Life goes on around me...

Today is day 12 of Steve in the hospital. Other than Christmas Day, that is how I mark of the day. Michael and Brian took me to lunch nearby and the cashier said "Happy New Year". I was completely taken aback. I did not realize that it was coming up on New Years. Yesterday I went home for a few hours which turned into all night because of the weather. it was a very weird feeling. First of all it was so big. I forgot how big my house is. I spend so much time with Steve and this hospital I kind of forget what life is like elsewhere. I know I could go home more often but I really feel I want to be near Steve. Every time I leave something bad happens. One time his blood pressure plummeted and at the same time the IV line failed. Another time I left him to go downstairs and he started barfing. I felt terrible when I returned because he looked so vulnerable. So I had a bit of time since I was stranded, to see what was going on while I was away. I observed two things; life goes on around me, even if I am not involved and I have great kids who take care of each other. Stephanie made dinner which was really yummy. It was so great to have home cooking. Kimberly has been helping everyone stay on task including getting Benjamin to and from work. Kevin is always ready to pick something up after work. Michael, Brian and Britta are my comedy and sanity relief. They bring me dinner, hang out at the hospital and generally make everything feel less scary when I spend to much time thinking.

We got a new team of doctors on Monday. They are associates of last weeks doctors. That is good and bad. It is always great to have new sets of eyes on the patient and the symptoms. The down side is that you have to explain everything over and over again. Sometimes Steve just doesn't have the bandwidth for it so I do it and he fills in little details. This week the lead doctor from Dana Farber is this loud Greek guy. Brian refers to him as Nick the Greek for some reason. He has a thick accent but does have a few new ideas. While they still have not been able to relieve Steve of the most troubling symptom of bacterial colitis, his does feel its time to take the gloves off with regard to palliative care. Initially they were cautious because of long term effects of some of the medications that would make Steve more comfortable. This guys attitude is a little different. I am not sure how to take it. He seems to project the fact that Steve isn't going to be around to suffer those side effects so we won't worry about it... I mean, the most important thing to me is FINALLY getting Steve out of pain. Every day he feels awful. Everyday he is nauseous. Everyday he gets weaker. Currently he is on 4 antibiotics and an IV treatment for Thrush. How much is a body supposed to take. I want to believe that the drugs are starting to work but I am afraid I will wake up tomorrow to find we are back to square one.Tonight we were visited by yet another new doctor from a specialized infectious disease group.They are going to study all of Steve's labs and see if something was overlooked. I sure hope they find something.

What feels most ridiculous is the fact that we are at a world renown Cancer Treatment Facility and the doctors can't even treat the cancer because of the vicious infection raging in Steve's body. He was scheduled to start his second round of chemo treatments today but he is to weak to tolerate it. It will be at least another week and probably more before they can even consider treating the cancer again, The biggest bummer to me is that a scan they did on Monday shows that the tumors are actually responding to the chemo. Lets home we can keep them shrinking until they can drip more of that toxic cocktail into Steve's veins again.