You know, once again this is an exciting feeling. I'm sitting in our bedroom writing this blog and Mony is out in the kitchen making supper...that is awesome if you ask me. All things considered we have much to be thankful for from this week. As previously mentioned the room was a huge blessing. Also, the St. B. nurses fight for us. They were doing anything from bringing us junk food from the staff room, to talking the charge nurse out of having a student nurse with Ramona. It was also pretty sobering talking with Bonnie...and I need to interrupt this sentence to explain who Bonnie is in case I haven't in the previous posts.
Bonnie Johnson: Bonnie is the chemo nurse. Again, I forget her technical title, but she is in charge of the chemo on the wards. She is the one who occasionally gives the chemo and has taught pretty much every nurse on the ward how to give chemo. Also, she is the person I would phone if I had medical questions or concerns from home. Last time, when Ramona was in emergency Bonnie is the one who called us from her house at 11:30 p.m. to make sure everything was okay.
Anyway, about the talk with Bonnie. Ramona asked Bonnie about Dr. Wong's other patients. How many patients survived? The answer, I think, shocked both of us. (in this case, a survivor is someone who is "cancer-free" five years after their treatment) Bonnie told us that he has only one patient who is considered a survivor and he just recently noticed lung metasteses. That's pretty sobering. We're, of course, determined that Ramona will be survivor #2...we knew that odds weren't very good...but this is worse than we expected here.
I'm simply going to leave that thought there because there is really no good segway out of it. Ramona and I were talking about the purpose of our lives this afternoon.There is the traditional Christian answer of "to glorify God", but we're quite tired of cliches. For me, a large part of my purpose at this point is to take care of my wife...but for Ramona you would think it would be something like "getting better". Here's the problem, when your purpose is something that you have very little control of. That doesn't make for that great of a life. There is something defeating about having your purpose focused on yourself....
We think about these kinds of things, again, apart from the immediate health concerns, we think about purpose.
I guess I haven't mentioned yet that Ramona was released from the hospital on Saturday morning. Which was perfect, we got to attend Evan and Renita's wedding.
Ramona has a Telehealth(webcam) appointment with Dr. Waddell in Toronto on October 12 at 9 a.m. Central. Among other things, I hope we can talk about what surgical procedures need to happen after chemo. Also, at the beginning of next round (Oct. 15) they will do a CT Scan and a Mugga Scan. This determines whether the tumors are actually shrinking and whether Ramona's heart is handling this.
Thanks again,
Earl