Long Days

Robin has had a long day couple of days. She's been on antibiotics which have helped with the soreness around her PEG (stomach) tube but her temperature has been erratic. This morning she hit 103.5 again. I spoke with one of the hospice nurses who described cancer patients as sometimes having cancer induced "tumor temperatures". She noted that they can spike some pretty high temps, and they may even find that they hit certain temperatures at the same time each day.

Robin seemed to be doing OK today until about 5pm when she got sick and seemed to throw up everything she'd eaten since lunch. Though we're not certain what the root cause of the vomiting was, it did happen after she walked upstairs to retrieve some pictures. We have learned over the past week that it's best for her to take anti-nausea medicine before getting off the couch and going up the stairs each evening, so maybe it was just the walk up the stairs.

In addition, just the last couple of days Robin seems to have needed increasing levels of pain medicine. We called the hospice folks to ask about getting a pump (which we'd just declined on yesterday!). A nurse was out at the house shortly and she made the arrangements to have the equipment delivered and setup a few hours later. Now we don't have to worry about Robin sleeping longer than her pain medicine is effective. Now the medicine is delivered through her IV around the clock, plus she can press a button to press to get little extra dose if she's feeling pain. This allows her to get an extra dose about every 30 minutes.

Robin was pretty wiped out after 5pm. She stayed in bed the rest of the evening and she seems to be resting well now.