Up and Down

Today is another day of ups and downs.
It started down. Ida could not eat, presumably as a result of blisters in her mouth caused by her treatment. She was hungry and wanted to eat but as soon as she had some food in her mouth she started crying and could not swallow. Another problem is one of the medicine she is taking. It's cortisone in form of a pill called prednisolone, which is extremely bitter and disgusting. Ida has to take it 3 times a day, but she usually just vomits as soon as we try to give it to her. We tried to mix it with jam and some other foods without any success.
Around noon she got some paracetamol and morphine. She gets these intravenous and at the same time she can get the cortisone and other medicine. The effect was pretty much immediate... She was happier, started talking and gladly ate some yogurt, pancake and a portion of lasagna.
She actually had one of her better periods since we got here - it was good to see her singing, playing and charming the nurses...
In the morning, when she was not able to eat, we had a discussion with her doctor about inserting a NG tube (zonda) for force feeding and for medicine. Even though she was eating after she got some pain killers, we decided to go through with it anyway. It's going to be so much easier to administrate medicine, and if needed also food. It's only a very thin plastic tube inserted to the nose and going down directly to the stomach. No big deal. As a teenager I used to insert those tubes to the cows in the kibbutz all the time...
She did get some thrombocytes transfusion before hand because her levels were a bit low (now days you can get one component of the blood so the transfusion consisted of yellow, rather than red, liquid). Then the tube was inserted to her nose. The first time it was blocked as soon as the nurse tried to give some medicine in it, so a second try was needed. But Ida took it bravely and all went OK.
So now Ida is having her afternoon nap, she was pretty mad before she fell asleep and tried to tear this tube out of her nose, but she'll get used to it.
In other (good) news: Ida's blood tests are good, white blood cells count continue to drop steadily, which means she reacts to the drugs.
As for me and Camilla - our mood directly correlate to Ida's condition. As soon as she feels a little better we feel better. And vice versa. That also means the swings are as fast as hers, sometimes it's a matter of minutes...
We are tired of being in the hospital, however, but now that we can give her food and medicine regardless of her condition, we should be out of here soon.