Seizing the Correct Day

I woke at 6:15. Trouble was I didn't know if it was morning or evening, day or night. I forced my sleep heavy body out of the recliner and began to look for clues. No pillow or blanket on the recliner suggested that I hadn't slept through the night, or maybe I had just fallen asleep before getting them? Looking out the window provided no illumination. I padded in stocking feet to the kitchen, turned on the light, and through squinty eyes saw that there weren't any dinner dishes dirty on the counter or clean in the drainer.  While this clue had me leaning toward night,  it took the pm after the numerals on my cell phone to convinced me that it was. Sherry woke up, too.  She satisfied her hunger with English muffins, cottage cheese, the ubiquitous Satsuma oranges, and a Majool date, followed by her favorite tea.


I thought about how disorienting and surreal this whole experience has been. The assessor from the insurance company came this week to assess Sherry's physical and cognitive functioning. At one point she asked Sherry what day it was. Luck had it that the assessor wasn't asking me. I drew a blank, then smugly recalled the day the pills from the days-of-the-week pill box came. I supressed blurting it out since it was Sherry's cognitive funcioning that was on parade.


We enrolled in Hospice yesterday. The hang up we overcame was concerning the potential continuation of Avastin use. Currently none is scheduled, though there will be reassessment in mid-January to see if resuming it could improve the qualtiy of Sherry's life.   Once this bureacratic bar was cleared, Hospice immediately began delivering the full range of services. Today our lives are easier in the sense that Sherry is resting better with oxygen to breath and pain medication available when needed.  I can see the depth of the support Hospice has to offer even from this early stage of Hospice involvement. There is so much to learn and the need is compelling when up against the enormity of death.


Jes installed this thing on the music part of my I-Phone called Genius. I decided to let it choose the songs after I had decided to listen to some music.  I put my headphones on to listen while Sherry slept. It chose Simon and Garfunkle's Slip Slidin' Away. That Genius thing might be a whole lot smarter than I first thought. Carp deim!