call her if you'd like to stop by.
She did have some new side effects from this chemo round that caused her eyes to get blurry and itchy. She was pretty miserable a couple of days ago, and could not read or watch TV. But that has started to clear up with some eye medication the doc prescribed.
Not a real clear time on when she'll be released. She has to climb out of this chemo and then go through the 2nd one already planned out. The doc said she could do the 2nd one at her office, but this doctor is so highly protective of Nina (a good thing) that I wouldn't bet on that. Maybe she'll give her a brief weekend at home after this one ends. We'll see. I would guess we're looking at about a week to recover from this one.
I stayed overnight a few days ago, and it was not terrible (although the cot they set up for me was!). Normally they come in to check vitals in the middle of the night. Then they wake you up at 5am to get vitals and you have to be weighed which means you have to get up and stand on a scale. They do it the same time every day. But not the night I was there. Nina thinks they delayed it because I was in the room. Like I said, a hospital is the worst place to rest! But I took a sleeping pill, and managed to sleep fairly well through the night. Around 6am the weighing came and then more nurses hanging IV fluids and then breakfast, and that was it. Sleep time was over.
Some people are asking how I am doing and that's such a difficult thing to answer. I have been going to two groups. One is a caregivers support group, and the other is a men's caregiver group here in Berkeley. Only one of two in the entire country (supposedly). They have both helped me see how others are dealing with their situations, and they're giving me ideas about how to get through this trial I am going through as a caregiver. Basically when Nina is feeling good, I feel good. When she's not, I'm miserable. I have gotten through it by working on the house and getting my mind off of things. Since Nina has been diagnosed in October, I've painted the bedroom, put new flooring in the kitchen, three new windows on the house, and rearranged my office. It takes my mind off of this lousy mess.
Incidentally, if anyone is manually checking on this blog and not using the automatic e-mail notification thing, you can also get here by going to ninadeckert.com. You don't have to remember ninawd.blogspot.com.
