Sybil recently returned from a short trip to visit her family. Other than a bad fall in a parking lot, continued liver pain, and fatigue, she held up remarkably well. However, as is so often the case with her after a trip, she has a few down days afterwards. She was particularly exacting and peevish this time.

One night I'm trying to sleep on the couch and Sybil calls me in a few times. We have a system where she phones from one line to the other to let me know she needs something. After my third awakening, she was very picky about a seemingly trivial item and we had a bit of a spat. Fortunately, we are long past the point where a few cross words blow up into a big fight. Still, it put us both in a bad mood.

Later that night I'm awakened by some muffled cries. I'm fairly certain they are coming from outside but I can't stop myself from imagining that perhaps they may have come from the bedroom and Sybil may be unable to use the phone for some reason. So I bolt up, wide awake. Then I hear one more cry, followed by some other voices that are clearly out on the street. I hear a car leaving, which seems to end the noise.

Doesn't matter, I have to go in and check on Sybil anyway. She's a much heavier sleeper than I am but she also heard the cries. I get in bed and we talk, ironing out the small wrinkles left over from our earlier spat. We pray that whoever had the problem outside is feeling better.

I stay in the bedroom and go back to sleep. A few hours later I'm awakened once more by a nightmare. An involved dream is always far more interesting to the dreamer than to the reader, so I will spare you the lengthy details, keeping to an outline. One of the little girls in the "Annie" musical has gone insane and murdered her mother, hiding the body. Two detectives are looking for the clues. For some reason, Sybil and I are asked to help. The four of us are down by the lake, looking around. I'm concerned that Sybil will slip into the water so I lead her away. As we pass a car with an open trunk, some hoodlums emerge from another car brandishing guns. The detectives take cover and draw their weapons.

I'm trying to get Sybil out of the way but another bad guy comes up behind us with a shotgun. He's having trouble loading it and one of the detectives brutally shoots him many times. "They are bad guys too!" says Sybil, meaning that the detectives can't be trusted. I lead her off into a nearby building while a shootout commences.

Turns out this building is a sorority and Sybil recognizes a woman who lives there. The woman doesn't recognize Sybil but she lets us hang out in the safety of her room. She leaves us alone and we talk about the strange contrast between our current placid surroundings and our previous peril.

Through an open door I see one of the bad detectives coming up some stairs with his gun drawn. I lead Sybil out through another door and we rush to a different stairwell. I'm in the lead and just as I enter the stairwell, one of the hoodlums comes up towards me with a gun. I hold out my hands and start to say something reassuring. The bad guy slowly and deliberately shoots me in the chest. I feel the bullet hit me, feel myself knocked backwards and hit the ground. "I'm dead," runs though my mind and I wake up.

Sybil always has creative interpretations of my dreams, but this time I'm the one seeing unusual connections. Just now I'm wondering about substituting "detectives" with "doctors". We both agree that the mind sometimes needs to work things out in them.

Sybil is back on the Dexamethasone and has slowly ramped up to 4mg a day. She took a few days off the Celebrex because she thought she had some more GI bleeding -- indeed she was sure she needed another transfusion but fortunately that doesn't seem to be the case. She's back on the Celebrex and has upped her Cytoxan dosage a bit.

She had x-rays yesterday and MRI's today (and probably tomorrow). She does have back pains so there may be another spine fracture.

Sounds bad but she's actually looking better yesterday and today. Her mood is improved. Against all odds, she still has a fair bit of her hair left over from the whole brain radiation.

Matt Donath

Mdonath@yahoo.com