The knocking stopped.....and then.....

Have you ever had a car making a terrible noise.......you take it to the garage.....and NOTHING!!  And then you get back home, and it starts.......again.

That's sorta' how it can be, sometime....at our house with this thing called Multiple Myeloma and pain. Last Thursday, my honey went to the Driving Range to hit golf balls. This was his first such outing in several months. And ever since he (we) has paid the price, in pain.

Sunday was just an awful day - with regard to level of pain. Finally, around sunset (isn't that when it always gets worse) I called his Pain Management Specialist. Thank goodness, this is one of the doctors that will share his cell phone number (although this was my first call to him), and he also makes house calls!! He told me what to do to get the pain under control, and said he'd see him on Tuesday (Monday was a surgery day).

Monday turned out to be a pretty good day.....for both of us (well, if he's pain free.....I'm headache free!) Then came Tuesday and our appointment. Not that I wished my honey any pain, but wouldn't you know on a scale of 0 - 10......he was 0 that day! (Take the noisy car to the garage, and it's "knock-free", everytime!)

Anyway, things were good. Doc thought the Driving Range was an excellent idea as long as honey didn't overdo it. And, he also gave me permission to increase the dose of Dilaudid, if necessary. So, we walked away with a pat on the back, a bill, and new prescriptions. Since they are controlled substance drugs, we have to do this every three months, anyway.

And along came today. It started early this morning with pain and chills. He's usually cold, because of his anemia, but here was this knocking (pain), again! He requested "one of my little white pills" (dilaudid), which usually work their magic after about an hour. Two hours later, he was still in pain.....so I gave him another "little white pill", and then there was the headache.....so I administered two Tylenol. Finally he slept, and with sleep comes relief from pain.

He rested and slept, off and on, for most of the day....and then came late afternoon, again......and MORE pain, seemingly worse than ever before. So, out came the "little white pills", and this time I gave him two as well as a Phenergan, for nausea, which always bring blessed sleep. The pain subsided......a little.

Tomorrow, we'll go back to the good pain doctor and probably an injection of steroids. This time, though, the pain is in an area of the back where it has never been .....around the T5 and T6 vertebrae. And so I worried.....could it be pneumonia??

And, I'm concerned. There is an odor......to his breath.....that I smelled way before I knew he had cancer. I later learned that it's an indication of Renal problems. Tonight, and last night, I smelled that same odor. His eyelids are his greatest telltale sign of dehydration, and they are beginning to show those signs, even though he drinks plenty of liquids.

I called the Cancer Center "on-call" doctor and she suggested that I take him to the nearest ER to be sure he doesn't have (1) Renal failure (2) another compression fracture (3) pneumonia. If there's a choice, I guess I'll take door number 2. There's a hospital nearby.....much closer than if we were at home.......but he "assures" me that he's better. I don't want to have to make this trip ......to an unknown hospital......in the middle of the night.

This time last year, when we first received the MM diagnosis, we were making these same kind of trips to the hospital. I didn't intend to mark the milestone with "celebratory" trips, this year. I thought things were really going good at our house because the knocking stopped, and then.......