[MGordon]

We do not KNOW why, but we suspect becasue of the lack of digestion for weeks (?) that Lisa's brain was not getting enough required nutrition. What happened was Lisa slipping in and out of coherent thought. She is experience severely depressed cognitive ability and bouts of severe confusion. She has lost the ability to dial a phone, adjust hot/cold water for a shower/bath, cannot type or concentrate enough for posts and e-mail, and has severe loss of balance. Lisa falls 2-3 times a day - with people there to help her! - and her body is covered with bruises. Each and every bruise screams at me! With all of this going on, she has become so weakened she cannot get up if she falls and requires assistance. In fact there are times when I have had to lift her out of the bathtub and carry her to the bedroom.

But please keep e-mail and posting. Friends, family, and myself are reading these posts and e-mails to Lisa and we will be her response mechanism. Just relaize the obvious privacy issues when you mail her, and please understand the delays.

Right now, we are under doctors orders that Lisa cannot be left alone, and several friends and neighbors are stepping in to be God sent assistance for me. Of course, we are now starting Home-Based Hospice Care and have In-Patient Hospice available a few miles from home if we need it. I am filing for a Leave of Absence from work and will plan on attacking my role as primary care giver with more available time.

Our goals for entering Hospice are:

A)Drastically increase Lisa's quality of life

B)Eliminate her pain and nasseau (sp?)

C)Rebuild her strength with the goal of returning to treatment

D)In a worst case scenario - prvide Lisa with the diginity she so richly deserves!

As I explained to Lisa, I believe her body is just crying for a TIME OUT. Three years of daily chemotherapy (pick a letter of the alphabet and we've been on the chemo drug that it starts with ;-0), weekly infusion of chemo and adjuvant therapies, test after test (Bone Scans, MRIs, PET/CT Fusion, CAT, etc) includng ingesting the isotopes and dyes for these tests, as well as whole brain radiation. Her body needs a break - for now. But right now, she is not strong enough (mentally or physically) to continue the treatments. Inexplicablly, tests also reveal increased white matter in her brain, even though her WBR was almost two years ago - this can also be contributing to these issues.

To be continued