Jim
I am having the hardest time trying to write this update on Jim’s health. He’s not dead. That is to say his body is still breathing and reacting to pain and pain medication, but aside from that, he’s not really alive either.
Jim is lying in bed and mostly out of it in some dreamlike state. His body jerks and twitches in small spasms. The nurse feels that these are reactions to tumors that are pressing on nerves through out his body.
Jim’s body is a mass of tumors and mostly atrophied muscles. The tumors of visible and it’s hard to touch him with out feeling one. I have held him as we’ve turned him on his side to clean him and what I feel is not healthy living tissue. The muscles are spongy and the tumors are hard and they exist under the same skin - but not always.
Jim’s dressings are large. He has one on his back, two on his left leg and two under his right arm area. These are places where the tumors have broken through. They bleed and ooze and they have a specific odor that I know is the smell of cancer. The dressings hold back the blood, but the smell often escapes.
And because there is a great amount of pain involved in changing them, because of the movement, we cannot change them as often as they should. But in the big picture, these are minor.
Jim’s eyes are not always closed all the way and they dart around sometime, but mostly they are rolled back and you see the whites. But in those moments of clarity, he looks right at you and you get a sense he knows exactly what’s going on.
Jim has only moments of clarity - enough to say he needs to pee or is thirsty, but his tongue is thick and sometimes he talks in his sleep, so it’s difficult to understand him.
Jim’s pain medication is strong. And today we’ve added morphine as a regular, round the clock medication, not just as needed.
Jim’s nurse said Jim had maybe two weeks and told me what I should be looking for - that was three weeks ago. During this time I have been listening for a loud gurgle in his throat and erratic breathing and toes that turn blue. But only his breathing has been off and it’s more like apnea more then what I was told to expect.
However Jim is young. His body is fighting to live for as long as it can. In July there was no cancer in vital organs, and no one can say for sure where the cancer is internally, but estimation would say that it has spread in there.
So we wait. We care for Jim and keep him as comfortable as possible as we wait for the inevitable.
And this coming Sunday is his birthday.
Ray
Jim is lying in bed and mostly out of it in some dreamlike state. His body jerks and twitches in small spasms. The nurse feels that these are reactions to tumors that are pressing on nerves through out his body.
Jim’s body is a mass of tumors and mostly atrophied muscles. The tumors of visible and it’s hard to touch him with out feeling one. I have held him as we’ve turned him on his side to clean him and what I feel is not healthy living tissue. The muscles are spongy and the tumors are hard and they exist under the same skin - but not always.
Jim’s dressings are large. He has one on his back, two on his left leg and two under his right arm area. These are places where the tumors have broken through. They bleed and ooze and they have a specific odor that I know is the smell of cancer. The dressings hold back the blood, but the smell often escapes.
And because there is a great amount of pain involved in changing them, because of the movement, we cannot change them as often as they should. But in the big picture, these are minor.
Jim’s eyes are not always closed all the way and they dart around sometime, but mostly they are rolled back and you see the whites. But in those moments of clarity, he looks right at you and you get a sense he knows exactly what’s going on.
Jim has only moments of clarity - enough to say he needs to pee or is thirsty, but his tongue is thick and sometimes he talks in his sleep, so it’s difficult to understand him.
Jim’s pain medication is strong. And today we’ve added morphine as a regular, round the clock medication, not just as needed.
Jim’s nurse said Jim had maybe two weeks and told me what I should be looking for - that was three weeks ago. During this time I have been listening for a loud gurgle in his throat and erratic breathing and toes that turn blue. But only his breathing has been off and it’s more like apnea more then what I was told to expect.
However Jim is young. His body is fighting to live for as long as it can. In July there was no cancer in vital organs, and no one can say for sure where the cancer is internally, but estimation would say that it has spread in there.
So we wait. We care for Jim and keep him as comfortable as possible as we wait for the inevitable.
And this coming Sunday is his birthday.
Ray