Things Continue to Decline

Before I get into whats been happening, I just want to thank our leprechaun for dropping this wonderful basket at our door, complete with everything Irish for our family.  What a wonderful surprise, but I sure would like to know who our leprechaun is, so I can thank you properly.  If it has to remain a secret, please just know what a huge smile you put of this Irish home! 

On a not so pleasant note, I need to share that we have hit a new, lower plateau this week.  It's been happening for the last 2+ years, but every time we get used to our "new normal", we get another "new normal".  At the beginning of the week, Joe was feeling good.  He just loved to take our short walks outside and said he wanted to go to a store and buy a pair of gym shorts.  We loaded him in the car and drove to Kohls.  With one of us on each side of him, we walked in the store, went straight to the gym shorts, picked out a pair, paid and came home.  Sounds like such a small task, yet it was HUGE in our world.  2 days later, things took a turn for the worse.  Joe's abdomen pain hit him so hard in the night that it reduced him (and me) to tears.  The pain was just so bad.  Hospice gave me plenty of leeway with meds and unfortunately, I had to use it.  Joe and I were up the entire night just trying to get the pain under control.  After several doses of medication, it finally worked.  Of course, the flip side with that is he couldn't walk, shower, shave, sit up or even talk to us.  We felt like he was gone.  Hospice has been working with us ever since to try and find our new balance of meds vs. some kind of quality of life.  Things are better and I am able to shower him and get him dressed each day, but his alert time is reduced, his restlessness has increased and his ability to grasp things is decreased.  In addition to that, his blood pressure has dropped again and he's lost another 5 lbs.  He now weighs 125 lbs, which is a 65 lb weight loss since the beginning.  All signs the end is coming closer.  As much time as we've had to adjust, it still is so heart wrenching with each new plateau we hit.  We try and make the best of every day, so our new thing now is to watch home movies when Joe has his 10-15 minutes of alert time in the family room.  We also still read your cards and messages each day to him. And as always, we just thank God for the time we have been blessed with Joe and thank God for bringing all of you into our lives.  Joe actually stated today that all the love and support he has received is what gets him through each day. With all that is going on with him (mentally and physically), he continues to state this over and over again. This is a clear indication of the impact you have all had on all of us.  Thank you all for this incredible gift.

XOXO
Sherrie