A really hard day!

Today has been extremely hard and very emotional day. Eric is in so much pain, he told me and the nurses" How do you guys expect someone to get through this? I am slowly dying here, I can not take much more of this- you have to help me!" I started to cry he is in so much pain, anyone who knows Eric knows he is not the complaining type so when he is upset and complaining it must be really bad. My heart just aches to watch him suffer like this, at times it seems all to much as if there will never be an end.

The nurse just came in and gave him a increase on his morphine again. His nurse today told me that they rate their patients on a level 1- 4 , 4 being the worst on side effects and how the patient is doing from chemo. She said that she has never herself seen a level 4 patient, until now Eric is rated a level 4, They are monitoring him more due to all this as well as he is on so much pain medication and morphine level that when he sleeping he is in such a deep sleep. They are worried about him slipping into a coma, they also worry about having to place a breathing tube down him.It is all a fine line, not enough medication, too much pain but once they get it to a certain level it adds to the risks.

Today is day 13 from transplant day. They say any day now he should start to engraft and then will slowly start to turn a corner and get a little better each day cause he would have white cells to help him. The doctors told us this morning he probably has about a week more of this extreme pain and then hopefully once the engraftment has started he will slowly improve. It is amazing to me the process and the things they have to do to ones body to get all the cancer gone and wait for engraftment, sometimes seems like torture. I am worried about the kids coming next week, we are excited and Eric told me a few nights ago how excited he was to see them but I am worried how he will be. I do not want the kids to see him like this, I hope there is alot that happens for the better in a week. I pray to the Lord for mercy on Eric, for some strength. I hope the Lord bless us with a good day soon to break up the bad days so maybe we can get some rest.

A cute side story- Eric has really been out of it the past week and days, every day for the last 5 days he has been sleeping and jumped up and asked me "What day is it?" At first I did not realize what he was worried about, I would tell him the day of the week "It's Wednesday" he would say "No, no the date" I would say oh it is the 16th, he would do this each day all through out the day and night for the past few days. Finally yesterday when he jumped up and asked me again " What day is it? What day is it?" I told him it is Monday the 21st of September. With a smile on his face he said " It is my brother Travis's Birthday , I need to call him and wish him Happy Birthday!" I started to cry that is Eric thinking of everyone else, he asked me to call his brother for him and put the phone on speaker phone so I did. He told his brother,"Travis it is your Birthday, Happy Birthday" he was so weak and tired that took all he could do so I took over the call and told Travis how he has been worried for days he would sleep through and miss his Birthday and how he wanted to call him. Travis your brother loves you so much and I hope you know that! We hope you had a wonderful Birthday!