12/29/18 Back home

It's Saturday morning and Gabrielle is still sawing logs.  It's so nice to see her rest peacefully.  It seems that when she is asleep, it's the only time she is not in some level of pain.  She did indeed have the procedure done yesterday: placement of the abdominal catheter so we can drain the fluid on our own.  It took much of the morning yesterday and then she came home and slept, which I suspect was a combination of lousy sleep the night before and the IV sedation they used to send her off to "twilight sleep".  After her afternoon nap, the pain got worse near the procedure site.  We're chalking it up to the fact that her abdominal wall muscles got a pretty good working over during the port placement.  Every time she tensed her tummy muscles it hurt more.  But, eventually, we were able to quiet things down to a manageable level with the right combination of heating pads, pain medication and a little diversion via some TV shows.  

Lately, her energy level has been pretty low.  She rests and sleeps a fair bit.  Is quite weak as well, which is understandable, as she has been eating only a few bites of each meal.  Daniel made some amazing chicken with cherry tomatoes last night, which she enjoyed.  I am trying to tempt her with some homemade sourdough pancakes for breakfast.  Let's see how things go.

Right now, she is at the point where we don't like to leave her alone, for fear of her falling.  She has periods of confusion as well, so we like to make sure we are there to help her with any tasks she may be trying to do, whether it be brushing her teeth, or getting dressed.  We have settled into a bit of a routine.  When she wakes up, she settles into the couch in the living room and likes to look at the Christmas tree and the fire.  With the right combination of pillows, blankets and a heating pad, her pain is manageable.  We try to get her interested in food or drink, with varying levels of success.  After that, she'll head to the basement where she likes to watch cooking shows of all things, especially the British Bakeoff ones with Paul and Mary.  I still can't figure out why she watches them as she has no appetite, but it works for her.  As an alternate, Daniel rented a great movie that I tried to get her to watch.  I told her it was an adventure film about a canoe trip down a scenic river in Georgia, full of fun outdoorsy scenes, great banjo music and Burt Reynolds...what's not to like about that?  She asked what it was called.  I said, "what's in a title anyway?"  She still preferred Baker Paul Hollywood to Burt from Hollywood.  Go figure. 

I hate to see Gabrielle suffer so much.  She has the highest pain tolerance of anyone I know.  She needs to be prodded to take medicine to help control the pain, as she doesn't like the side effects.  She never, ever complains and has cheery smiles and "thank you's" when we do simple things to make her more comfortable.  I admire her so much.  Here's hoping for a better day today.

I have to end by saying that I have been very thankful that my bosses and colleagues at work have been so kind and understanding.  I have had my shifts covered for the next week, which has been a real godsend.  Oh, and one more thing:  how about them Cougars?  It wasn't the Rose Bowl, but they did themselves proud!