Another fall

 At about 5 30 this morning I heard another crash, and of course, it was Geoff, having fallen. He said he was fine, just tripped, but he hit his head. Also, he couldn't get up. I went to find our trusty footstool, but when I got back, he was leaning forward and breathing noisily. He couldn't hear me for about 20 seconds. When he woke he didn't realise he was out of it. This happened again once I got him onto the bed. His head was bleeding, but otherwise he was okay. I am not going to take him to the doctor, because they ran all the tests last time (with wires on his head - EEG), and nothing. His blood pressure was a bit low this morning so I've added salt. I'm assuming we haven't been keeping a close enough eye on it.

poems

 Caretaking

Sometimes my husband seems more like an old dog

He doesn't talk much

He's no trouble

I feed him

Make him coffee 

Sweep around his feet a la Andy Capp.

The other day I got cross.

"How will you cope if I die? 

"You'd have to go into a home!"

"No I won't," he calmly replied.

"I'll go onto Tinder."

"Huh!" I said.

"Don't imagine you could list your achievements!

Comrades and the Argus

Are much too long ago to count!"

"Oh no,"

he said. 

"I'd just say: Ou man soek vrekplek."

I laughed.

But I thought of all those widows and divorcees 

who live near us

Who have no house /no pension /no car

They'd be on him like fleas.

 

“We are but puppets, creatures of our fate” Eleanor Roosevelt

My husband cracks when he falls

His strings are cut, tangled.

His body is broken and bruised.

Breath forces in and out while he sleeps

Uneven and halting.

His leg, sliced and pinned,

causes wobbles on the way to the bathroom.

But

He used to be dancing Pierrot

Defiantly wearing a kaftan to posh engineering events.

We’d make love in ridiculous places:

The stairs at the Carlton hotel, or giggling in a shower in Venice

(Complete with mosquitoes and desire)

I’d be terrified when he threw the babies in the air

Though I knew his hands were safe.

One thing is still to be found in the ruins of his life:

He looks at me, smiles and says:

“Hazel, never train to be a rabbi!”

(after I cut the milk sachet open)

Hidden somewhere inside that battered biltong body:

My handsome ferocious boy.

Basal Cell Carcinoma

 So, today, my poor husband had to go and have a growth removed from his lower lip. He is still using crutches though his leg is getting better slowly, but his collar bone is hurting a lot and the bone-ends don't seem to be knitting. At least the plate is holding them together. He had a local anaesthetic for the basal cell carcinoma and he has to see the dermatologist again in a week's time.

Home again

 Geoff seems so much better! He spent two weeks doing intensive physiotherapy, and having a physician sort out his medication properly and raising his blood pressure. It has gone from 61 over 49 to 100 over 62. He didn't fall once in the convalescent home. So I think we are finally on the home stretch! Now he wants to begin driving again!

Convalescing comfortably

 I go and see Geoff every day, and every day he is looking a little better. I'm so pleased! He is wearing compression socks and has to have a nurse with him wherever he walks (with crutches). But he hasn't felt wobbly once and he hasn't fallen once in Step-down. (which is called Fair Cape by the way). He has to have an injection once a year to strengthen his bones apparently, and he eats salt tablets and has a vitamin b12 injection once a month. So I'm very happy with his progress and I hope soon he can come home and drive and make coffee! (His standing blood pressure is 61 over 49 - which is still rawther alarming). When he is sitting it's higher. He has to wear a red band round his wrist, for HIGH RISK OF FALLING but soon he should be able to graduate to a green one! I hope so!

Step away from Step Down

The post operation care facility Step Down in Tokai has no beds for Geoff, so he has to stay in hospital. The neurologist wants to speak to me about his falls, just in case they are related to his epilepsy. (I'm not sure, but I don't think so.) Anyway, he hasn't phoned me yet. Meanwhile poor old Geoff is still in hospital and likely to remain so for the weekend. Thank goodness he can watch the rugby! Got him the earphones for the hospital TV. He's in the neurological unit at the moment with electrodes all over his head. 

Back in hospital

 Shame, so in the fall that Geoff had recently, he didn't break his hip, but his thigh bone got cracked, so that has been pinned. My poor dear husband, it's as though he's a porcelain doll: cracks when he falls. Anyway, so a physician came to ask him a whole pile of questions to try and determine why he is falling. They did a sonar scan on his carotid artery to see if he is getting enough blood to the head. And also, he may have to go to a facility called Step Down, because it is going to be hard trying to walk on the broken leg when his arm is still in a sling. Latest update: his clavicle is being operated on tomorrow. 

Another fall

I got home from walking the dog this afternoon and found Geoff on the floor. He had fallen in the passage and had managed to slide into the lounge but couldn't get up. I couldn't lift him, what with his one arm in a sling and him not being able to use his right leg (from the fall). I just hope his hip is not broken. I called our service provider (Deep Blue Security) to please come pick him up. My friend Kate was here and helped me undress him and get him into bed after supper (which she brought). Nice to have angelic friends!

Good news! Had a phone call today, NOT squamous.

Still waiting to find out whether the carcinomas on the side of Geoff's face are squamous or basal cell

 Meanwhile, bathtime. 

Because he has broken his clavicle for a second time in seven weeks, he can't lean on that arm at all. So he plopped into the bath no problem, oh ho, trying to get him out! First, I propped the laundry basket on the side where the taps are. He pushed his feet against it (toes popping through the plastic holes of it) but couldn't push up and back far enough to be able to get up. Next, we tried throwing a towel over the side of the bath, so that he could, worm-like, creep over and out. He couldn't. Then I fetched my mother's old leather and oak footstool, put that in the bath behind him, and he tried pushing himself onto that and up. Amazingly that worked. But no more baths for him until that arm is out of a sling!

