Radiation starting to wear

And that is the glorious part of this adventure. Everything comes with something else. I was nauseous for the first time this morning. No problem, there's a pill for that. Because of the area they are radiating, I have this bizarre diet--basically nothing healthy. I understand the why of it, but that doesn't mean I like it. I wander through the grocery store, lusting after all the fresh fruit and raw vegetables, wanting peanut m&m's, and counting down the days till I don't have to worry about what I put in my mouth--well, actually that will be never, because when I'm done with the treatments it will be time to tackle the chemo weight. I can remember when they found the cancer--I thought at least chemo would be a good diet plan. Not so, Not everyone loses weight on chemo. My skin isn't burning--yet. I've had 12 of 28 treatments. Now I get three days off because of Labor Day. I'm feeling crabby right now, and my hips and lower back ache most of the time. I could feel crabby most of the time if I really tried.
Everything is not bad. I finished a sweater for me that it is way too hot to even try on right now. I get to watch both a baseball game and a football game today. My team, the California Golden Bears play tomorrow evening. I will be reduced to listening by radio because of the annual Jones Gulch Labor Day outing. I'll be fiddling most of the weekend, as long as I have the stamina, and I'll be entertaining all the grandchildren. Maybe I'll take a nap now.
xxooxx

Prayer request

For my faithful readers, I just heard from my friend Margaret, the friend I visited in Canada. She and Ken were in a near fatal accident last week. This was the first chance she had to call me. She's doing ok, in the small hospital in Wynyard, with broken ribs and various other non-threatening things. Ken is in ICU at the hospital in Saskatoon after spending the first week in Calgary in ICU. He has a serious head wound. His condition is stable but guarded. Margaret said neither of them had any business surviving at all and feels that the fact that they did is an act of God. I'm with her. Now if He would be so good as to make them well, I'd appreciate it. Please add my dear friends Ken and Margaret to your prayer list.
xxooxx

So I'm not the only one

I've been reading Leroy Sievers blog, My Cancer. I'm up to September 2006, so I still have two years worth to read. I can relate to some of it. I've been spared a great deal he went through. All of our cancers are different. Mine was found before it had spread. I didn't have the terrible nausea that can accompany chemo. I had enough side effects to know that it wasn't pleasant. I hope I never have to do it again, but I would if I had to. My fingers and toes are still tingly--more of an annoyance than anything else. I did a little fiddling this afternoon, since I have the big fiddling weekend coming up. It felt strange playing. I knew my fingers were on the fingerboard, approximately where they belonged, but it felt strange.
I've been getting little bits of exercise. Yesterday I walked three blocks to a yarn store and back--found some new baby patterns and had to get yarn to go with them. So the walk back to the car included some extra weight training with the bag of goodies. Today it was a little practice. I might do more tonight.
Glenn took me to radiation today because Tuesday is the day you see the doctor and he wanted the progress report. I fuss about it, but I really appreciate the care he takes of me. I have four more weeks of radiation, 19 treatments. They will be closed Labor Day--yeah! I'm counting down, watching that light at the end of the tunnel get brighter. I can handle the little annoyances.
Now I'll pretend I'm a real, healthy person and do my laundry.
xxooxx

Recent Projects

Between radiation and the cold, life has been pretty boring. The cold is now on its last legs, radiation has a month to go. Yesterday I made a break for it, thought I would do some retail therapy. I went to Stanford Shopping Center. Nothing caught my eye. I walked around the mall for exercise and only had to sit down and rest twice.
So I thought I would share some of my projects. This is the one I do most often. I've been making this pattern for over 40 years. I vary the color and buttons to keep each one individual. I can do this pattern in my sleep and I still love it.







This is a new pattern--a hoodie that screams "little boy." It is actually more of an olive green--didn't photograph too well, since this looks like baby poop yellow. I've got some navy blue yarn to make another one.

This is a pattern I picked up in Canada because I thought I needed to try something new.

This is a blanket and hat. I've now made several in different colors. It looks harder than it is. Actually, it's kind of fun. The blanket is worked on 22 stitches at a time. It is fun watching it grow. The border is not especially fun, since you have to repeat the same pattern 56 times. But

then, finishing has never been fun.

So that's my exciting live right not. I have some weekend functions that I can attend if I feel up to it. We'll see.

xxooxx

Doing next to nothing

I've been asked how radiation is going. Fine, I guess, since I've only been zapped twice. Apparently it takes a while for side effects here. I'm still fighting the cold and feel like crap. I don't think we can blame radiation for that. I'm less interested in food---even comfort food. this could be a good thing--except the radiation guys don't want me to change size until they are finished with their work. We'll see.
I'm on sports overload, getting to chose between the Giants, the 49ers, and the Olympics--and soon it will be time for the best of all sports, Cal football. The 49ers did well yesterday, the Giants not so. They just don't get it that they are part of my recovery.
I'm still knitting--have several new projects to post when I get the energy to take pictures of them. Right now, I'm making a sweater for me, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but which is really getting heavy on the needles. Baby clothes don't get that heavy. It isn't a road race. it won't be sweater weather for a while.
That's the musings for now.
xxooxx

