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Yesterday LeeR was practicing his flugelhorn in bed in order to get his "chops in shape" for Swiss Days in a few weeks.  (Although he'll be playing the alphorn then, the flugelhorn is a bit easier to play right now since it requires less wind and the mouthpiece is almost the same). When he practices any of his horns, he usually is doing exercises--long notes, short notes, scales, attacks, intervals, crescendos, decrescendos, etc. Once in a while we are privileged to hear a beautiful melody, but definitely not often enough. Usually it's exercises that fill the air. So for forty-five years I have kind of tuned out to these diverse notes and blasts of sound. This was the case yesterday. But when I went in the room to check on him, his face lit up as he said, "Oh, you heard my SOS?" Uh, sure. Guess I better stop tuning out.

In other news, LeeR wakes up every day celebrating the fact he has another day to live. I do, too. Every moment is a gift it seems. He also inevitably says, "I feel better today! I'm getting better." It's only after we try to get him out of bed to shower or join us for breakfast that he discouragingly says, "I wasn't this weak yesterday." And it's true--every day is a new level of weakness.


Yesterday LeeR fell while we were going to the shower. So scary! We have this system devised where we use his 4-wheeled walker to get near the shower--sometimes I push him as he rides on it and sometimes he walks with it. Then we switch to the two-wheeled walker to manipulate into the shower and on to the shower seat. Well, yesterday was no different. He was feeling strong at the moment and wanted to walk. I was right behind him with my hand on his arm to help him balance. Then he decided he wanted to weigh (oh, vanity!). So I stupidly let go of his arm and turned away a little to bend down, get the scale, and put it on the floor in front of him. At the same time, he stupidly decided to take off his shirts (vanity, again--we wouldn't want to weigh a few ounces more because of a t-shirt and underwear!). So while I was turned away retrieving the scale, he let go of the walker and raised both hands over his head to pull his shirt off. Not a good idea. He ended up falling into the bathtub and landing on his back with his legs up on the side of the tub. Thankfully, nothing was broken and the fall seemed to be as gentle as it possibly could have been.

I called neighbors to see if someone could come help me lift him out and was able to reach our sweet neighbor York who was starting his morning getting Timp Freeze ready for the day. He ran right over and we were able to get LeeR out of the tub and back onto his walker to ride back to bed, where he spent the rest of the day. Lessons learned.  I'm sure we'll do other stupid things but letting go of him and/or him letting go of the walker won't be on the list again.

Tomorrow is our doctors' day. We will have an x-ray of LeeR's lungs to see what the nodules are up to at this point. Then we will see the oncologist. At our visit 2 1/2 weeks ago the doctor said that, although it was highly unlikely and not something that he thinks will happen, if the nodules have finally responded to the chemo and have shrunk in size and number, and if LeeR is stronger than he was at that appointment, which hasn't happened, then he might consider chemotherapy again. But he also posed the question, "If having another round of chemo were to give you another month, but you were sick 2-3 weeks of those 4 weeks, would you really want to go through it?" Definitely not. No, thank you anyway. Thanks but no thanks.

So tomorrow is a big day. I'm preparing myself to accept the fact that, at least if things are as they appear to me, we will "graduate" to hospice care. We'll come home together and cry for awhile together then LeeR will practice or sleep while I fix dinner and we'll pretend that life is normal. I know we'll continue to feel the peace we have been blessed with throughout this journey. We'll continue to feel the love of our friends and family. We'll continue to be administered to by angels. We'll be grateful for the wonderful "ride" we have had (as LeeR reminds us almost every day).  We'll gird up our loins and fresh courage take, knowing the Lord is in charge and will never forsake us. We'll cry (yet again) as we say our prayers together and go to sleep in each others arms. We'll probably wake up in the night and cry (yet again), but then we'll sleep, wake up in the morning, and be grateful for the gift of another day. Yet again.