cancer warriors

By popular request, here is a selection of institutions or causes people could donate to in memory of R.

The American Go Association • . • Child’s Play (Seattle) • . • The Electronic Freedom Foundation • . • microfinance in South Africa (particularly programs by/for female entrepreneurs in townships) • . •  Seattle Go Center • . • Seattle Public Library • . •

My beloved died last night. Please remember him, please miss him. So much to and for so many.

Love.

I am now officially terminal, probably on the order of weeks. So long and thanks for all the fish!

R’s starting to do stairs and car transfers in PT. He walked 80+ yards this morning and is starting to move between gym stations with the walker instead of the wheelchair. We went outside today. It was beautiful!

Typing is still problematic, but they probably won’t help him with hand therapy until he graduates from this unit.

R’s progress is phenomenal. His first day here he walked a total of about 6 yards using the parallel bars in the gym. Saturday morning he walked more than 40 yards with a walker. He needed a “two-person assist” to stand a week ago. Yesterday he needed “no assist” (except for later in the day when his muscles were jellyfishy after he’d had 2 hours of therapy, then it was a “one-person assist”). There is no graph and there is no paragraph with the shades of how much was lost and how much has come back.

The physiatrist is priming him for when (if?) a plateau comes on. Right now he’s improving at a steep rate. R’s brain is young and plastic.

We’ve moved to the rehab center! I captured a video clip of R taking a few steps forward (and a few steps back) using the parallel bars in the rehab gym. I love all this walking.

We’re going to take a break — check back in another week or so! Cheerio.

Radiation #20 complete! We’re through with radiation.

*also* they sent over an evaluator for Cherry Hill rehab. They didn’t feel they needed to send our soon-to-be doctor — Tempest, MD — just the admission coordinator. She said they’d looked over the chart and the doc said “this is a no brainer”. We’re in.

R woke up in excruciating pain again this morning. The assumption is still that the cause of the pain is the brain waking up to his left leg. He got enough narcotics to sedate an elephant. I’m hanging around watching his respiration rates and oxygen saturation, making sure he keeps breathing.

UPDATE: Much better! PT was postponed but should be coming in later.

PT and OT now arrange it so that whichever one has the first appointment of the day helps R transition into a wheelchair. He sits in it until the appointment with the other set of therapists, and during therapy they help him move back into the bed. On Thursday, the first day he moved over to the chair, he was in the chair ~four minutes before he felt exhausted and asked to be reclined (the wheelchair is spiffy enough to recline but not spiffy enough to have patient controls). Yesterday he sat upright in the wheelchair for over an hour and then did PT afterward. Same thing today.

It’s been a good weekend. Lots of movement, lots of visitors.