Neurotoxins

Hi All,

Ben asked me to write up a little something, just before he went to bed at 7:30 last night.

He must be fairly confused, or at least he thinks he's fairly confused, because I just got a call from a nurse at the hospital. Of course, this was worrisome. I should explain that we've been incredibly blessed by our friend Ron, who has driven Ben to and from the hospital the last couple days- leaving me at home to draw wall sections and wash piles of clothes. It's made our transition back to Houston much more smooth, enabling me to prepare real dinners and rest up for driving Ben to the last four days of chemo while also being responsible to work projects.

So anyway, I was driving back from Office Max when the call came in. Working at the Starbucks nearby had been on the agenda, but one look into the crowded, echo-filled shop with nary an outlet in sight made me want to save the last two dollars on my Starbucks card for later. And reminded me of the day old coffee in the French press at home. Seriously, it's still good. French presses don't boil coffee down to syrup like drip machines do, so I can make a carafe last for two or three days.

The nurse didn't tell mention an emergency, just started asking if I had noticed anything unusual about Ben this morning or last night. I said he had trouble answering questions. The nurse asked "What kind?" Hmmm. Well, Ben didn't know what he wanted for dinner tonight. The nurse started laughing. He said "I don't know what I want for dinner tonight!" It was then difficult to explain that Ben's reaction was not the offhand "I don't feel like thinking about that right now" type of I don't know, or even the "I won't know until later" type, but more of a "I couldn't possibly process that information" reaction.

I then went on to say that Ben is in IT but couldn't help me with my computer problem last night. The nurse said "What?" I said "I have a computer problem." Silence. "And my husband works with computers professionally, but wasn't able to fix it at one point." Now it just sounded like I was whining.

So all this was to establish Ben's level of neurotoxicity, of which confusion is a symptom. If his brain is getting too polluted by the chemo then they want to pull the plug on this round. I really don't know if my answers helped gauge this or not. Ben is generally pretty quiet when he doesn't know what to say, so my awareness of his confusion mostly comes from his saying "I'm confused."

This post is a bit of an overkill on Ben's request for a "little something," so if you are still reading hopefully I didn't waste our time. Or maybe you are like me and skip to the end sometimes, in which case you missed a rousing story :)

Lisa