Ready to Radiate

I got a call this morning asking if I would like to come in at 11 for the first set of films to check everything out. Not a problem, said I, and off I went. I'm set to begin treatments tomorrow at 9:30 then at 9:30 every day through Sept 23 except weekends and Labor Day. I got my abdomen drawn on with purple ink (My granddaughter Rebecca will be so happy--it's her favorite color) which seems to have transferred itself to my sweats. That seemed really quick, but I'm just as glad. I'll be done in good time for the next trip. Now I just have to decide between Scottsdale and Sonoma. I've already had one vote for Sonoma. I think I have until Sept 14 to make up my mind for sure.
Other that that little flurry of excitement, I'm still taking care of the cold. The snot production of the human body never ceases to amaze me. You keep thinking "how can there possibly be any more?" and yet there is always one more good blow waiting to be sopped up.
Achoo
Gesundheit
xxooxx

Adding insult to injury

Saw my Oncologist today--I'm still anemic but not anemic enough to warrant a transfusion. So I'm still exhausted. And on top of that, I've got a cold. It's the first cold I've had in about 50 weeks. I don't think it is fair--not that I ever expected life to be fair. So I will settle back into watching Olympics. I've been shirking my duty a bit of late. I used to think if I didn't watch them, they wouldn't award the medals. They seem to be doing just fine without me. I might as well watch--got nothing else to do--especially if it involves the expenditure of energy.
xxooxx

Las Vegas and The Wedding

I'm not sleeping, so I might as well put my time to good use. If you are hoping for pictures of anything but the wedding, you will be disappointed this round. I didn't even get pictures of all the people I should have, but did well considering my state of exhaustion.

So, we started out Thursday morning. I slept later than I'd intended, so there was some amount of chicken without its head time getting set to go. I gave Glenn a break because we didn't have to get to the airport till around 9 in the morning. It took a little time getting our boarding passes and waiting for the wheelchair, but soon we were at our gate, which unlike most flights I've ever taken was the closest rather than the one in the next county. Naturally, our plane was late, but that didn't much matter. It's a short flight and we weren't really doing anything till Friday evening. We got settled on the plane then waited some more. I was sitting next to Elaine, naturally, but there was a very nice young man in the window seat who had bone cancer 7 years ago when he was in high school. Cancer is not that exclusive a club, but it is a bond. He napped most of the way, but we talked some before we landed.

It was good to see my wheelchair and chauffeur waiting for me. The people at McCarran Airport couldn't have been nicer. It takes a bit of navigation to get around, complete with what would have been an "E" ticket in the Disneyland of way old. My driver (just can't bring myself to call that nice gentleman a pusher) got us to baggage pick-up and to the rental car shuttle easy as pie. The Rental Car Center is a lovely facility (as such things go). Had I really given it enough thought, though, I wouldn't have bothered renting a car and just taken a cab to and from the hotel. Lesson learned.

We stayed at the Luxor, which we could see from the airport. I probably wouldn't choose it again. They are doing remodeling in the hotel and it was noisy and our air conditioner was suffering from extreme old age. There was a monsoon going on that afternoon, so we spent some time just watching the storm, checking for lightning--there was lots. The Bride and Groom rented a house in Las Vegas and were giving a pre-wedding barbecue--Elaine and I opted out, due to my exhaustion and the weather. It was late afternoon and we went in search of lunch/dinner. It wasn't anything special, but it was food. We wandered, studying the lay of the land. We located the Spa and made appointments for Friday--massage and facial for Elaine, citrus scrub and facial for me. We played some penny machines and even were big spenders and played some Wizard of Oz nickel machines--in memory of my mother who loved all things Oz. We went to Mandalay Bay, found The Chocolate Swan, had dessert, and went on up to bed. A word about how you get to your room in the Pyramid. They don't have elevators, they have inclinators, which go up at a slant. It takes a while to get your sea legs under you.

I had breakfast Friday morning (I know from experience that it is not Elaine's meal), was a cranky old lady because a young man (early twenties, I'd say--sitting with I presume his mother and younger brother) was talking loud enough for the whole coffee shop to know everything there was to know about him. On my way out, I suggested he might like to use his "inside voice," explaining that I'd heard every word of his conversation. He suggested that I shouldn't have been listening and I countered with "I had no choice," and left in a huff. I played some on my way back to the room. Elaine and I went down around noon to get her something to eat and get to the Spa by 1:30 for a little pampering. It wasn't the Sonoma Mission Inn, but it was very nice. My scrub was with a vichy shower and I had the lead therapist as my provider. I smelled wonderful--if a little like a creamcicle.

