Paul continued to run a temperature of over 100 axillary yesterday until about 8 p.m. Up until that time he didn't eat or drink much, although I was able to get him to eat enough to get his medicine. The Hospice nurse wasn't here yesterday, but Lillie brought her blood pressure machine and checked him about 1:00 p.m., when his blood pressure was 132/88 and his pulse was 104.
We watched a movie yesterday afternoon that Paul's parents loaned us. It was Medicine Man, which is really good. Paul seemed to enjoy it. At least he was looking toward the TV most of the time, and when I asked him at one point if he wanted us to turn it off, he said quite clearly, "No".
He slept good last night. I woke up about 3:30 when he was coughing and gave him some Roxanol. He didn't feel hot, so I didn't take his temperature. He quieted down after about half an hour and slept til I woke him up about 7:00. He felt hot then, so I took his temperature, and it was 101.9 axillary. I gave him a tylenol suppository.
I tried several times to give him his other medicine, but wasn't successful. He wasn't interested in eating and kept falling back to sleep. He was coughing a lot, so I gave him some Roxanol, since we just squirt a little bit of that in his mouth. I don't usually give it to him much during the day because it knocks him out, but I figured if he was going to be sleeping anyway, I might as well try to relieve his cough. I'm sure he must get sore from all that coughing.
He is quite weak now. We've been doing exercises several times a day with his legs and arms, but it's basically us doing all the work now. One of the exercises we do is pretending to ride the bicycle, and when we first started doing that, he often helped some, but he's not able to do that any more. He also doesn't have the strength to play balloon volley anymore. He does still seem to enjoy music, and will often make sounds which I interpret as singing.
Continue to: Apr. 11, 1999
Return to: Diary of a Brain Tumor Patient's Wife
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Created: June 19, 1999
Last updated: July 21, 2010