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We were / are hoping that Rory can attend Sacrament Meetings on the second week of the cycle, but no chance this week. She continues with the nausea, and now she's got mouth sores emerging. That's making it difficult to chew or swallow, which is making her dehydrated, etc. Vicious cycle. More on that later.

Church was fine for the rest of us, except that Kelsianne really didn't want to go to nursery today for some reason. I think Kaeli ended up going to nursery with her for the first hour, and then Kelsianne attended Young Women for the third hour. She's probably just going through one of those "stages" where she feels the need to argue and fight back against everything ... hopefully it passes soon.

Tithing Settlement season always means Bishop gets "slammed" on the last scheduled Sunday, and today was it. Between morning meetings, church, PPIs, planning sessions and then family interviews our bishop was literally in the building from 6:45am until 9:15 today. When we got to our TS appointment at 7:30 he was still in very good spirits - he's an amazing man.

Caiden went home teaching with me today since my companion had other commitments. This time, to avoid having to give the closing prayer at every stop, he agreed to prepare the lesson! He did a fine job, getting better with each visit (sorry Peytons if you feel gypped, knowing it got better as the day went on). We got back from the first appointment almost in time to eat before helping get someone set up on our public calendar and then running to choir. The Christmas Program is still being finalized, and Bishop wanted to pre-listen to a couple of the proposed numbers. Then we took Kaeli home and immediately left for HT #2, followed by another stop to get someone set up on the calendar, followed by HT #3, moved directly to our TS appointment, met with another calendar user, and then finally came home.

All this time poor Rory was NOT having a grand time. During one of my brief stop-ins at home she mentioned having back pain, the kind she recognizes as the onset of a kidney stone attack. I tried to convince her to call the on-call doctor to see if she is allowed to take heavy-duty pain meds on top of everything else she's going through. I guess that wouldn't have been the right thing to ask, since I think technically we're all supposed to throw away unused prescription medications when we're "done" with them, right? Anyway she did call, and the doctor thinks she should go to the ER "sooner rather than later" mostly because of concerns about her being dehydrated. Rory isn't too keen on that idea because she has heard that the ER staff won't use her port but would instead start their own IV. (She heard this before a little birdie said the same thing to me today.) She ended up taking a couple of Tylenol and got into a hot bath, which has apparently helped some.

Maybe a word or two about foods. I put together a few VERY pathetic-looking plates of cookies for our home teaching families. Thinking I could fill out the chocolate chip cookies I had made with some of Kaeli's cookies, I wasn't too worried about there only being 4-5 cookies per plate. But when I saw them, half-naked, when the kids brought them to church, we had to change plans. So HT #1 got most of what was going to be shared between all three families. (Good thing, too ... their boys destroyed the entire "full" plate before we even left the house!) Then during our brief stop at home another batch of cookies were baked and split between the remaining two plates. Those were definitely "man treat" offerings: no fancy plate (they were on plain white paper plates), no card (they got a name scribbled on the cellophane), no fancy bow (in fact the plastic wrap didn't even stay on ... should have pulled out the duct tape). I was almost embarrassed to hand out those "presents" but everyone was nice not to say anything about it.

While at TS, someone showed us how it is REALLY supposed to be done. A plate was given to us by a family in the ward, and it was piled MANY layers deep with several varieties of cookies. The fancy metal plate was well covered with wrap that was probably rated for nuclear fallout protection. All the cookies were perfect, colorful, and tasty (well, the one or two we tried). Caiden kept saying how funny he thought it was that we handed out three plates but got WAY more back on the one plate given to us.

We also had a stealth delivery tonight. A bit surprised when the doorbell rang so late, Ceana opened the door to find nobody there. Fortunately she looked around enough to see the plate of Rice Krispie treats. She reported that we "Just got Doorbell Ditched" but said she saw someone driving away. "What, you didn't run around the corner to try to get a license plate number? Where was your portable spotlight to get an accurate description of the perpetrators?" Apparently she was VERY worn out, because those lame jokes put her on the floor laughing. (She still laughs at my jokes, but loses control only when very tired.) The culprits did leave a note, although it only says "Don't worry NO milk." Guess that means Kelsianne can have one tomorrow.

Unfortunately Rory won't be eating any of them any time soon. Apparently "mouth sores" are a common side effect of the chemo, and she's got them on her mouth and tongue. As mentioned earlier this makes chewing anything very painful, and swallowing is a real chore. We're told they probably won't go away, but hopefully we can figure something out. Rory is already down 8 pounds since we started, and dehydration is a real concern. We've tried ice cream, jello, soft breads, even well-blended chicken noodle soup. Probably will be picking up several flavors of Ensure in the next day or so. She has stumbled across a website by Scott Hamilton, the Olympic ice skater, who is also a cancer survivor. This site has quite a few practical coping ideas for side effects of chemo, including these sores. So we'll probably also be trying some OTC spray or topical things to lessen the pain and hopefully help her be able to eat some "real" food and not have to resort to using a straw for everything.

Thanks to everyone's encouragement and well-wishes. Thanks to those offering to add to the calendar and contact the Relief Society. We've always been very private people who don't ever want to impose on anyone else, but we're learning that it's OK for others to help, especially for something as overwhelming and ominous as our current situation. Probably something everyone should learn, but hopefully not via the experiences we're having.

Another day of hanging in there ...