A year in the life

One year ago today, I was sitting in a hospital waiting room with my sister and my sister-in-law while Vic lost half of his tongue to cancer. I'm not going to say that my day was harder than his, but I will point out that he was asleep for most of the day, so ...

The past year has not been one of our finest. The pneumonias. The fall. The saga of the feeding tube. COVID-19 (the pandemic, not that either of us has it). The unspecified blood disorder.

I don't want to make this a super long blog post, so I'll just say this about the unspecified blood disorder: We still don't know exactly what it is. He did get a treatment for lymphoma that helped with the pesky platelet problem but didn't clear up the pesky protein problem. The oncologist consulted his homeys from MD Anderson Cancer Center, and they were all, "Meh, we don't know." (My words.) So Vic continues to get bloodwork and a visit with the oncologist once a month to make sure things aren't going south.

And yet.

When I asked Vic today about his quality of life, he said it was good. Given everything that I mentioned in the second paragraph, he has every right to feel that his quality of life sucks, but he doesn't. He can still take pictures and has been trying to do more of that. Even if we don't leave the house, we can see beautiful sunsets; the moon, the five bright planets and a comet; and hummingbird visitors—all from our house. He planted pumpkins and cucumbers and cantaloupe and watermelon in the garden. We have a boat load of pumpkins and three pickle-sized cucumbers so far. (Still no melons, but 50-50 isn't bad.) He continues to take care of all our critters—domestic and wild. Bella continues to be an unending source of happiness. We are celebrating our 32nd anniversary in a little more than a week. He has more or less recovered from last year's surgery. Even his heart seems to be a little happier: his ejection fraction is 53% (it has, from time to time, hovered in the teens, so 53% is outstanding).

Things could be worse.

This could be a much longer post with more about the unspecified blood disorder and the NotChemo he had for his lymphoma and everything that's happened since I last posted in February, but I'd rather just leave you with a bunch of pictures. 😃

SPOILER ALERT: There are some pretty gruesome pictures at the bottom. Vic wanted to post some of the pictures I took of him just after surgery, and they are not for the faint of heart. But I took some pictures of the same areas today, and I think that seeing how far he's come is pretty neat!

I'll start with fun pictures!

Last night's sunset—it was gorgeous!

A broad-tailed hummingbird visiting our bee balm

The Moon (no kidding!)

Comet NEOWISE

The pumpkin patch (and the rest of the garden) from above

One of the pickle-sized cucumbers

The melon-sized pumpkin (it's the biggest one)

Miss Bella
(I couldn't attach a video--Blogger said I'd exceeded my maximum size. The nerve.)

Good mask-wearing citizens

Vic getting NotChemo for his lymphoma. During a pandemic.
BUT, a nice new quilt from his sister Alice!

NotChemo, Day 2. Back to the tried and true quilt
from Chris and Larry Pennel.
(Sorry, Jeannie Peppel, your blanket belongs to Miss Bella now!)

I'll sign off now so those of you who don't want to look at the gruesome pictures don't have to scroll to the end to see if there's anything else.

I once again want to thank all of you for your unwavering support. I am strong for you; I am strong because of you. 💜


And now, on with the gruesome part! (Although, now that I made them a little smaller, I don't think they're quite so gruesome.)

#hospitalfreeFebruary3-7 FTW!

So I realize that I don't post a ton of good news on this blog, and I also realize that I write really long posts, so this is just going to be short and sweet.

First, it looks like lowering expectations is the way to go—Vic stayed out of the hospital all week! He's also been feeling a teeny bit better every day, so we're happy about that.

This week he has a lymph node biopsy—just the last step in trying to figure out why his white blood cells are misbehaving. His doctors don't seem to think anything will come of this, so I am not worrying. (Plus, the pesky platelets aren't so pesky, so that's more good news!)

I'll keep you posted on the biopsy if there's anything to report.

Until then, I leave you with Bella, the wonder dog. She is lying on a blanket that my sister's dear friend Jeannie made for Vic. He had loaned it to me one night because I was feeling chilly, and when I got up for something, I left it on the couch. I came back to find Bella lying on it, which is interesting, because she does not sit on our couch much. She might come up for a few minutes, but when that blanket is there, she stays with me all night long. It's pretty sweet. I hope Jeannie doesn't mind, but really, the fact that it keeps Bella near makes the blanket even more special to us. 💗

#hospitalfree2020 succumbs to pneumonia

That's right, gentle readers, #hospitalfree2020 didn't even last four weeks.

