December 30, 2008: Salynn and I (Alison) spent the afternoon in Barre yesterday. On our drive to Barre Salynn made many calls to Val's friends and relatives to tell them about the blog. Hopefully, some of you are reading this today. I dropped Salynn off at Rudy & Lea's house. She attended a doctors appointment with Rudy (more on that latter). I went to Dad and Val's and when I arrived Dad was very glad to see me because they were having problems with their phones. We had to unplug all the incoming lines and the alarm system, let it all reset and then plug them all back in. Val was tired when I arrived because she had just had a visitor. When Val awoke yesterday she ordered her breakfast, which was the first time she actually asked for food. She wanted an omelet with tomato and cheese. Dad made her 2 eggs and she ate at lease 1. She is eating much better. Dad is feed her every 2 hours and just bringing her things instead of asking her what she wants. We brought her a snack of Kiwi and grapes and tea with her vitamin D dissolved in it and moved her to her chair to eat. While she was eating I organized her clothes in her room. We had brought some plastic bins with us and we filled them (4) with her clothes in an organized manner and gave them a lot more room to move around. I told her that when she is better Salynn and I will help her clean out her entire draws and closet so she has room for her clothes. While I was there she also had a bowel movement which was good because we have been concerned about constipation. Because of the cancer in the Lung, she does have some fluid on her lung which is causing her to have a mucusy sounding cough.
Salynn, Rudy and Lea arrived around 4:00 with some soup and to visit. Val had a big dinner, soup, salmon and cereal. Then Salynn made her walk down the hall and back (that was great). For those of you who do not know, Salynn is a Physical Therapist and is very good at keeping Val active.
I would like to request that everyone try not to call the house after 6:00. Both Dad and Val are in bed by then and are starting to rest. I did teach them to turn down their ringer so that they do not hear the phone upstairs.
Love and prayers for Val, Alison