Nathaniel and Dogs: Joel Relapse

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Joel Relapse - BMT floor

The weather was so hot. The Thursday before Nathaniel was due to start school (August 17), we decided to take Joel back to BMT clinic to be admitted because we couldn't control his pain. Even with liquid morphine at night, he woke up screaming and in pain. I had taken him to clinic a few days earlier and his heart rate was high. We had disucssed with Dr. Krance that even though we didn't know what was causing the pain, if we couldn't keep it under control, we would have to bring Joel in to the hospital.

The night before Dr. Krance had called to check on us. He asked me if it was like when Seth was diagnosed with cancer. As I laid in bed that night, I knew it wasn't like Seth, but Joel was definitely in pain. I came down to check on Will and Joel and Joel hadn't been able to get comfortable. Will and I cried together as we knew relapse was very possible. We cried as Will said that you didn't have much of a chance of getting better if you relapsed. But Joel's pain was so bad; one of us would hold him on the couch, the other one of us would take care of Seth and Nathaniel. We couldn't keep going like that.

August 16

August 17
I tried to keep them busy after Joel left, but my heart was breaking.

At least they played together well. To add to our frustrations, our house was infested with fleas and we were having to vacuum the house every other day to try and kill them.

August 18

August 20
I brought S and N up to visit both Saturday and Sunday morning.

August 20

August 23

8/23 Mimi picture

8/24 Mimi picture

August 25

August 30

Sept 1

Sept 2

Nathaniel picked out Strongarm the transformer for Joel. I was so confused about how Joel was describing Strongarm. I finally realized Joel was saying that Strongarm was a "Police Pick-up Truck" Not "Police Truck" or "Police Car." You had to say it exactly the way Joel said it. Later on when we met with Jared Rubenstein and the others on the Pallative Care team, he instroduced them to Strongarm. Someone called Strongarm a "he" or "him" and Joel got upset. He told them Strongarm was a girl. Sure enough, they said later they had looked it up on their computers when they got back to their office and Strongarm was indeed a girl and Joel was correct.