The last two days have been relatively calm and almost routine. Philip has quite good appetite and we have learned what hospital menu items to select, supplemented with home made soups and other savoury offerings. He has lost all taste for sweet foods so that the meal supplement shakes are unpalatable to him.
Pain management has settled down so that he has been relatively pain free except for a couple of inexplicable breakthrough in the wee small hours. Cessation of the anticancer drug Tarceva has meant that he now has nausea but rarely and the hand tremor has also settled down. Tarceva was the main culprit too in causing loss of appetite.
Philip is still very much alert mentally. It is a blessing that the cancer, while occupying just about every other part of his body, has not affected his brain. So he has been able to enjoy talking with his visitors. We have been warned that the spinal damage affects the body as much as the cancer itself, with unpredictable results.
A physio has visited the last couple of days and got him working on leg and arm exercises. .Philip feels that this does him good and he feels better afterwards. It was interesting to view the ABC Catalyst program last night on the benefits of individually-tailored exercises done in conjunction with chemo. They activate the body's natural defences (esp. the killer cells) and will probably become standard treatment in future. There might be a turf war between the exercise physiologists and physios, the latter having had the inside running in hospitals for many years.
Tomorrow we think he will move to Clare Holland House on the lake. As usual no definite time was given for this, a nuisance when an old university friend of Philip's is coming up from Melbourne and arriving just before lunchtime. It depends on the doctor's fiat. At least Canberra is small enough and getting between airport, TCH and CHH does not present insuperable difficulties.
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