Up a Tree

There has been a change of plans. Today, after I helped Gerry downstairs, I noticed the feeding tube was threaded through his legs and he had come down with one sock on. He didn't even notice these things and since he got up quickly, I didn't have time to assess him before we headed down. He was also very "gravitationally insecure" and I felt battered by the time I got him settled. It was at that point I decided that Gerry could not be taken to Moncton in a van and experience a three stage test. The whole experience would take about 14 hours. There was just NO WAY. I called his family doctor and the physicians who share the practice were both stranded off Island. I called my dear friend and oncology nurse, Susan, to see if she thought I was making the right decision. She concurred with me so I quickly emailed Dr. Colosimo, head of nuclear medicine in Moncton,to cancel the appointment and received an almost immediate response expressing that he hoped we could arrange it a different way. Tomorrow, hopefully his doctors will be back on the Island and we can arrange a hospital to hospital transfer. That means he would be admitted here, transferred by ambulance to Moncton and be admitted there for the testing and then transported back to Summerside. Time will tell what will happen.

Last year, during the ice storms, Gerry would be fretting about the broken trees, the leaning boughs near the power line running to the house and the frozen drain near the garage door. This year he lies on the couch, looks out the window at the glassy branches and says how pretty they are.

Above is a photo taken late last January of Gerry (on the ladder) and his dear friend Carl as they cut down drooping branches near the power line leading to our house. He received his first diagnoses less than two weeks after this photo was taken.