It’s been a week.

Rebecca has continued to retain fluid and has been experiencing more and more pain. We had decided to check into the hospital on Tuesday after seeing the palliative care doctor. On Tuesday we went in to the palliative doctor appointment and things ended up different than expected. We changed all of the medicine around and the last few days have now been pretty much pain free. Also she (palliative care doctor) was able to sit and talk with us some more about things that were going on and suggested that going to the hospital may not yield much results with the fluid issues, and would keep rebecca from doing what she wants which is to be at home. She suggested that we see how the new meds worked and how Rebecca felt after that.

Rebecca and I have talked about what she wants to do with treatments and pluses and minuses of things. She decided on Tuesday to stop treatments. There are several good reasons for this decision, but none of them matter more then the simple fact that it’s what she wants.

Because of this we have now changed over to hospice care. We talked with a hospice company Wednesday and started things. Hospice is a bit different than what I remember/thought it was. My limited understanding looked like moving someone into something like an old person’s home and waiting for them to die. It has either evolved from that, or I just never had a good understanding of it. The company has a team of people that will be serving rebecca to make life easier and to make her comfortable. We’ll be doing everything from the house, as she wants to be here (and we want her to be here) with us. So we are getting a bed delivered next week, and the hospice company will be taking care of all of our needs from here out. We’ve already been visited by a nurse that will be coming a couple times a week, a social worker that will be visiting regularly, there’s a doctor I talked with yesterday that will be coming out tomorrow to do a thoracentesis on her left side. They are taking care of all meds and got us things that we had been waiting for already.

Starting hospice does mean that we had to say good bye to the oncology team as we won’t be working with them anymore. It was emotional as they asked us to wait around a bunch of them came in and gave us both hugs and words of encouragement.

There’s a lot of mixed emotions going on. There’s no way to ignore that this is one of the last signs on this road, it says the exit is coming up, and try as I may the brake petal is busted. This is scary and sad and hard. On the flip side this stinky thing has been calling the shots since we found out, and with these decisions rebecca is taking back control over some things that she can. That’s empowering for her and has given her peace that a decision has been made.

Be praying for rebecca. It’s one thing to have faith, and to know what’s coming at some point in the future, it’s another to be walking up the steps to the door. She’s sad, scared, and worried. But at the same time happy to be done with appointments and hospital visits and with us at home. Pray for her to feel God’s presence, to have assurance in what she believes, and to to have peace with what is to come.

Thank you all for praying for and loving on us.