Day 139 – Up-to-the-Minute Report

Our walks have ceased due to the imminent departure of Jeff’s big toenail.  He soaks it every night in the hopes that it will fall off.  He always wears a BandAid to keep the nail in place and we have a skin crack product - Jeff calls it “nail polish” - on hand to protect the very raw spot on his nail that bleeds whenever the nail is disturbed.  The chemo lines on his fingernails are near the fingertips now and each nail is doubled.  If he gets his hands dirty, there are two nails on each finger that grab crud.  He will have to avoid dirty work – or wear gloves - until the weak sections of the nails are grown out.

News Flash!  This just in from bedside!  The toenail came off!  I repeat, the toenail has left the toe!  What a relief!

Last night we watched a TV show called “Body of Proof” with Dana Delany as a Medical Examiner.  The ME and her team had trouble finding the connection between the man whose DNA was at the crime scene and the man they eventually identified as the perpetrator.  The ME asked to see the perp’s back; she was looking for scars from a bone marrow donation.  I thought, “Good thing he donated actual marrow and not peripheral stem cells because there wouldn’t have been scars from a stem cell donation!”  Neither Jeff nor I stayed awake for the whole show but from what the two of us could piece together, the bad guy tried to pin his crime on his bone marrow recipient! 

No one from Dr. Porter’s office has responded to our question about the removal of Jeff’s Hickman catheter.  Jeff is resigned to keeping it in at least until his next appointment on October 28^th and maybe even longer.  We’ll see.