the toughest decision

I write today's blog with a heavy heart. It has been a rough week. Donnie made the decision today to stop treatment and go home with hospice. He is tired and wants to spend whatever time that he has left at home with his family.
I cannot thank all of you enough for your love and support of Donnie and I thru this. I ask that you continue to pray for God to ease his pain and give him quality time with our children and our family. As much as everyone wants to see and talk to Donnie. We ask that you give us a little bit of space to deal with the days ahead. If you would like to see or speak to Donnie please call me first to see if he would be up to it.. He has asked for no visitors right now.
please keep praying for our children as they are having a difficult time with this. please pray for strenth for me to be everything that Donnie needs me to be in the days ahead. he has always been everything that I have ever needed. My heart is his and it always will be.

keep praying
love to all
Robin

I think today is day 25 here. We thought Donnie would be in the hospital for a few days, a week at most. We never dreamed he would be here a month. He has had a rough few days. They finally seem to have his pain under better control but he is pretty heavily sedated most of the time. please continue to pray that this radiation will ease his pain so he can go home where he wants to be.
Love to all
Robin

Donnie is having a rough day. He woke up around 2 this morning in pain. He was up until about4:30 before going back to sleep and then was nauseated once he woke back up. I noticed last Thursday his left foot was a bit swollen. Then yesterday I noticed that the right foot and calf had swollen as well. Things went from bad to worse over night. When he got up this morning, I noticed swelling higher in his legs but also his arms. The dr said his liver numbers went back up a bit. That could be why he has more pain. It could also be contributing to why he is swelling. I don't remember exactly how he explained it but something with the protien and liver function. Anyway, they took him off of the fluids that they were giving him and are going to give him a diuretic to help get rid of some of this fluid that he is retaining.They took him down for radiation about 2 and he ended up getting sick before they could even do anything. Bu..t, afterwards he said he felt better. So they were able to do the radiation. H..e is resting now and dreaming. he is talking in his sleep again.Hopefully this is just one of those bad days and things will look up tomorrow. He had such a good day yesterdy that I was hopeful that today would be good too. But all we can do is take one day at a time and hope that the next one is good.Thanks again for all of your support and prayers. It means so much to Donnie and me.Keep prayingLove to allRobin

I'm sorry it has been so long since I posted a blog. It's been a difficult week. Donnie.. started radiation on Wednesday. I..t made him quite ill. He had radiation again Thursday and again on Friday. He didn't get sick those days. Seems that they got the naseau medicine combination.. right. He is quite tired though. He has been sleeping alot. During.. the day atleast. He likes to keep me up at night.
they increased his pain pump meds today. I was hoping that by this time, we would be decreasing them. I am afraid to mention the word home or speculate when we may be able to go. I don't want to get my hopes up. The important thing is Donnie is where he needs to be to control his pain.

I can say, I miss my kids. They come up and visit but it isn't the same as being
at home with them everyday. Thank goodness that they are self sufficient and have people looking after them. But they don't want me to come home without Donnie. They want me to stay with him.
Not much else going on here. They don't give him radiation on the weekends to give his body a break. As of right now, they have 14 total scheduled. He will have one each day Monday thru Friday. they did say that could change. We just have to take one day at a time. I hope that it starts shrinking the lymph nodes to ease his pain.Althou..gh he is sleeping alot, he is determined to make me experience hypothermia... I swear he keeps the room so cold that I could rent it out as a meat locker. Who needs an icebox? I am dressed for a blizzard and wrapped in blankets all day and night. But, if it makes him comfortable.., I will continue to deal with it. Sometimes, I just have to go out into the hall to thaw out. Maybe I should go buy a parka.
Not much else to report here, I will update more when we have news. Thank you to everyone for all.. of your love and support. it mean so much to us
love to all ..
Keep praying
Robin

I thought that we would be able to go home today but Donnie's pain got really out of control last night. He decided about 3 a.m. that he wasn't ready to go home. The dr came in this am and said that he thinks that the lymph nodes growing in Donnie's abdomen are what are causing probably 90% of his pain at this point. If we go home, his pain is going to stay at the level it is or only get worse. Our only option is radiation. They are going to try to radiate those lymph nodes to try to shrink them and see if that will help alleviate his pain. Granted at this point, we know that there is no cure, I still pray for a miracle. He will have his first radiation treatment tomorrow afternoon. If it works he probably won't see any break in his pain until late next week. But then you get to deal with the side effects of radiation. Hopefully it will give him some relief. It has been a long day. I am off to bed soon.Love to all keep praying Robin

2 weeks today. It seems like forever. I did go home for a couple of hours yesterday and I worried about him the whole time I was gone.
His night was really bad. Seems like so long before his pain was under control. I will be honest, it scared me. It hasn't been that hard before to get under control. I hope that tonight is better.
He had another test today. An upper GI series? He drank the barium and then they took xrays as it moved thru his intestines. It took almost all day, they kept coming back to get more xrays. I am assuming and hoping that we get the results back tomorrow. Things seem to be moving, they said the barium could actually help him. I am hoping that the test shows them what is the matter so we can get him fixed and home!!
I am really hoping that we go home tomorrow. I know I have said that since we have been here but I REALLY hope he gets to go home. He wants to go home so badly. I do too.

Today is day 10 in the hospital. I feel like we have been here a month.
Donnie had a rough night last night. We had hoped to go home yesterday but I am glad that we didn't because he was in a lot of pain last night and I don't think that we would have been able to manage that pain on our own last night.
He got 2 more units of blood. I don't know if his red blood cell count is still going down or not. they took blood this morning so I guess we will know later.
His liver levels are still getting better (at least they were yesterday) but it seems all the medication is taking a toll on his intestines. I swear, we get one problem fixed and another comes up.
Hopefully they will get everything worked out for him soon. I hate to see him hurting.
keep praying
love to all
Robin