Henri's Blog

Hello Phoenix friends, and friends to be visiting Phoenix next week,

The wake will be Sunday the 27th from 10 am to 8 pm. Here is Juan and Michelle's address:

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If anyone is visiting and needs a place to stay, I'm sure I can connect you with a guest room. Or even a whole house, if you want! (Thanks Willses!)

Again, kids are welcome.

jill

I forgot to say that kids are totally welcome at the wakes. Mona will be milling about, probably, charming people's pants off. It's a very casual thing, in honor of Henri's personality. Feel free to bring food and non-alcoholic beverages to share, if you want.

-jill

Mona and I will be in Phoenix from Wednesday, September 23rd to Wednesday the 30th. The wake down there will be held at Juan and Michelle Trujillo's house, on Sunday the 27th. I will update as I know more.

-jill

If there's anything you have been wanting to say to Henri, it would be a great idea to go ahead and email him (henri at qais dot com). Not that he's going this week, but still you shouldn't put it off.

-jill

Down to 9 sessions in the radiation treatment machine, getting there...

I was discharged from the UW hospital on Thursday. Quite a frustrating experience; they only treated my symptoms (the pain from the bloating and intestinal cramping) and did nothing towards reducing the bloating or cramping. Overall the room was nice (cancer ward with the norm being 1 month stays) and the people were all really friendly.

It was nice to have 3 days will very little pain since I could just max out on meds (the IV hydromorphone), but I was never really comfortable and didn't get much sleep (between the bloating and the nurses checking on me every few hours). Of course the food was terrible.

Once I got home I was back to the same pain and popped a LOT of pills over the weekend. Today was a bit better in terms of pill-taking, but I'm STILL quite bloated (10 days and counting). On Wednesday I have a 1h consult with two GI docs at UW (one of them put in my stents). Hopefully we can get some information from them, or at least get them thinking about my case and how to help solve my intestinal issues. I'm also seeing my pain-med nurse on Wednesday and hopefully we can talk about a better setup.

The fentora quick acting pills I'm taking work great, but they seem to be causing some sores on my tongue and inside my cheeks. I think the problem was that I would zone out with part of the pill still not fully dissolved and 40min later it would still be there (I'm supposed to rinse and swallow after 15min). Since I started setting a timer things haven't gotten worse, but the sores that are there now get in the way of eating sometimes.

We should be done with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire tomorrow. With only 9 more radiation trips and 3 more books to go we'll have plenty of listening material for chemo drives once they start up again.

- Henri