Saturday

Sherry is becoming increasingly disoriented.  Today I was alarmed when she could not find her way from the dining room table to the bathroom, and from the bathroom back to our bedroom.  I had discussed this with our radiologist when we were in for radiation therapy on Friday.  He ruled out the medications and counseled Sherry to take more time to think and me to be patient.  When the disorientation appeared to be worse to me today, I called our oncologist.  He was off for the week end and I got to talk with the on call oncologist.  We reviewed medications and he advised me to watch for a fever or a pulse over 120 in case the steroids were masking an infection.  She didn't have a fever or an extraordinary pulse.  I'm left with thinking that this is possibly a cumulative effect of the radiation, or, dreadfully, that the tumors are growing in spite of all the therapies.  Of course speculating on the cause is just that:  speculation.  My hope is that when Sherry resumes Avastin treatments on Monday her disorientation and confusion will diminish.

Obviously, this is hard for me to see, and it is extremely frustrating for Sherry.  Today was as low as I have seen her.  I decided to get us out of the house.  We went to Creative Elements, an art supply store, where Sherry picked out a couple of drawing pads and some pastel markers of various hues.  We then drove down to the NIC campus and inched our way along the dike road losing ourselves in the antics of the geese and in the expansive view across Cougar Bay and to the snow line skirting Mica Peak.  We continued on past City Park, down Sherman to the east end of town, then took Lake Coeur d'Alene Drive out to Higgins Point.   The bare silhouettes of the trees lining the lake leaflessly flaunted the brisk south wind.  The waves tossed us flashes of sunlight that had escaped through holes in the gray sky.

We were out of the house and out of ourselves.  I made green salads and salmon loaf for our lunch when we returned home.  We took the rest of the day slow and easy, hoping for more light tomorrow.