Next steps

Yesterday we saw the gastroenterologist, Dr Sylvie Gregoire. She agreed that Janet Wendy is fit enough to undergo the minor surgical procedure of inserting a PEG tube. Because it is summer holiday season the earliest date that this can be done as an elective procedure is August 3; the consensus is that she will be OK until then without this intervention, but if her difficulty with swallowing gets any worse we can always reconsider and do it as an emergency procedure, or pass a conventional stomach tube to provide enough nourishment to keep her going. She is certainly getting painfully thin, so a few days ago I got a case of high-energy liquid compound to give her to try to build her up a bit, or at any rate to ensure that she doesn't lose any more weight. It's also getting harder to understand her speech. Sometimes, especially when we have visitors, she seems to make an extra effort, but when she and I are alone she may get more relaxed, less 'on her best behaviour' and sometimes she becomes unintelligible, has to rely on sign language and gestures. There are many ways we can deal with this problem and we are already using a few low-tech methods. Maybe we will augment these with some high-tech devices like a very fancy electronic touch-screen device that Margot Butler, the speech language pathologist at the ALS Clinic, demonstrated to us last week. But despite all, we can still find things to laugh and joke about, so our remaining time together is mainly fun, not at all a doom laden gloomy period of our lives.