Howie Update August 1, 2013

How long is a piece of string?

So far Howie has beaten the odds and gone way past his "scheduled expiry date".  In fact up until about four weeks ago he was in great spirits and had had no real change for the worse for several weeks and I was starting to think he would live like this forever.  Sadly his pain has increased substantially in the past month and his base medication has been increased at least five fold to manage it.  In addition he has needed to top up his pain management between two and six times in a 24 hour period.  His pain is primarily in his big toes and is likely neuropathic. 

On Sunday he made a huge effort and went to Joanne and Ritchie's new house in Gisborne for a big family lunch.  We managed to bundle him into the car with the help of the hoist and Dean. Robbie and co helped get him in and out of the car up there.  We had a great day and Howie really enjoyed it and despite the effort he was glad he went.  

Since last Monday Howie has seemed slightly more confused than he has over past weeks and his short term memory has been letting him down a lot more over the past two weeks (except if I've done something wrong!).

Wednesday he told Nathan the Pal-care nurse that he was fine except that I wouldn't let him get out of bed among other things to which I replied "that is complete rubbish, you just made that up".  He looked at me, realised I was right and with a glint in his eye pointed to the mandarin on his table and said "well then, can you pass me that watermelon?"  As suspected, his sense of humour definitely shining through to the last.

Today delusions have set in.  In the morning he woke up and was playing with the control buttons for his bed... up, down, feet up, feet down, head up, head down, feet up, head up.  I finally said "what are you doing?"  He said, "I'm just seeing what all these buttons do".  It was quite amusing really.  Later he called me over and told me that he could see his feet at the end of the bed but for some reason he couldn't move his legs or feel his feet. Not long after that, he called me in and was getting frustrated because he couldn't get himself out of bed and extremely annoyed when I said he wasn't able to.  He told me a little later he was feeling really strange and felt like he was going to die.  He was also struggling to remember what he was trying to say and was imagining things - having said that, though, I could describe myself like that too sometimes!  

Off to sleep and a new day...