My tired babe, and visitors from SG.

Husband is very tired - hardly sleeps as he just cannot stay still for any length of time. His legs are so "restless" that he has to keep moving - even through the night. He will lie down for maybe 30 mins, and then he is up and moving again. Quite often I will check in on him and think he is fast asleep, and 10 minutes later he is wandering around the house! Of course, with all the moving around, which definitely qualifies as EXERCISE, and the fact that he is not eating enough, he is getting skinnier and skinnier. It's not that he is not eating - he tries very hard to eat, but his stomach capacity and appetite just are not there at all! Yesterday morning, for his 10.30am soft boiled egg, he was willing to try a slice of toast. He took ONE BITE of the toast, with yummy mushy eggs on it... and he just could not get himself to swallow it - he ended up spitting the toast out, so I ended up making him a fresh boiled egg to eat, WITHOUT any toast. So, it is not for want of TRYING that he is not eating much.

For lunch today I made him a fairly large portion of chicken rice porridge, and though it took 2 installments 2 hours apart, he DID manage to finish most of it :-). The good news of course is that he is no longer puking his food up. Not to say he does not get nauseous, but even though he gags, he is not actually vomiting anything. And, even better is the fact that he is not allowing this to ruin his overall mood and even though I cannot say he is CHEERFUL as such, at least he is still upbeat and not down!

The pain in his shoulders and upper back is slowly building up - and it is all I can do to keep up with it. For the last few days, over and above the pain patches and the slow release oxycontin tablets (no more slow release morphine! Even the supplier has run out, so the hospitals don't have any), he has had to take an extra 40ml (ie, 80mg) of liquid morphine. The hospice doctor has recommended that if he goes up to 60ml (120mg) in one day, then I should increase the pain patches to THREE. Have to see how he goes this weekend!

We had visitors from SG today :-). Grace and Mo, 2 very dear friends of ours, flew up this morning, arriving at our house by 11.15am. I had stocked up on loads of food at the pasar malam last night, and had invited my sister over for lunch as well. When Grace and Mo arrived, after seeing Husband, and sitting and chatting for a while, took them to Mont'Kiara Plaza to get roti canai, etc, and have coffee/tea. My sister met us there, then we all headed back to Hijauan to have our lunch. LOT of talking, and catching up to do. It was great to have them over, and we hope they come again soon - still got lots to catch up on! My parents came over, after lunch, to see them as well. The airport taxi came to pick them up at 4.30pm to take them back to the airport for their return flight. Hopefully their next visit will be longer as they are such great company!

The sad sad news this week is that a friends husband just died yesterday. My heart broke on hearing that news - she (Sally) is just the same age as me, and her husband just a few years older, and they have kids. It is just so heart breaking to lose someone dear to you, and I can so empathise with her. I called her this morning and even though we did not talk for long, we both ended up in tears and she is such a generous hearted person that in the midst of her sorrow she can tell me that she always prays for Husband and me. I cried even more at that :-(. I hope that I can be as strong and as generous hearted as her one day!

That's all the news for now. Please do continue to keep Husband in your thoughts and prayers. I know that it may be too much to hope for a miracle to take away the cancer, but we can still pray that he gains in strength so that he can have improved quality of life, and less pain, and can try and enjoy whatever time he still has with me.

Till next time, stay safe, stay HEALTHY!