TL;DR: Vic got pneumonia, spent four days in the hospital. Biopsy results are partially in: it isn't multiple myeloma or a few other things, but not sure what it is. Vic fell down the stairs unharmed.

Here's how the first four weeks of our year have gone:

I got a cold. It was that nasty cold that's going around that made me feel crappy for more than a week and gave me a cough that is still annoying me. I only work in the office twice a week, and I don't think I went to the office for the first time this year until the 16th.

Vic got a cold. Probably mine—after all, when you live in the same house as a sickie, you often get sick yourself. This cold made him feel crappy and gave him a nasty cough.

On the 6th, we saw the oncologist about the bone marrow biopsy. Basically, Vic has a plasma cell population that is causing the oncologist concern, because plasma cells can become cancerous. The good news from this visit was that Vic does not have multiple myeloma. Although it is treatable, it's still not something you want to have. It could be a lymphoma, but more testing is needed. The oncologist wanted us to taper down the prednisone Vic was taking for his pesky platelet problem and scheduled another appointment in three weeks.

On the 17th, Vic came in to my home office. As he was talking to me, I noticed that he had something on his lower front tooth, like when you eat a salad and you have a bit of lettuce covering your tooth. Except it was 10 a.m., and he hadn't had anything to eat yet that day. When he pulled down his lip, I noticed that his tooth was gone. Just gone. Snapped off at the base. Still don't know where it went. Fortunately, we were able to get an appointment with his dentist right away. Interestingly, the dentist made him a new tooth. Just made him a tooth. You can hardly even tell that it's a new tooth! (Special thanks to Dr. Bob Ahern, who treats Vic like family.)

Back to Vic's cold. When Vic gets sick, he tends to miss meals and drink fewer fluids. This makes him weak and dehydrated, and he gets sicker. His body hates him (that's the only reason I can think of for his body treating him so badly after a lifetime of more or less healthy living [I'll ignore the years he was overweight because people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones]), so getting sicker often means pneumonia.

One of the signs of pneumonia is pleurisy. "What is pleurisy," you ask? Well, your lungs are surrounded by pleura, which cushion the lungs and reduce friction between the lungs, ribs and chest. When the pleura get inflamed, you can feel it in your back. Here's a handy graphic for those of you who wish you knew more:

So as Vic got sicker, his back started hurting, and we both know now that this is a sign to get to the doctor, which we did, on the 23rd. The doctor prescribed strong antibiotics and a chest X-ray, so we toddled on over to the hospital for the X-ray and then toddled on over to the pharmacy for the antibiotics. The doctor called back and said the X-ray didn't show any signs of pneumonia, so that was good—or so we thought.

Vic spent most of the next few days sleeping. I gave him tube food every time he got up and tried to keep him hydrated, but it's just an uphill battle for both of us.

On the 27th, we went to the oncologist for those bone marrow biopsy results. In addition to his abormal white blood cells not being multiple myeloma, they're also not lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma and they're not waldenstrom macroglobulinemia (another kind of lymphoma). He said (I'm paraphrasing), "We could do a lymph node biopsy because you may have a low-grade lymphoma, but since it doesn't seem to be causing you trouble, we're not going to worry about that right now. Instead, I'd like to focus on this thing you got going on right now." He could see that Vic was not feeling well at all. In addition to Vic just looking awful, his vital signs were also awful: low blood pressure, low oxygen level, low-grade fever—all the lows. He suggested a chest CT scan, and he suggested a hospital admission, and that's how #hospitalfree2020 came to an end.

He spent four days in the hospital getting antibiotics, fluids and a constant stream of tube food as well as some visitors:

Visitors like this are always the highlight of Vic's hospital stays.

On the second day, he walked six laps around the ward, but that really set him back. He was super tired that night and all the next day, although that night, we did take a walk to the aquarium, another highlight of a hospital stay:

Thursday, we had a different set of visitors:

I thought they visited because there is a pediatric wing on the fifth floor, but they said no, they visit all the floors. They told some really bad jokes, but they were super into being clowns, and they made us both smile.

