sunshinej wrote:

stusue...Your lunch sounds delicious. I feel quite carnivorous right now from reading about beef medallions. Yum! I like taking walks after eating a big meal and often do. I call it walking off the belly. Good for the ole digestion, I think. Hey, I just realize that it is winter time for you. Must be a relief from those blazing hot temps. About your sister, sorry if I was tackless. You obviously love and understand her well.

Don't worry, Sunshine, you weren't tactless.  I didn't speak to my sister for 24 hours last week after something she said to me.



And yes, thank heavens it's finally cooled down, but today was about 22 C (about 74 F) - in the middle of winter!  It was also beautifully sunny, a lovely day to sit looking down at the beach and out over the harbour, watching all the goings on there.  I'm still in short sleeves and long shorts ... in the middle of winter ... with all the windows open, airing the apartment.



I just wonder what's going on with my garden back home, given that it was already an overgrown jungle before I left to come back here, as I was here last summer/autumn/winter back home, so my garden didn't get sorted out before winter and you couldn't walk along some of the paths as they were totally overgrown.  And now I'm here for winter/spring/summer, so you probably can't even get out in to the garden now!



I'll probably need a machete to get out the back door whenever I eventually get back home!



But good news, the doc said that my mum could be around for quite a while yet as things are progressing so slowly.  And he told us that when Mum was sent home from the hospital to die, given only a few days, maybe as much as 2 weeks, one of the doctors told him that s/he didn't think Mum's prognosis was as short-term as all the others were saying.

The bad news is that Mum might need to have fluid drained from her lung.  We're going to see how things go over the next 2-3 weeks and think about it.  It should make it easier for Mum to do things without getting really puffed but there's a chance that her lung could collapse and then she'd be in hospital with tubes everywhere. 

Has anyone had any experience with this procedure?  Know anyone who has?

I hope everyone's having a great one today!



OMG, it's after midnight!  I so have to get to bed!!!!


 

stusue --   I was an RN for 32 years.  As far as fluid on the lungs goes, it depends on where, how much and why it's collecting there.  Sometimes it's just a simple matter of using a syringe to draw the fluid off (usually under flouroscopy).  Sometimes they place a drain and attach it to a collection bag (that can be emptied.  Occasionally a lung does collapse but a person gets a chest tube for several days.  Once the lung is reinflated the chest tube can be removed.  I'm not sure why someone said/you all think your mother would have tubes everywhere.  disclaimer -- I haven't worked in 6 years but I don't think things have changed that much.

Stusue, it seems like quite a while ago that your mum was sent home, must be your loving care that's helping her fight. 
Does she love her showers?   If it's that tiring, wet wipes are a good alternative.  I love them out here on the road.  The shower situation isn't the best for me, I usually just take 2 a week and then use a lot of wet wipes inbetween.   The kind I get are pretty big and they're pretty strong, too.  I, personally, don't like painkillers.   They always make me queasy.  I always get the script from the dentist but the most I take is one, then I hoard the others for when I have a killer hangover, lol.  They last me for years.  They usually let me out of the hospital early because as soon as the worst of the pain is gone I won't take them anymore, rather be hurting than puking if the pain is at all bareable.   But I know after so long the pain just wears you down,  my mum was ready to go, she had lung cancer, too, along with a bit of all that related stuff.  Anyway, give your mum my love and a hug, if you will, I'm so impressed with her.

It's rained for about 20 hours now.  The RVsand such are parkedin aa ballfield with just one entrance so I got up early and got my van out of there before there was too much mud in the entrance.  I can't go anywhere yet but at least I'm out of the wet grass and mud and sitting on pavement.  It should stop raining anytime now.  We'reheaded ...  my space bar soesn't seem to want to work to;day...to another grass/mud field in the Catskill Mountains of New York, Rip Van Winkle territory.  That's our 'playatthe river spot' but the river will be pretty high and pretty cold with all this new rain. 
 

lilyr wrote:

stusue -- Okay metastases to the lung would explain the fluid.  Thanks for reminding me about the powder!  Yes,  that often  will sclerose the pleural space (oops -- nurse coming out in me -- lung space) so fluid can't accumulate.  Does your mother have an oncologist to ask?  If so s/he would know more than the GP would. Meanwhile ... does your mother have a shower chair? 

Lily, Mum has mets now but in the beginning the cancer in her lung was breast cancer that had grown into her lung (it was huge).  And don't worry, I understand all the medical terminology.

Mum has a shower chair (and has a carer come every day to shower her, help her get dressed, get her breakfast, make her bed, tidy the bathroom/kitchen/bedroom, and any other personal things she wants done.  She also has a loo chair, wheelchair if needed, O2 24/7, etc.  She's still ambulatory but is getting more and more breathless and now has morphine before her shower every morning and we've turned her O2 up, although both the morphine and O2 are still pretty minimal.   So it looks like she might need her lung drained so that she can get around again without getting breathless.