Confections For Cats

No matter what your religious beliefs are, it is important that you have someone who can speak for you if you are too sick or are near death. To ensure that your spiritual wishes are taken care of in the manner you desire. It’s not a time for argument or schisms between family and friends regarding religion. Dying should be a time of peaceful prayer of the choice of the person whose life is ending. This would turn out to be a struggle right up to and after Mathew’s last breath. Mathew had a difficult time sleeping at night. This had been going on for sometime before his diagnosis and continued until after he started receiving chemotherapy. In those first two weeks at Moffitt, I recall one night in particular. We were both awake. Mathew asked if I would read to him.  His sister Danielle, had given him a book, “Living Buddha, Living Christ” by Thich Nhat Hanh.  Mathew asked if I would read  out loud to him. I did and we talked about the passages I had read and then he asked if I c

From the Notebook  3-7-2014 written by Stepmom Diane **Johanna/Arpie** Noticed Mat feels the need to tell everyone that visits/calls the step-by-step story beginning from months ago. A friend called last night and apparently was asking details about the current situation and I told Mat he didn’t have to explain all that to them at the moment. He was exhausted and stressed already. Perhaps we all need to help him see that the “short answer” to questions from those outside the family is enough. I had noticed (this was me) I recall when I noticed this. It was as if a button was pushed sending Mathew into the exhausting story. Almost verbatim each time. He became more and more drained with each telling.  From the Notebook written by Mom/me 3-8-2014 Problem with too much company is he doesn’t want to elevate his legs. Since company usually starts noonish - around 11 a.m. got him to raise legs. 7:30 Dr. Rashad Normally will take about a week for liver to reco

The Liver Stent As mentioned before, the tumor was wrapped around Mathew’s bile duct and had invaded the liver. The stent was to relieve the backup and allow the bile to either drain outside of his body or into his small intestines. There are different ways the stent can be put in depending on the situation so I won’t get into a big explanation of what it is and how it works right now. At this point, these are some of the things we knew, were focusing on, and dealing with each day: they had narrowed the type of cancer to a small blue round cell cancer. the tumor is fixed and non-moving. Damen Reed from the Sarcoma clinic was the oncologist. Mathew’s leg pain kept increasing. constant fear of a blood clot. edema in legs, genitals, and fluid in his lungs. his body was full of toxins. Mathew was stressed and filled with anxiety. extreme pain in his legs, knees, spasms in his back, difficulty sleeping. at times his body was very hot. there was mention of “palliativ

Texts to a friend Giving him something to drink to trap and expel toxins. Dr said he has at this point about 25% chance which can  up if diagnosis is a germ cell or go down if a different type  or if his liver stops improving. Hoping by early week liver is  ready and have pathology in. Already has oncologist biting  at the bit to get started. Worse case, tumor cuts off something  important before treatment can start or treatment needs to  start before diagnosis, (he doesn’t expect that). Of course we  understand, there can be numerous complications. Sent March 8 Our moods go up and down. He is on oxygen,  blood thinner and  needs to use a walker. Sent March 8                                                                         Are you driving back and forth a lot?         Rec’d March 8 I usually stay 36 hours at a time. Sent March 8 Is his Dad doing the same? Rec’d March 8 Not as often because he manages a Firesto

How do you decide where to get your information? One day sitting in the chair in Mathew’s room, staying in the background, while he had a visitor, I made the mistake of searching the internet for information.  Even though we had already been told that the tumor markers had come back negative for any particular organ, for some reason I was fixated on his gallbladder. So much emphasis was put on bringing Mathew’s bilirubin down so his liver would be able to withstand chemotherapy. That was being hindered by the backup of bile, due to the cancer being wrapped around the bile duct and invading his liver.   I may have been looking up about bile, I really don’t recall now how my mind was filtering information at that point in time. I know all of us were still in shock and it affected our perceptions. Anyway, I Googled about the gallbladder and bile back-up and came up with cancer of the gallbladder.  All I did was frighten myself. It wasn’t pertinent to Mathew, and I didn’t