In the early days of cancer, sleep eluded Ken. Now, he sleeps a lot.  I sleep fitfully and my dreams are filled with terror. Haley’s sleep is equally disturbed — menacing dreams with little substance. Sometimes Ian has them too, but less frequently. When he has one, he’ll curl up with me and we doze, comforted by each other’s presence.

The pets are agitating Ken. The kids and I brainstormed and came up with a plan.  The turtle is the greatest amount of work so we’re going to move him outside. Haley researched and — by herself — created a turtle pond in the backyard. The red-eared slider moved into his new place this morning. He seems happy (it is somewhat difficult to assess the happiness of a turtle). My son has agreed to temporarily take our most challenging pet, a cat named Pepper. She is as mean as a snake (are snakes actually mean?) with occasional attacks of aggressive snuggling for reasons that only cats could explain.  The master bedroom has no door so we’re going to add some kitty deterents to the entrance to help keep the other cats out of his space. They easily slip through or leap over the gate that keeps the dogs out.

The PET scan results are in and we are waiting to talk with the doctor. I’m distracting myself (though my stomach knots belie that) with work but Ken is hyper-focused on the possible results. His lab work came back and his magnesium is low again. If he has to get a magnesium infusion, this long day will be another hour longer.