If You're Gonna Spew, Spew Into This

Jerry has gone two nights in a row with no pain medication, and is attempting to go all day today. So far, so good, I think. I want it to mean that the tumor is smaller now than it was, and therefore, is not rubbing/pressing etc. or otherwise causing friction. I know that these days they say that effective pain management depends on taking your pain meds before you feel pain, because if you wait until you feel pain, it may be too late to ward it off, but Dad had a reason for skipping his nighttime dose two nights ago.

Dad threw up two nights ago just before bed, and I haven't really mentioned it because Mom and Dad are both pretty certain that the throwing up was not a result of chemotherapy, but rather, the result of drinking way too much water in a very short time period. Kind of like when you take a long road trip with the dog, and you don't stop at all so you can make good time. When you get there, the dog is so thirsty that he/she drinks way more water than there is room for in his/her stomach, and promptly throws up all over the floor. That's what happened to Dad. It's happened to Dumpling, Osito, Missy, Prissy, Worthington, Raider, Sterling, and Silver; and it happened to me once, except in my case it was a black cherry wine cooler at the Austin Marriott after John Doherty's wedding.

During Dad's appointment last Friday, when Annette sent Dad upstairs for IV therapy, she reiterated the need for Dad to drink at the very least, three litres of water a day. Although the printed material we were sent home with said "alcohol-free, caffeine-free," Annette said that nothing hydrates like water, and your three litres really should be water. Nolie and I walked next door to Kroger and bought Dad the new Ozarka stackable 3.0 litre Keg 'O Water. (no relation to Heinz's Keg O' Ketchup) When we showed it to Dad, and told him that was how much he needed to drink every day, he deadpanned, "you're kidding." I really don't think he had a visualization of what three litres looks like. Again, people--metric system--we're switching any day now. At the end of the day there was still quite a bit of water left in the Keg, so Nolie had him force down as much as he could. Poof. Throw-up in the sink. This is why he didn't take the pain pill: in case throwing up was going to be an all night thing. It was not. So, Dad woke up the next day--not in pain, but took his daytime pain pill just in case, but skipped the nighttime dose again. That was last night and he skipped his daytime dose today. It's 6:07 p.m. CST and Dad's still feeling pretty good.

Mom and Dad made friends today at breakfast. They are from Lake Charles, LA. He's there for some kind of transplant, and she, like Nolie, doesn't drive well in traffic. Lake Charles Lady gave Nolie some helpful hints for driving around Houston, and told her how to get to an outlet mall, since navigating to The Galleria requires left hand turns. The Lake Charles People do their bloodwork in Lake Charles so they only drive to Houston once every two weeks.

The Visa Card Panic is finally coming to an end, I think. Nolie and Jerry each have a brand new Visa card, each with their own name, but same account. Now, all Nolie has to do is notify all the vendors that auto-post to that account. Time-Warner Cable, and 24 Hour Fitness are the only ones I know about. The 24 Hour Fitness lady called Nolie and Jerry's from India the other day when I was there. I don't think the 24 Hour Fitness bill is nearly as crucial as Time-Warner. I couldn't imagine my parents' house without 87 bazillion channels. For one, I sleep there sometimes, and B. I load up their TiVos with movies that I transfer to the PC and burn to DVD so I can watch them later, because The Fooses have every movie channel known to man, including IFC and Sundance. Yes, the Fooses are T.V. people. I grew up an only child in a four bedroom house, with eight television sets if you count the one we inherited from Grandaddy when he went to live in Mansfield. I count it because although it wasn't plugged in, it wasn't broken. We didn't have a fancy stereo: just the intercom that was built-in, but we had eight television sets.

"Copy and Paste" Is Your Friend

We're now a good 72 hours plus into the Throw-up Zone, and Dad still feels pretty good and hasn't lost his cookies. Today he felt good enough to get dressed and go to the Olive Garden for lunch. For anyone who is actually from Italy, or of Italian ancestry, please do not hold this against us. It is close, and even mediocre food is good with Gorgonzola on it. Mom did say that her Cosmopolitan was just as good as the Cosmos at Carmine's in New York.

Dad does, in fact, respond more slowly than usual, and sometimes has to think for which word he wants to use. Mom had told me this before, but I wasn't sure how much of that information had been processed through the Nolie Drama Enhancement Filter. Mom compared it to the scene in Look Whose Talking where Kirstie Alley got the epidural and Bruce Willis, the fetus, got all loopy. Last night he was trying to think of Mom's oncologist's name, Dr. Deur, and went to the kitchen and pointed to a bottle of scotch. I knew what he meant, but Mom didn't catch on quite as quickly.

Dad's chemotherapy is administered every other Friday, for three rounds. The Fridays that he isn't receiving chemo. he has blood work done, which means he has appointments every Friday. Mom's biggest challenge with this is whether to have the future chemo. treatments administered in Arlington, or get to Houston every Friday. My feeling is this: Always take your dry cleaning to the actual plant, not a satellite drop-off location, because the more times your clothes are loaded and unloaded onto or off of a truck, the more opportunity there is for your favorite suit to go missing. This is also why if you ever have to choose, it is infinitely more important to own a washer and dryer than a dishwasher. Socks that go missing from the dryer at home will eventually turn up. Socks that go missing at a laundromat are gone forever, and if they're Ralph Lauren socks, that's $18. My college math professor, Dr. Bob, has a solution for the dishes, but Nolie says it's not appropriate for all audiences. If you would like to know Dr. Bob's solution, e-mail me separately.

Mom is afraid to drive from Arlington to Houston, and says that she can't do it. Here is something I've learned about my Mom over the years. She can do anything she decides that she wants to do, and she's much tougher than she believes she is. When Raider (Kingdom: Anamilia, Class: Mammalia, Species: Canine) died Dad and I were the crying idiots and Mom was the one in the back yard with a shovel.

We gained access to My.MDAnderson.org today, which is way cool. We can log on to see Dad's next appointment, get directions to clinics, and it even has links to explanations of different procedures that may be scheduled. We can e-mail any member of our medical team, and even view billing info. etc. Not only can we view scheduled appointments, we can schedule and re-schedule too. They are so on the ball here. The best part of gaining access was that we had to call M. D. Anderson to have them e-mail us a temporary password. It wasn't one of those easy temporary passwords like Socket15 either. It was one of those random ones like z974kqkk1powie6. Nolie actually started to write down the temporary password--on a piece of paper--with a pencil--so she could go to the site and type the temporary password in. I recognized this as a teachable moment, and seized the opportunity to teach my Mother about the joys and wonders of "copy & paste."

The Missing Visa Card Panic is still not resolved, for those of you tracking this particular saga. A new Visa card was to be overnighted via UPS three days ago. It still has not arrived, and today we learned that the reason is because the ZIP code on the telephone in our guest room is wrong. The phone says 77080, and the letterhead on the Manager's Welcome Letter says 77030. Apparently, UPS couldn't figure it out, which is OK, I guess. I don't know how to run an overnight delivery company, and I'm sure there's quite a lot more to it than most people realize. I learned the hard way once about the importance of proof reading carefully, so I can't really fault anyone for the mistake.

Supper tonight at the RIBM was tacos. Here is a picture of Dad making his tacos.

There's a link to some pictures I took today in the "links" section, or you can view them by clicking here.