The pulmonologist said he thought Vic should stay another day (to Friday) to get more of the high-test antibiotics, but by the end of the day, he apparently changed his mind because our GP came over and said he could go home if he wanted. If I'd been there (I had actually just left to go home to walk Bella), I'd have emphatically said I did not think he should go home yet—he was still pretty weak and it seemed like one more day of fluids, antibiotics and tube food would have been helpful—but I wasn't, so discharged he was. I picked him up and we went home, and he was very happy.

The next morning felt like the night before Christmas: Out in the hall there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter. When what to my wondering eyes should appear but—and here's where we digress from the poem—my husband sprawled motionless at the bottom of the stairs! I flew down the stairs, where I was greeted with a perfectly clear, perfectly calm, "I'm OK." So of course, I instantly burst into tears. (My go-to response to stress, anger and commercials featuring the Budweiser Clydesdales.) He didn't feel like anything was injured—and I didn't see any blood from open wounds—but we still made haste to the doctor's office.

The nurse practitioner made a concussion assessment (verdict: not a concussion), did a check of his head and neck and spine, and asked him where it hurt (his hand was the only thing that was painful). She prescribed a muscle relaxant and some nice Vicodin, saying, "You're gonna need these tomorrow," and ordered an X-ray for his hand (verdict: nothing broken there). She said he could get a head CT and asked whether he wanted one.

I immediately recounted how Derek Shepherd died because he had a subdural hematoma that went undiagnosed because he was at a crappy hospital instead of Grey Sloan and they didn't give him a head CT, and then I said, "So all I'm saying is this—I am Meredith Grey, and Vic is my Derek Shepherd, and I cannot lose him. So if you can assure me that he does not have a subdural hematoma, then I agree we should wait to get the head CT." This made her laugh—which was my intent—but let's face it, I WAS NOT KIDDING. ;-) She then said that if it were her own family member, she would advise them to wait. Since Vic only had a small bump on his head and hadn't actually gotten t-boned like Derek Shepherd, I felt comfortable with that decision. (If you do not watch Grey's Anatomy, the preceding paragraph will sound like a foreign language to you.)

For those who would like to see his head, here it is:

This is probably where he hit one of the posts on the stairs.

This is probably a little rug burn. Thank goodness we keep an area rug at the bottom of the stairs!

Which brings us to today. He is doing OK from the fall and seems to be recovering from the pneumonia. So maybe I was too aggressive with my hashtag for the year. My new hashtag: #hospitalfreeFebruary3-7. Let's see how that goes.

And finally, what is a blog post without a Bella video? I couldn't decide whether to use the video I took for him (while he was in the hospital) or the video I took of him (after he came home), so I'm just using both. I mean, really, if one Bella video is good, aren't two Bella videos better?

Thank you, as always, for your continued thoughts, prayers, good wishes, etc. They are deeply appreciated and meaningful. 💗

Never tempt fate

Maybe I should have left well enough alone. I went more than two months without a post and we maintained the status quo. I write one lousy post and BOOM! A week later, Vic ends up in the hospital.

As I mentioned in the last post, he's never sure how he's going to feel when he wakes up. What I didn't mention was that every day that he doesn't feel well seems to be a different cause—gastric distress, low energy, dizziness or, my favorite, coughing up blood.
Everyone knows that in the movies, when someone coughs and then takes the hankie away and there's blood on it, that person is dead by the end of the movie. So I always want to go straight to the emergency room. Vic likes to take a wait-and-see approach, and in this case (the week before Christmas), his coughing spell didn't last long, so we went on about our merry way.

Two days later, we had an appointment with the reconstruction surgeon, and we mentioned it. She definitely wanted him to follow up with the oncologist, who has kind of become our primary care physician. He did some bloodwork, didn't see anything concerning (aside from the pesky platelet problem, for which Vic is taking prednisone), and again we went on about our merry way.

The great thing about prednisone is that it gives Vic a lot of energy, so this has been a pretty good week. We had three Christmases—a prime rib dinner on Christmas Eve with Vic's family hosted by one of Vic's sisters; an Italian-themed Christmas dinner, again with Vic's family but hosted by Vic's other sister; and a Boxing Day brunch hosted by me with my family.

