Away at Dinner

We go to the Thia Rose for dinner. We have stuffed meat wraps for starters. We then have coconut soup. Pad Thia and a delicious pumpkin and chicken curry dish my dad recommends. The Pumpkin with curry turns out to be my favorite. We have hot tea with dinner. no one orders a cocktail. I feel like I need to have all my faculties unimpaired by alcohol. these days. I haven't had a glass of wine since our first visit to Dornbeckers. Tom and I had a glass after we got home that night with the diagnosis. I think my sister and dad follow my lead. Or maybe they just don't drink anymore. Its a new age we live in with drinking and driving.



I enjoy my dinner, but we don't linger. Just as well, because when we arrive back at the room. My mother is stressed. Riley has had the chills or shakes just ten minutes earlier and put himself to bed. His legs ache and the nurse has given him tylonol. I can tell my mom is freaked. She leaves. Its 7:45pm.



My sister lingers for a short while, but we can't really talk because it bothers Riley. On the way out we weigh ourselves on the fancy scale in the hall. Its in kilos though so we will have to translate it. Neither of us knows the pound translation. I had just used the bathroom and lost a kilo of weight. Too much information?.



I come back in the room and Riley asks me to rub his "buttox". "What?"" My butt is sore,mom, so are my legs, will you give me a massage? ". Of course. I massage his legs and buttox. His legs feel like they do when we have been skiing, tense and sore. Its a side effect of the strong meds, aching muscles. If Tom were here, would he massage Riley's "buttox"?



Riley spikes a small fever at his 8:30 temperature check. The nurse goes to find a doctor. He decides to draw a blood culture. The results wont be back for days though. They take the blood from both lines in the pick. They want to make sure the line is clear of infection. The tylonol kicks in and the temperature drops slightly within the half hour. But after the nurse leave Riley says his nose is plugged. He also says his heart is racing but tells me that is a listed side effect of the treatment. The nurse will be back in another hour to check him. I'll tell her then and see if Riley still has a plugged nose. They will be checking more frequently tonight after his first treatment.



Tomorrow the treatment will be sped up to 6 hour and the next day to 4 hours, where it will stay for the rest of the week. That is on top of all the pills he has to take. The nurse has reminded him to order apple sauce with breakfast so he can take his pills in the morning without crisis. He did a really great job at bed time tonight with the pills in his apple sauce.



He is so big that Riley's feet hit the footboard. The mattress has slid down. I will have to adjust it when he gets up again. We tried removing the footboard, but it turned out to be the power center for all the remotes. Riley likes to adjust the bed a lot and he has to be able to call the nurse so we put the footboard back on the bed. DG (my dad in Tucson) used to have that problem in the hospital. The foot board drove him crazy. As soon as Riley gets up to use the urinal in the bathroom again, I leap up and adjust the mattress, shoving it up to the head.

Time for bed. Tomorrow, Sunday, will be another adventure.