This collection of entries is from September 29, 2002.
Went to my parents house this afternoon. Stopped at a Walgreens to pick up a prescription that the hospice nurse called-in for my dad - it was clindamycin, an antibiotic in a heavy dosage. The nurse was waiting for us to get there. One of the cancerous tumors in the neck lymph nodes is casing some kind of infection, causing the lymph system to go nuts. Dad's face is all puffy - the right side of his neck is like a football, and (though I didn't see it) this infected "lump" is indeed oozing. The antibiotics should help kill this problem and get the swelling down, and maybe get swelling in the face down. I felt better talking to the nurse (who was just the "weekend nurse" and not Dad's normal hospice nurse). She says that they probably couldn't diagnose this correctly back on Thursday, and with the way things have changed over the past few days, it became clear that it really was an infection of some sort. I hope this all works - Dad was in better spirits later in the day, but he's much weaker. He needs to eat more. We'll see how this goes.
My sister called this morning - apparently Dad is worse. The "thing" is bigger, it's "oozing" more (how the hell is a thing on the neck oozing? Is it open?) Mom's waiting for the nurse to call. I had to call Mom to see how she was doing - she sounded pretty good on the phone - considering. The thing is "larger" (not in diameter but in "height"), oozing more (I don't get this...) and Dad's in more pain and isn't eating as much. We'll see him in a few hours and maybe I could understand what he's going through. I'm just not understanding...