Christmas Eve, L to R: Brother-in-law Rick, Rick's brother Gary, sister Patty,
nephew Nick, great niece GiGi, great niece Zoe (head turned away),
brother-in-law Ed, niece Lisa's nose, Patty; not pictured: sister/hostess Alice,
who was feeling a bit under the weather and was resting

Christmas, L to R: Brother-in-law Rick, niece Lisa, great niece GiGi, great niece
Zoe (you can't see her behind GiGi, but trust me, she's there), sister Patty

Boxing Day, L to R: Patty, sister Laura, great niece Madi,
great niece Fin (under the table), great nephew Will, nephew Xan,
niece Margeaux, brother-in-law Bill, Mom

It was such a lovely week, and we really enjoyed spending all this time with our family.

But lurking beneath the surface was (dun dun dun) aspiration pneumonia. One of the cancer gifts that keeps on giving is Vic's inability to swallow well. He's been doing OK (not great) for the past nine years, but this new tongue situation has compromised his swallowing even more. What happens is that food and liquids go down the wrong pipe and into his lungs. If he coughs a lot, he can get that stuff back up and out of there—but it still goes there, and with Vic's other ailments, his body has a harder time fighting these things off.

That's how we found ourselves in the wee hours of Sunday morning in the emergency room, where he got a chest X-ray that showed a pretty good-sized pneumonia and earned him an E ticket (you Millies might call it a Fastpass) straight to the hospital.

The antibiotics you get in the hospital are industrial strength, so even by the end of the day Sunday, he was feeling much better.

Unfortunately, they made him stay two more days, and we came home Tuesday afternoon. Glass half full: He didn't have to wake up in 2020 in the hospital. We're really voting for a no-hospital 2020.

Also unfortunately, because he was in the hospital, we didn't get the results from the bone marrow biopsy. (I did stop by the oncologist's office, and we probably wouldn't have gotten them Monday anyway because they had to send away for more tests. We are now scheduled to receive the results of the biopsy on January 6. Watch this space for that scintillating news!

To cap off this post, I will end as I often do, with a video of Bella. This one, she's getting a Greenie. She's much more animated when Vic is giving her the Greenie, but since he wasn't home, I took this video to show him I was taking care of his chores while he was away. 😄

Happy new year, everyone!

It's been a long time

I realized it had been a long time since last I posted an update when people started texting and Facebooking and emailing asking me how Vic was doing, but it's the fourth quarter at work, and if you know anything about me and my work, you know that means tons of overtime. Not only that, but starting around Thanksgiving, it's Scallion time, so whenever I'm not working at my office job, I'm working on The Scallion.

But we mailed The Scallion Wednesday, I updated The Scallion Blog Wednesday night, and now it's time for The Cancer Blog.

When last we met, Vic had just come home from the hospital after a bout of dehydration and pneumonia. He actually did quite well at home, and the fear I had that he was going home too early quickly dissipated.

Things were pretty quiet for the next few weeks, and in November Vic had another PET scan and a follow-up visit with the surgeon. I won't make you wait: the PET scan was clear. This is (obviously) great news. The surgeon, while happy with the results of the PET scan, was not happy with Vic at all for taking out the feeding tube. He is still really concerned about Vic's swallowing and the risk of aspirational pneumonia. We mentioned that he has had swallowing problems for 9 years and has only had aspirational pneumonia once, and now that we know the signs, we can watch for it and not let it get that far again.

This did not convince the doctor. Every time you get pneumonia, it weakens your lungs, and with Vic's overall health not being that great, it's a bigger risk for him. Eventually, he said, Vic might not be able to fight off a pneumonia. He said he wanted Vic to get the feeding tube put back in. Vic said he did not want to put the feeding tube back in. Sparring ensued.

Eventually Vic agreed to get another swallow study, and if that showed a continued problem with aspiration, Vic agreed to discuss it with the doctor again. Well, naturally, the swallow study did indicate a continued problem—although his swallowing had improved since the last one—and, naturally, the doctor said he wanted Vic to put in the feeding tube.

