Feeling scared

I woke up around six and read for a little while before falling back to sleep. When I woke up again I got one of those scary pains that starts in my mouth and goes down into my chest. I know from experience this is gas, but it is so intense it scares me anyhow. It lasted only a few minutes, but it left me feeling awful in an impossible to define way. I'm back to having a lot of heavy congestion in my chest, I'm very weak, and I can just feel that things are getting worse. Marty was very comforting, holding my hand and reassuring me.

Julie came in to see how I was doing. She has been really helpful and concerned, and I can see now that her blow-up of the other day was just a reflection of her high stress level, plus the fact that sick people really aren't the easiest people to be around. (In addition, she has had an ear infection for weeks that hasn't cleared up despite repeated courses of antibiotics.) I asked her to pay some bills that are coming due and she took care of that, and a few other things too. Best of all, she said that she and Jim would drive down to New Jersey on Friday night and bring Florence back on Saturday morning.

I called Kathy, who said she would come in the late morning, and when she arrived she said I needed to be sitting up higher, and she and Julie and Marty got various pillows arranged to get me more upright. I had taken all my medicines (I wasn't very hungry, but made myself eat some tea and cinnamon raisin toast because I can't take some of the medicines on an empty stomach). Right now the thought of eating is very unpleasant. Kathy said I needed to eat just a few bites of something to keep the medicines from making me nauseous, and I thought of rice pudding. There's a supermarket brand made without additives, and Julie said she would get some when she went out later. When I was a kid, my mother used to give me a certain kind of baked custard that was sold in what we called German delicatessens, but I haven't seen anything like that in years. Rice pudding is somewhat of a substitute.

It's another very warm day. Julie encouraged me to try to sit outside (more normal April weather is supposed to return tomorrow), and she had all three kids do a clean-up of the little porch right off my bedroom. I haven't been out there yet because I have the mask on and the hose isn't long enough, but maybe I will try to do it later.

I'm so tired, but I've just tried to see if I could take a nap, and just couldn't drift off. Kathy said that I'll probably start sleeping more during the day as I get weaker. Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to the three energy-generating treatments--acupuncture tomorrow, massage on Thursday, and the Reiki practitioner whom Kathy is going to try to get here some time this week.

Marty and Julie are going to coordinate their schedules, along with the availability of Ann and Susan (the new PCA) so that I won't be alone. And once Florence is here she will spend a lot of time with me (although it's important that she get time off, too).