Day 4

Saturday-

Oof-duh! If that is how you spell the good ole Midwestern term of exclamation...that is the only way I can think to explain the last hour of time. We organized a Skype session with her dogs and a few friends. Easy enough we thought, but I am not sure why we thought anything about this time could be easy! We called her cable company yesterday to turn off her internet, phone, etc, but asked that it was still on for today. "Of course," Mediacom said, "As a matter of fact, we won't be turning it off until October 7th." Well, go freaking figure they shut it off. So, they tried to steal internet from neighbors, but that wasn't a great connection. So, currently Kristy Coleman is racing off to rescue Megan (our dear friend, really sister) with a wireless internet card. Hopefully, once the internet card is there we will be skyping. Our biggest mistake was telling my mom because boy is she excited, which has turned into being high strung and emotional. I would say the stress level in the little hospital room between, Marj, Martha, Laura, and I was off the Richter scale. Anyway, we have as peacefully as possible, left the room and demanded that she sleep. Whew...currently, we are taking deep breaths and hoping we accomplish this skyping without any more complication.

Update on Marj-
Let me think...we heard lots of medical jargon today, so let me think through it. Drug wise, she is off of her push pump for pain meds. She now has a patch that is sending medication into her and can have morphine under her tongue every 4 hours if needed. She will receive sleeping meds, nausea meds, stool softeners, and anxiety meds daily. She is also going on an experimental drug (go figure, let's experiment on her...I should have asked for compensation) that is suppose to reduce the production of fluid in the GI track of women. If this is successful, she may be able to lose the NG tube because there will no longer be fluid forming in her abdomen. They have yet to give it to her, but once they do it will just be a trial run. Once it has been determined that there an no significant side effects they will shoot it directly into a muscle and it will last for 30 days. Niece (cousin) Josie and sister (aunt) Marsha ran through all of the other possibilities to determine what was wanted and what was not. They produced a chart of post-its that the nurses are most pleased with because it makes it so they don't have to ask her what she wants. The only thing she has to ask for is the morphine under the tongue.
We also received the pathology report, that has been an extremely important piece to all surviving members of this Hayles clan, stating what kind of cancer this is. It has been concluded that Breast Cancer is the culprit. When I asked if that meant she was probably never really cancer free, the doctor agreed and said, "Probably some of the cancer leaked out and has been exploring its way through her body for the last two years." So, breast cancer beware the Hayles women are on a mission to rid you from all!!! Even though, yesterday in a hankering for my favorite pie, French Silk, we refused to purchase the Breast Cancer Awareness pie. It wasn't so much a refusal to donate, as an angry stance at it not helping us at the moment! Or really that the breast cancer pie was missing the black chocolate pieces on top and instead had pink ribbons (well edible ribbons). I believe I needed the chocolate topping, as I even snapped when poor little Idalia (my cousins five year old daughter) was trying to steal them off the top. Suffice it to say not one of my prouder moments, but it was all in a mess of high anxiety yesterday mid day!
AND...I really wanted the fricking chocolate pieces!! :-)

One last update. Upon arrival to my grandma's apartment to meet up with Marsha, Mary, and my cousin Josie we were not sure what kind of an atmosphere we would be arriving to, but were happy that there seemed to be a new peace and maybe even slightly lifted spirit feeling. It was nice to sit around and be thankful that grandma was finally where she wanted to be and that it was all so peaceful. We also enjoyed sharing stories and having some laughs. Of course, the poor Palliative Care doctor story got us all chuckling pretty hard (from last nights blog post).