Vic had been thinking very hard about what he wanted. We told the doctor Vic was considering putting the tube back in and he would make a decision by the time he went back to see the other surgeon in December. We did ask for him to go ahead and send an order to get a feeding tube to our hospital up here so that if Vic decided to get one, he could get it rather quickly, and that's exactly what happened.

In the end, it was more an issue of how long it was taking Vic to eat during the day—it basically consumed his entire day—and how he was still not gaining any weight. Not only that, but when he doesn't feel well, it's much easier to just pop open a carton of tube food. He is now on about half tube food, half regular food (it's still important for him to keep swallowing real food).

At the beginning of December, we had an appointment with the oncologist. He's been gently prodding Vic to get a bone marrow biopsy because he has some funky protein levels in his blood (paraproteinemia). This is something our favorite Aurora nurse practitioner Katie first pointed out. It could be nothing, or it could be multiple myeloma, and if it's multiple myeloma, it could be something to treat (it's treatable), or it could be something to watch. That's why the oncologist hasn't pushed harder for the biopsy.

So Vic had been politely declining the oncologist's suggestion because he's tired of seeing doctors. At one point, we had appointments on four out of five days of the week—and sometimes, more than one appointment on one day. The oncologist understood this and, since he wasn't too concerned about the levels, accepted Vic's decision.

On the day we saw him (December 9), he once again suggested a biopsy (as we knew he would). Vic hesitated, and the oncologist said, "Let's just wait until after the holidays." He did want to do some bloodwork since it had been awhile—just to see how everything was going. I asked if he was going to check the platelets because I'd noticed some extra bruising, and last time that happened, Vic's platelets were abysmal (like, 100). The oncologist said if the platelets weren't good, he'd do the bone marrow biopsy on Friday. We did the blood test and went home.

Sure enough, a few hours later the oncologist called and invited us back. Vic's platelets were 37. Oops. So Vic had a bone marrow biopsy a week ago. We won't get the results until December 30.

Our wonderful medical assistant, Autumn.

 

Vic's bone marrow—too gross? Hope not.

Vic's favorite medical appointment are with his physical and occupational therapists. He loves them. They are very caring, but also they get him and his sense of humor. There's a lot of laughter and love in these sessions.

Jodi, Vic and Lisa

Aside from all of this, Vic is ... OK. His health really varies day to day, and he never knows how he's going to feel when he wakes up. Some days are better than others. Every day brings something different—not always good, but not always bad. So we are really living one day at a time.

As always, we appreciate all your good wishes and thoughts and prayers. We're so lucky to have our wonderful family and friends. 💖

Hey, it's good to be back home again

TL;DR: Vic's kidney function returned to normal and we came home Friday.

Full story: Well, we made it through that.

After lots of fluids and antibiotics and tweaking medications, Vic's creatinine went down to 1.75 and he was deemed fit to be discharged.

As always the best part of Vic's hospital stay was this:

Georgie, the therapy dog. He visited twice. Because #dogsarethebestmedicine

It's still a long road. I would have liked to see him stay one more day to get a little stronger and to get a little more mentally "there." Without the tube, Vic really has to focus on his calories and his hydration—and he also has to get exercise to avoid a repeat of this week's pneumonia while staying oxygenated, which seems to have become a bigger problem than it was before.

Fortunately, we have a pretty awesome oncologist—he's so Zen. Now, if something is wrong, he'll make sure it gets addressed stat (I can use that word because of my extensive medical-TV-show-watching experience), but otherwise, he is the calming voice of reason. So while I was uncharacteristically panicking—"WHAT IF HE GOES HOME AND DOESN'T EAT ENOUGH OR DRINK ENOUGH OR EXERCISE OR WHATEVER????"—he's all, "Meh, what's the worst thing that can happen? He doesn't eat, he doesn't drink, he comes back here, and I order a feeding tube. Problem solved." It was such a "duh" moment for me. It's not like he'll die at home, because I'm there. If he goes south again, obviously I'll just take him back.

The oncologist then said all this to Vic, ending with "It's all up to you, buddy." He might not have said "buddy," but I think he wanted to. I think Vic understood what he was saying, but with his mental state, I'm just not sure. I asked him several times before we went home, "Do you understand what you need to do to stay home?" And he said yes, but when I asked him what he needed to do, he just didn't answer me. It's really maddening, but then I can't really be mad, because his brain isn't working right yet.

