Hello Internet,
Noodle and I have been taking turns with Monkey in the hospital. We stay for twenty-four hour shifts, arriving around noon to relieve one another while the other stays home with Squirrel. I have been here for both administrations of chemo, with the second one happening only an hour or so ago. With the last one, there was a delay in response to it, and Monkey didn’t feel it until she was with Noodle.
So far, it has been easy for me. We hang out. I make sure she does some school work, and I make sure she gets up for walks and eats a little bit where she can. Chemo makes her nauseous, and so do the steroids, and so do the other medicines. Everything makes her sick, and all I can do is sit and watch as they throw medicine into her to try and help her feel better. The sad truth is that nothing will make her feel better for right now. The sad truth is that she has to feel worse for a bit before she can feel better.
Noodle woke up on her second night to find the nurses and doctor’s crowding around her bed. She wasn’t breathing. With the chemo, they upped her fluids in the IV to try and make sure that she didn’t dehydrate. Instead, it put fluid into her lungs by accident. When I arrived the next day, she was drifting in and out of sleep, vomiting, and wearing an oxygen mask. I watched her slow recovery and got her to eat some, but by the next visit she was refusing food. We’ve had to sit her down and explain to her that she cannot go home until she is eating food and keeping it down, and to do that, she has to eat first.
Today has been better. Chemo can taste how things change, so we’ve been bribing her with sour patch kids; bribery has never been a part of our parenting style before. We’re getting her to eat cheetohs, as well, and using mandarin oranges and PB&J to supplement with some form of nutrient. We have a few other foods here with us, but there is a lot of negotiating going on here. She wants to go home, though, and that is one her driving motivations which we can use to get her to take the medication she needs and to try the foods we offer.
None of this is easy, however, and those efforts only go so far. She sees her sister in short visits, only an hour long at the longest, and during that time I try to steal as much time with Noodle as I can. In the space of a night, we went from soothing each other to sleep and sharing our days in the dark to spending the evenings apart, texting like we are trying long distance in college. All of it is hard, and none of that at all includes the struggle that is the cancer, the sickness, the vomiting, the diarrhea, the medicine, the fatigue and nausea.
She has been in good health today, though, and while I haven’t had as much time to write (this document sat open for hours unattended before I could sit down to write anything, and even once I did, it was piecemeal as I struggled to get through it while taking care of her), I have had time to talk to my wife and to talk with Monkey. She is being brave and strong, and so is the rest of the family. We can do this, and we will. It will just take some time.
Sincerely,
RWS
-Short Rest-
Books
0. Main: The Giver by Lois Lowry
One Piece Vol. 90, Ch. 901: “Don’t Let You Death Stop You!!!”—910 0% (1—10)
1. Sun: Boruto Vol. 5, Ch. 16: “The Vessel”-19 75% (1–4)
2. Mon: Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Vol. 3, Ch.17: “Arrow Demon”-25 0% (1–9)
3. Tue: Samurai 8: The Tale of Hachimaru Vol. 1, Ch. 1: “The First Key”—6 0% (1—6)
4. Wed: My Hero Academia Vol. 9, No. 80: “Establishing the Bakugo Bodyguard Brigade”-80 89% (9–9)
5. Thu: One-Punch Man Vol. 10, Punch 50.1: “Headgear”-54.1 40% (5–10)
6. Fri: My Hero Academia: Vigilantes Vol. 4, Ep. 29: “Weapon”—35 22% (3–9)
7. Sat: (Fan Fiction) Final Fantasy: Fated bytinygaia Ch. 86% (44—50)
8. Squirrel: One Piece Vol. 17 Ch. 154—155
Reading Order:
-Fiction: Pyramids by Terry Pratchett 100%
-Library: Trans Medicine: The Emergence and Practice of Treating Gender by Stef M. Shuster 100% (–)
-YA: The Giver by Lois Lowry 63% (113–179)
-DnD5e: Player’s Handbook by Wizards of the Coast 0% (0–?)
-Non-Fiction: Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat 0% (0–?)
View from the Cheap Seats by Neil Gaiman 26% (130–502)
—Reread—
Games
0. Main: .hack//MUTATION
1. Sun1: .hack//MUTATION
Final Fantasy X-2 HD Remaster 29% (15/52hrs)
2. Mon: Omega Quintet 0% (0/47hrs) Just no.
Mass Effect 2 Jean Replay (Until Further Notice)
3. Tue: DnD5e
4. Wed: Dragon Age: Origins Kallian Tabris 14% (10/74hrs)
5. Thu: Movie
6. Fri: God of War ?% (??/33hrs)
7. Sat: .hack//MUTATION 83% (36/50hrs(19/23hrs))
Xenogears 9% (6/66hrs)
Shows
0. Main: Batman: The Animated Series
1. Critical Role: Campaign 2: “Rebirth” 98% (139—141)
2. Anime: FLCL 0% (1—6)
3. Owned: Digimon: Adventure Myotismon Arc 0% 21–28 (1–8)
4. Netflix: Moving Pictures Season 3 17% (2—6)
Seven Deadly Sins Season 1 8% (3–24)
5. Disney+: Star Wars: Visions 56% (6–9)
6. HBO: Batman 71% (23–31)
7. Critical Role Campaign 2 15—17 82%
Moon Knight 17% (2–6)
Movies: Promare
Firefly 7% (2—14)
Starship Troopers
Dumbo
X-Men
Solo: A Star Wars Story
No comments:
Post a Comment