Monday Evening

We had a very calm day, but Mary complained that she was suffering more pain than she had the previous day. It turned out that Mary and Reenie had decided to change dispensing Mary's pain med to an "on demand" type instead of "on the clock".  Oral pain meds are not that fast acting so by the time Mary feels the need for the pain medication combined with the delay in the effect from the pill, she has a long time with some pretty intense pain. By dinner time we had changed it back to on the clock.  I stayed up for the 11:30PM dispense so Reenie could go to bed early and then sleep until the 2:30AM dispense.  

Mary appears to be very close to her normal self. Her facial expressions are back and her speech is fluid and not halting as it has from time to time since the surgery.  As I reported earlier, she walked a good deal today and she also sat up in a chair for extended durations. She also skipped her morning nap and only took one nap in the afternoon after the long walk and a incision clean which would have taken a lot out of her. 

The cleaning and packing of the incision is being done three times a day and Reenie continues to report the areas being packed are both clean of infection and clearly shrinking as the incision heals. Overall, the healing process is looking good.  

Chez Reenie prepared a fabulous meal of scallops, asparagus, greens and small potatoes for dinner tonight. Superb!  Per Mary's request, I started the clean up of our back deck area so we can use it for enjoying the out of doors.  I should have that finished by tomorrow.  

We've talked with all the kids in the last couple of days except for our soldier, Daniel.  He'll call when he is back in from field operations.  Fortunately, he is assigned to Fort Bliss in El Paso Texas so field operations consist of protecting the desert of New Mexico from dumb things soldiers do.  

We are trying not to do so, but already we are feeling anticipation for the meeting with Dr. Visser on Friday.  We know Mary has to be further along and stronger in Step 2 (growing the liver) but we also want to know the when and all the rest about Step 3 (radiation and chemo). 

Finally, I want to make sure I haven't created any misconception in my previous post. I talked about my paternal grandfather and two uncles whose graves we visited on Memorial day as I was growing up.  The misconception would be that they were serving in the armed forces which was not true. Both uncles died before WWII and Grampa died when I was two years old in 1949.