And deep in the recesses our our minds, there's still the nagging "Why didn't they give us the option of "wait and see"? Wait a few months for a PET scan and see whether there is still cancer there? Since there was no cancer in the tongue they removed, the PET scan would have been clear, and we could have avoided all of this. I know, I know—hindsight is 20/20, but we weren't even offered that option. Maybe there is a tiny cancer cell in the part of the tongue they removed, and maybe it would have grown while we were waiting, but it seems unlikely that in three months, it would have grown enough to require the removal of more than half the tongue.

We have been told that we're not supposed to think that way—it will drive us crazy. But it's hard. Dr. Song said he was committed to Vic's quality of life, but so far, it eludes him. And I know—it's only been two months. This is a year-long recovery. But it's hard.

OK, that's as dark as I want to go. You know I like to be the picture of positivity, strength and resilience. So as always, I'll leave you with something positive: a Bella video. I went home from the hospital for dinner on Thursday. Bella hadn't had a walk since Monday. I did not want to take her for a walk. It was cold. It had snowed that day. I had a cold. I was tired. But my step-sister-in-law had reminded me months ago that exercise is essential to maintain your well-being when all around you is crashing down, so I thought if I took a video of Bella getting ready to go on her walk and sent it to Vic, it would make me happier to do it. It did, and the walk was restorative. (Thanks, Amy.)

I've had a lot of people sending thoughts and prayers through the blog, texts, email and Facebook; offering to do things for me; reminding me to take care of myself; and putting those validating "likes" on my Facebook posts. I have a whole "gratitude" blog post coming, but until I have the energy to get it up, let me just say "thank you" here. I'm so lucky to have such a wide-ranging support group. 💗

Clickety-clickety-clickety-clickety, up the hill

I started this post on September 20. Things had been going well, and I had some exciting news to share, but I was busy, and I just didn't get around to it.

So how is it that, in the middle of my workday, I now have time to write a blog post?

Well, it's because I'm in the emergency room with Vic. Surprise! It sure was to me.

TL;DR: Vic is severely dehydrated and will be spending the night in the hospital. He should be fine, but we're still in the ER, so I can't say for sure.

Full story:

September 20, we had the second follow-up with the surgeon who created the new tongue and with the swallowing therapist. They said he looked great and were very pleased with his progress. They said that when he could go for three weeks 100% off the tube food with no weight loss, he could lose the feeding tube. Exciting news, right?

So naturally, Vic went cold turkey and stopped tube feeding that very day. He started eating everything he could find, and he did pretty good. I wouldn't say there was no weight loss, but it did hover around the same weight, going a little up and a little down.

The oncologist offered to write an order a few days later, but it was too soon, and Vic politely turned him down. Over the course of the first 10 days, he did really well off the tube. It took a lot of energy and a lot of time—it would take him an hour to eat what I could eat in 10 minutes—but he was committed.

However, the following Monday (September 30), he woke up in a lot of pain from the tube. That tube had always been kind of painful, but the pain had really intensified over the previous few days to where it was a constant 6 on the very scientific (not) pain scale. So he asked me if I could get the tube out. Because he had been doing so well, and the pain was so severe, I called the swallowing therapist to see if we could shave a week off the tube removal plan. When I didn't hear back from her by that afternoon, I called the oncologist. I knew he would write an order, and he did. We scheduled the tube removal for Thursday, October 3.

Here's where it starts to get interesting, but not the good kind of interesting where you want to keep watching a show on Netflix. More like when a doctor on a TV show is poring over a chart to see why a patient isn't recovering from a standard therapy and she finds something and says, "This is interesting."

Whenever you have a procedure, you have to fast before, right? But if you're trying to maintain your weight, fasting is a real problem. Also, when you have a bum ticker and are recovering from major surgery, little things can be very exhausting. So you get a procedure, go home, and go to bed. You don't have energy to eat much, so you just figure you'll double down the next day. That's what happened to Vic.

But the next day, he had a swallowing study, and although he had a small breakfast, he ended up having to fast the rest of the morning. Then we went to Aurora for the swallowing study—a very taxing trip. Go home, go to bed, eat very little. That night, he also started coughing. He thought he might be getting a cold. Great.

