another month

Again, a month has slipped by. We have been busy. We did go to Auckland during the school holidays, and stayed in a really nice apartment on the waterfront for three days. We took a harbor tour, and went to the maritime museum next door, and on the way there (this may have been the highlight...well, one of them) we went to the American store, which we had only recently learned of, where we bought a hundred dollars' worth of comfort food...Planter's Peanuts, Pop Tarts, Life cereal, Kraft Mac & Cheese, graham crackers, Wheat Thins, and candy corn!

It went well enough that I thought Manford and I could attempt a trip to the South Island--he had said he would like to see whales, and there is a place there (Kaikoura) that is famous for whale-watching, so this last week, we went--got a locum grandparentis (a very good woman from the Friends Meeting here--from Maine, actually--who has house and dog and bunny-sat for us, so it was just another step...), and flew to Christchurch (which had a 5.0 aftershock from last month's earthquake an hour before we landed), and drove 2 1/2 hours to Kaikoura, where we stayed for three nights. It was beautiful--snowy mountains backing the bay--but the sea was too rough to go out whale watching, so we got massages instead, and had a very good, quiet time together.

Manford is not in pain or major discomfort, just more and more tired. They put him on Ritalin, actually, just before we went, for the fatigue; it seems to help a little bit. He can sit up for a meal, but can't really do restaurants because of the wait, so we had a place with room for eating, and I got lots of takeaways. In Auckland, Joseph pushed him around in his wheelchair, but in Kaikoura, we didn't really go anywhere that was a distance, and he can walk from the car to a building. We did find a nice gallery where he got Christmas presents for the kids. Don't tell them. I don't think they read the blog.

I have been on a listserv for caregivers of brain tumor patients, and have realized that we have much to be grateful for. He doesn't have major pain, or seizures, or any of the dramatic personality change or difficult behaviors that can come with frontal lobe tumors. He is himself, but much more tired and dependent on me for decisions of all sorts (when, where, and how to put his arm in his shirt, etc). He is still trying to think of others all the time, and trying not to be a bother...but he is eating like a horse, every couple of hours.

We had a good visit with the palliative care doctor last week--he is Canadian--he suggested trying the Ritalin, and is very available. He looked at the notes from the oncologist, and confirmed for me what I wasn't sure I remembered, or understood, clearly from the last meeting with him. He said to me (I think) that he though Manford had one or two months to live; he put in the notes that he thinks he is in his last three months of life. Things can change quickly, because the tumor can grow quickly. One woman in our support group had a recurrence diagnosed, and died two weeks later. So we are trying to enjoy everything we can, now, and I have stopped work for now, and my colleagues are very supportive (some are more help than others...but they all say they want to help).

I will go and try to post pictures.