After a day that started out so good...

Today was the easiest morning I have had in quite a while. Marie, the chaplain, had said she'd come by around nine-thirty, with pastries from the Quabrada Bakery. For the first time in days, it was nice and sunny, so Marty set up my chair out on the porch and I sat reading the paper and waiting for her to arrive. I was coughing a little but not too badly. Marie arrived around ten, bringing an assortment of goodies (I had a pumpkin muffin and Marty had a blueberry muffin). We sat and talked for close to two hours, about all kinds of things, including some of the logistics of the "celebration of life" event, the status of our trip to New York, and how we are both managing all the stress and difficulties. She's coming back next Friday morning, and we'll supply the refreshments this time--bagels and cream cheese and lox.

I came up with the idea of finding out whether there were other people who might be available to stop by for breakfast, as having company definitely seemed to improve what is usually the worst part of the day. After Marie left, we listened to "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" on NPR, and then Marty went out for a meeting. I was feeling quite good and we decided that when he got back we'd go out somewhere for dinner.

Some time during the afternoon I started doing a lot more coughing, and this time it triggered a really sharp pain in my ribs on the left side. Eventually I realized I should take some morphine, which eased it up some, but it is still pretty intense. I'll see if I'll be able to sleep with it, but I may end up calling hospice if it stays this intense. It's very discouraging to be experiencing pain at this point, since my major symptoms up till now have been exhaustion and difficulty breathing, but not pain.

We had dinner at Olivio's, a nice Italian restaurant in Arlington. I wasn't super hungry and was planning to order just two appetizers, until the waiter told us one of the specials was duck breast with vegetable risotto, so I ordered that and took half of it home for dinner tomorrow. It felt good to be sitting in a restaurant with Marty, doing such a nice, normal thing. But by the time we got home I was very tired and my side was hurting a lot.

I'm going to take some more morphine and see if I can sleep.

The weather forecast for tomorrow is for rain, but if there are periods of good weather we hope to get out for one of several possible events. But that's only if I can get this pain under control.