At this point, I need to remind you that, when one little thing happens to Vic, it tends to snowball exponentially. So hold on to your seat—we're about to have an avalanche.

Saturday morning, he realizes he doesn't have a cold, but now he has coughed so hard that he has hurt his back. So he cancels on our lunch plans and stays in bed most of the day. Day 3 of very little food, very little water. I flashed back to our 2011 cancer journey when he started losing weight and kept promising he wouldn't go below 160 pounds but then he went below 160 pounds and didn't care and I had to yell at him and it was the only thing we ever fought about and eventually almost caused our divorce. (Sorry for the long sentence, editor friends.) I may have yelled. He may have pouted. I may have said "That pout won't work on me, mister." He may have said, "Don't yell at me." I may have said, "Then eat something." He may have said, "I'm trying!" I may have said ... well, you can imagine how the rest of the conversation went.

Sunday: Repeat Saturday, minus the yelling. Vic decided he should go to the doctor Monday.

Monday: We went to the doctor. Although he was weak, he was able to get to the car, walk into the office, sit there and talk to the nurse, get back to the car and get home. (This will become an important detail for my "Tuesday" paragraph.) Verdict: All that coughing may have caused a dislocated or cracked rib. We got a prescription for a muscle relaxant and a pain reliever and a stern admonishment to eat more. "Two Boosts a day—at least—along with your regular food." I figured with a doctor's order to eat, I would be able to convince him to eat more, but I was wrong.

We got home and he took his afternoon pill and the bare minimum of food to get them down and then he was so tired, he went to bed. Said he wanted me to wake him up at 2. This should have been my first signal that his brain was entering an altered state, but I can be obtuse. I thought he meant 2 a.m and was joking, but I now think he meant 2 p.m. for his afternoon pills--which he had just taken. I said "How about 6?"—a normal dinner time. "How about 10?" he said. "How about 6?" I said. But he rolled his eyes, like, "Why do you ask me when *I* want to get up if you're just going to make me get up when *you* want me to get up?" So I let it go, got him up at 10 to take his bedtime meds. Again, he barely ate anything, regardless of my cajoling, and I decided, "Tuesday, Nurse Ratched comes out. Food *will* be eaten. Water will be drunk."

I set my alarm on a work-at-home day for 5 a.m. THAT'S WORK-IN-DENVER TIME, PEOPLE!!! I got him up and got him downstairs to take his pills—one set without food at 5:15 (I think we finally got those down around 5:45) and one set with food at 6 (I think we finally got those down at 7:15). He would eat one spoon of yogurt and just be tuckered out. I was trying to get him to finish that yogurt as well as a bottle of Boost, but literally all he could do was the yogurt and one-third of a bottle of Boost. I figured I'd get him up every three hours and just give him as much Boost as I could.

Three hours later, I went to get him up, and he was just out of it. Couldn't really answer questions—he could start, but he couldn't finish. Couldn't stand up. Couldn't really understand what I was asking. I still thought I could will him to get up and eat, but it quickly became apparent that I was out of my league. Fortunately, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law were here planting a garden for us (I know—awesome, right?). My BIL helped Vic get dressed, and then he and I got Vic to the stairs, where he scooted down step by step on his butt. It took all three of us to get him in the car, and away we went!

Long story short (hahahaha), he is severely dehydrated. So much so that his creatinine (which you may remember from a previous blog post had gotten alarmingly high at 2.5 and is an indicator of kidney function) was four point OMG (seriously, I stopped listening after "four point," so I'm not sure  what it was). Kidney function was at 20 percent. Winner winner chicken dinner, you get a hospital stay!

So now, many hours have passed since I started this, and we are firmly ensconced in a hospital room watching Best in Show. Sounds like we're going to be here for a few days, so, yay!

BUT THE GOOD NEWS IS (because who would I be if I didn't look on the bright side?), he is where he needs to be. He's already responding to the fluids and is stronger and more cognizant than he was only seven hours ago.

So I'm going to sign off for now, but a blog post isn't complete without some pictures, so without further ado...

A normal Vic meal before the snowball/avalanche

Vic at physical therapy getting measured to
determine his progress.

And this is Vic showing you all how he can talk.

Yes, we had some helium balloons in the house.

"And that's all the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."