Friday Evening

Where to begin - today was a scary, emotional rollercoaster. When I went in to check on Mark this morning, he told me that "he couldn't feel his face." He said he had lost all sensation around his left eye and his nose. I asked him to let me stay home with him, but he insisted he'd be ok until I got home. Around 10:30, he called me, crying, that the pain was excruciating and that he felt like his face was melting. I jumped in the car, racing home on the cell phone to Hospice. By the time I got home, the nurse and the social worker pulled in behind me. Mark was incoherent and kept asking if he was floating. He said he felt like he could fly. I was scared out of my mind. The pain was so intense that all he could do was cry and keep saying, "they promised me I wouldn't suffer." My heart was breaking. They called the ambulance and took him to the Hospice facility. He also was showing signs again of seizure activity. Once there, they gave him a hypo of valium to stop the seizure and immediately put him on a morphine pump. By the time the doctor made rounds this evening, Mark was sitting up, drank about a half-cup of tomato soup and was able to walk around on his own. The doctor was very frank with us. This could be a two-fold problem. They may find that his liver is no longer processing the morphine. If that's the case, they will wean him off and start him on some other pain medication. This could also be the tumor, advancing into a nerve center and setting off the seizures and the intense pain. They will have to assess how best to control the pain and we will go from there. They told us to expect him to be there about a week. He's taking it all fairly well. This morning was heart-wrenching and incredibly frightening for both of us. He felt that he slipped over his imaginary cliff. But, he still had his parachute. I am printing out all of the wonderful blog visits. His spirits will be lifted. Thank all of you so very much. You can not know how much it means to us both. I will keep you up-dated as I learn things, and hopefully, in about a week, Mark will write here for you. Peace and love to all of you!