A self proclaimed 85%

That she then reduced to 80% and a few minutes later after she had gotten out of bed and joined me in the kitchen was adjusted to 60%. Hey, that is a huge improvement from the 1% days she has been having for the last month or so.

For breakfast, instead of the oatmeal which is the only thing she has been able to keep down for four weeks, she ordered a fried egg, over easy with toast, honey and tea. She ate it all, pronounced she was as full as full could be AND kept it all down!

Lunch was a muffin Lara left (frozen and I defrosted).

Dinner was Italian herb chicken from Lunardi's, fresh Acme bread, beans and potatoes from Farmers' Market. Mary ate as close to a full adult portion as I have seen from her since Christmas! In addition, Mary came into the kitchen and helped me plate the food when it was all prepared and ready to go. I expected thunderbolts from the sky to match my shock of having her in the kitchen and helping!

The weather here was rainy, cold (for us, 59 degrees at noon) and generally miserable. Mary decided she did not want to go out. But, she was active in spurts all day, insisted on a shower right after breakfast, loaded some clothes into the washer, read the NY Times, watched hours and hours of Olympics -- who invented 'ski cross', what a wild event. And generally had a damned good day. What an unreal change from just two days ago!

I did go out in the rain to Farmers' Market to get the first growth asparagus from Soso, our veggie lady. She had them last week too and although I prepared them twice for Mary, she only ate them one night and limited herself to three stalks--I sacrificed and ate the rest. Soso saves us a bunch each week and I could not miss picking them up. Ah, yes, for you non-Californians, locally grown, first growth asparagus in Feb is another pleasure we enjoy while waiting for the "Big One."

Our fruit lady, Kalayada (click here and here), is a retired ICU nurse so she is very interested in the treatments that Mary is getting. When I told her that Mary was feeling so much better as she reduced the dose from the fentanyl patch and started MSContin pills, she reacted, "They are exactly the same!"
My response, "Well, they may be the same but Mary is clearly doing a million percent better as we drop the fentanyl patch and put her on MSContin."
Kalayada thought about it for a minute and said, "OK, the change in form can create that kind of effect, but it generally last for about two weeks and then its the same as before."
Clearly, I was disappointed to hear that (and we don't know if it will happen to Mary) but then I realized, "Hey, that might be ok, she has the Medial branch nerve block in 10 days or so and, with luck, that will knock the pain down even more and she won't need the narcotics!"

Tomorrow we see Dr. Fisher again. Given Mary's stunning change, we plan on focusing on the medicines she is on. We confirmed the two diuretics with the surgeon on Friday and we want an assessment of the collection of meds she has been prescribed by the oncology team. My guess is he will be as shocked as I am given the change from Friday.

On a totally different note, I walked into Sur La Table to buy a replacement for our milk frothing device (Nespresso Aeroccini) which died yesterday. We use it for my lattes and for Mary's night time warm milk so it had to be replaced right away. Amazingly enough, when I answered the question about where we bought it with "We bought it here" I got a stunning answer.
"Oh sir, we replace that no charge if you purchased it here." I was sure she was wrong because the manufacturer's warranty is six months. She directed me to the checkout stand so they could look up the purchase records. And, yes, we bought it Dec 2008. And yes, I get a no charge replacement under the Sur La Table warranty! I had to return to the store with the old dead unit, they took it and handed me a brand new Aeroccini which, of course, is now a new and improved model from our Dec 2008 purchase. I always wondered why they recorded our name and address with major purchases and now I know!