With all of the Christmas activities I think I forgot to tell you all that Paul is having an MRI this week on Wednesday. The original plan had been to have an MRI after 10 weeks of tamoxifen, but Dr. Nicholas's nurse called me last week and said that Dr. Nicholas had asked her to set up an MRI for Paul on Wednesday. We were already scheduled to see Dr. Nicholas on Wednesday, so Paul will get the MRI and then we'll see Dr. Nicholas, which means we'll find out the results right away.
I'm not sure why he has ordered the MRI, but I'm glad he has because I don't think the tamoxifen is doing much. Paul seems to be declining quite rapidly. Yesterday was a particularly bad day for him. He's always taken care of his own medicine and has done fine. (Each day he puts the proper pills in little containers for breakfast, lunch, supper, & bedtime.) This last week, however, there have been several occasions where he had the wrong number of pills or the wrong kind of pills in the little containers.
Then yesterday instead of taking the pills out of the original containers like he used to, he dumped a whole bunch of pills from all of the containers onto his plate, picked out what he thought went in each of the little containers, and put the rest back into the original containers. However, we ended up with the wrong pills in the little containers and the wrong pills back in the original containers. Luckily the pills all look different so I was able to get them back into the right containers.
I was concerned about leaving him today (I'm at work) so I asked Lore, who was coming in the morning anyway, if she would stay all day. She said that would be no problem. She'll come again tomorrow if I want her to. (I'm planning to work again tomorrow so I'll be free to take Paul for the MRI and to see Dr. Nicholas on Wednesday and to take care of any follow-up if needed on the next day.) I have a couple of hours of Personal Holiday time, so I'm going to leave an hour early both days. That way they won't be such long days.
I'm planning to talk to the personnel officer here today to see what I need to do to start the paperwork for a personal leave of absence. It's possible that the problem right now is that he's just worn out from Christmas. However, I'm afraid the time may be coming soon where I'll feel like Paul should have somebody with him all the time.
I'm sorry to send you this depressing news so soon after the happy news of our wonderful Christmas, but I figured you would want to know. We did have a very nice Christmas and I am so thankful for that.
Continue to: Dec. 30, 1998
Return to: Diary of a Brain Tumor Patient's Wife
Created and maintained by Renette Davis. Send comments to Renette by clicking here.
Created: June 7, 1999
Last updated: July 20, 2010