Settling In, Next Steps

We have started to create a routine over the last couple of days as all the preparation and setup for home hospice is now complete. I was able to get Susan up to our second floor bathroom and help her with her first shower since her hospital admission, a welcome event, and she is starting to eat a bit more each day.  She is still dependent on oxygen, and, in addition to using a cane to go from the bed to the bathroom, I am now holding her other hand for additional support as we had one scary incident when she almost fell going back to the bed. Tonight has brought another hiccup, though, as her constant cough has returned (it had subsided with the introduction of oxygen at the hospital), so we have increased the morphine and oxygen level, but so far, it is still an issue.

As it is pretty clear to us that while hospice is a welcome situation to make Susan as comfortable as possible, nothing is being done to address the cancer which, of course, is by design. With that in mind, she has decided to do something active with ozone treatments over the next month. I will give more details as Susan embarks on this journey, but the general "theory" is that cancer thrives in a low-oxygen environment, and O3 changes that equation.

I was a bit worried that it would be in conflict with hospice--my understanding was that active treatment was not allowed. There are academic papers that frame ozone treatment as addressing fatigue in a palliative setting, but in the end, we didn't have to push that rationalization: upon double-checking with our hospice provider, as long as we pay out-of-pocket for the treatment, it is allowed. Susan's oncologist Dr. Rugo is also aware that we are going down this path. Is it crazy? In the final analysis, if it doesn't increase Susan's suffering, she decided: why not. Let's see how this decision unfolds...

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