Tense

 

TENSE

Inside me

Coiled barbs prickle with tension

I balance on an inner wire.

I’m on high alert

Listening for a cry, a thud, something breaking.

Never sure if I’ll manage

or if this is the night I’ll have

to call somebody for help.

We are grown together,

Two ancient creepers

Hardened into position over the years.

“Old as dirt,” Michael says cheerfully.

We’ve been together forever

Now

We are splitting slowly apart

Tiny strands rip, tear and hang useless.

So here I stand balancing

Wobbling badly on the fence.

The All-Clear

 Well Geoff had a PET scan yesterday and today the oncologist called us in. We thought oh no, why does he have to see us rather than just giving us a message? But we didn't need to worry, really, it was to tell us that no cancer was detected in his head and neck, but that he was concerned about the clavicle. He said the break was probably caused by the radiation* and that he probably needs to have a bone density scan. So we'll leave that for next year because we've had a lot of medical bills and I asked if it would be possible to put it off for six months.

* See my opinion a few entries back - hahha!

Wavering along on the cancer time-line

 

Wobbling along the cancer time-line

My bed is warm

I’m dreaming.

A cupboard door bangs.

“Are you alright?”

No sound.

I fight through the mosquito net

He’s on the floor

“Sorrysorrysorry”

I can’t pick him up

So we work with a chair

An elbow

A knee

An arm on the bed.

Eventually

Unsteadily

But at last

On his own two feet.

Husband

 

Husband

Sky, sea and sand scumble-tumble alongside one another

Coupling in monotone greys

Mist and drizzle puddle all edges

Black seaweed blots the beach

Untidy Rorschach blobs.

People, wavery, indistinct,

Move slowly along the shore.

A man, slower than the rest,

One who avoids treacherous sand

Raises his arm.

I wave back.

Another MRI on Thursday - excellent results!

 Geoff's orthopaedic surgeon (Dr Mulder) explained that the result of the MRI showed that there are no squamous cells on the clavicle. So now the only scan he still has to have is the PET scan on 31st July and, if that is clear of cancer, he will not have to have more radiation! So we are holding thumbs it will be clear. The reason he has to have a PET scan is because everyone has some squamous cells in their jaw, and the MRI he had for that did not show whether these were evil ones or just the ordinary ones. Meanwhile the MRI he had the other day was definitely clear. I hope my poor husband doesn't have to have radiation again! *I would still like to know why his collar bone just cracked, just like that?)

Broken clavicle

 My poor, poor husband. I feel so sorry for him! He was looking okay. The lump on his neck seemed to be in hand, and we were hopeful it was NOT cancerous, and would just need a spot of radiation, when this happened! He was doing nothing - just reaching into his bathroom cupboard for something - when he heard a loud crack. He still drove to the beach to meet me and only mentioned this while we were having coffee. I said, well, when I broke my collar bone way back in 2014, that's how I knew it was broken. I heard a cracking sound. He said well it's not sore. I was still unconvinced. He has very little feeling in the right side of his body because of the radiation he had on his torso, neck and jaw on that side. Anyway after we got back from the beach he made an appointment to see his doctor so that he could go for x-rays but she could only see him in two days. As the day progressed he started feeling discomfort and also a bone was definitely out of place. So my daughter-in-law took him to the emergency room at Constantiaberg hospital to be x-rayed. (I was looking after grandchildren Tom, Scarlett and Gabriella at the time). Result: definitely broken. Now, nobody at the hospital said anything but of course if you think about it for a second: the bone of his skull got degraded and had to be replaced with a fake piece about the size of a (large) piece of toast. The surgeon at the time said ten years or so after radiation the bone starts degrading or dying. Remember he had 30 days of radiation about eight years ago so that must be just another side effect of it. This time on the thinnish clavicle. Maybe I'm just jumping to conclusions (the only exercise a limited mind gets). This is from the internet:

Osteoradionecrosis is bone death due to radiation. The bone dies because radiation damages its blood vessels.

Anyway, now he's looking like a little sparrow with a broken wing. Shame, man. He can hardly do anything. And of course I feel a great deal of empathy because I was wrecked by my collar bone being broken nine years ago! But luckily I broke mine in summer and the clothes etc I had to put on weren't nearly as difficult as poor Geoff's. I do remind him, though, of how unsympathetic he was: driving hard over bumps so that my shoulder got bumped when we were going to my birthday treat in the mountains! But I know how handicapped one feels.

Lump on his neck

 I was celebrating that no new problems had arisen for nearly a year, (this was April) and then a strange lump appeared under his jawline. He had a cat scan which showed necrotic tissue. So he went for an MRI. His oncologist Dr Davids jocosely said he is a man of mystery. They can't tell if it's cancerous or not. The biopsy showed neither one thing or the other, apparently. Of course later I had to go surfing on the Internet and this is what I found and I am pretty sure this is what is happening. I am not brave enough to mention it to the oncologist! "Have you studied medicine!!!?" (Not that I've ever mentioned finding something on the Internet to a doctor, but I have heard how irritated - rightly I guess - they get!)

Osteoradionecrosis is a rare side effect that develops some time after radiation therapy has ended. It usually occurs in the lower jaw, or mandible. The lower jaw is at risk of osteoradionecrosis because it has a limited blood supply. Very rarely, osteoradionecrosis can start in the upper jaw, or maxilla.

So now on 31st July, he goes for a pet scan. Meanwhile ... well, that deserves a whole new post.