Back to the room to make ourselves presentable for the wedding. Getting ready took a little longer than I'd planned. I called to see if valet parking could have our car ready for us--no, that isn't the way it worked. We had to go to Valet Parking, present out ticket, then they would get the car. So we went to Valet Parking--just not the one where we'd left the car. I'm already exhausted, so back we troop, through the casino, to the other side of the hotel. We are not at the right valet but it will take at least 10 minutes for them to get the car, then we have to figure out where we're going. The hell with it, Come on, Elaine, we're grabbing a cab--which was there in a flash. I told the driver where we were going--he didn't know where it was and asked me if I did--I told him I could d0 better--I had a map. It wasn't cheap, but we got there. The wedding was at someplace called "The Secret Garden." It was pretty much out in the middle of nowhere, but it was very pretty. Here beginnith the pictures:

Jennifer and her father, making their entrance. I

got another picture of Jennifer giving her father a kiss, but managed to get only the whites of her eye and for such a beautiful bride, it's a little spooky. You don't get to see that one.















The Minister did something that I thought was very sweet. He first asked Jennifer to give her bouquet to Steve. Then he asked Steve to give it back to Jennifer. This was to symbolize their first exchange of gifts as man and wife. He admonished them to repeat this action each year on their anniversary--not necessarily that bouquet, but just a flower to remember the day and what they mean to each other. Sitting in front of me is Jennifer's father (I got more than a few pictures of the back of his head). Jennifer's sister Melody was the Matron of Honor and the other bridesmaid is Jenn's best friend Tracy. The extra arm over Mr. Neal's head I think belongs to one of the professional photographers.

I really did get nice pictures of Mr. Neal's head. Good thing they weren't counting on me for the official pictures.

This one is just sweet.

Now for a little history. We have known Melody and Jennifer since they were 11 and 12 years old when they were initiated into Job's Daughters. They lived with their Mother, Penny and their Step-Father, Tommy Vinson. Melody is a few months younger than Elaine. All three girls were in the "Line" together, Melody was Honored Queen from May 1984 till December, when Elaine was installed. Jennifer followed the following year. The girls had a good time together and I adored their mother. Penny got me in all sorts of trouble. Her come hither line was always "Oh, come on, it'll be fun." That included chaperoning dances, parents club, working at the park booth, and whatever else Penny wanted to get me to do. OK the parents club and working at the park booth were fun, but I never liked chaperoning much--except that I got to spend time talking to Penny. Early in 1984, Penny got sick. Penny was a lot sicker than they let on. Just after Melody's installation, Penny had surgery for lung cancer. It was not good. Penny died November 20, 1984--or thereabouts. It was the third Tuesday in November 1984.

They had a discreet memorial to Penny and to Steve's father, who also passed away. It was a lovely tribute to loved ones who were in the hearts and minds of several guests. I know Penny was in my heart and I know she would have been very proud of Jennifer and pleased with her Steve.

And now for the cake shots:

The joy of attending the wedding of a couple who know what they are doing is that they handle the sharing of the first piece of cake with dignity, as they should, since it symbolized the care they will take of each other throughout their married life.


This last one is blurry, but it is the only picture of Jennifer and Steve toasting each other. I was getting a little blurry by then.

We wished them well, toasted them with excellent champagne--when you don't drink very often, you can forget how good really good champagne can be. I'm sure it doesn't get along with anything I take, but I allowed myself a glass all the same. I did not embarrass myself and lick it out.
We had the staff call us a cab and got back to the hotel by 11. Elaine was out like a light. It took me a little longer.

Saturday morning, I went down for breakfast again, played a little more on the Wizard of OZ machine, then went back to the room to pack and check out. Check out was at 11. I think the car was due back around noon. Our plane didn't leave till almost four. I figured we could kill time at the airport as wall as the casino. Once again, the staff at the airport couldn't have been pleasanter or more accommodating. The shuttle driver asked me if I would need a wheelchair and had it waiting for us when we got to the airport. That nice young man had us in and out of ticketing and security in a flash. He took us to our gate and left us with the chair since we had time to kill. Elaine pushed me and we wandered. We had lunch at Ruby's Diner--a really good airport lunch at that, even if I did have vacuumed for crumbs when I finished my sandwich. We poked out noses in a few of the shops and played at the "Air Strip" I thought the sighs reminding you to cashout before you got on your flight were superfluous, but they must have been there for a reason. I think I did my best at the airport machines.
The gate staff were as nice as everyone else had been. They let Elaine wheel me down the ramp right up to the plane--I could have walked, but since we were sitting in row 23 (almost the bathroom), I appreciated the extra ride. The flight was a little bumpy getting out of Vegas air space--there were still thunder storms in the area, but after that, no problem. It was good to get home. The exhaustion level was pretty constant. I'm looking forward to that letting up in the next week or so. I have my blood work tomorrow and I see Dr. Chee on Tuesday. I'm having discussions with my bone marrow about possibly making me some extra red so that I can have more oxygen. So far it is ignoring me.
That's it for now. I might even be getting sleepy. Somehow sleep and exhaustion do not always go hand in hand.

xxooxx

Home yet again

Just a quick note to let you know that Elaine and I got to and from Las Vegas safely. I haven't looked at the pictures yet, so that the full story will have to wait till later. Suffice it to say, we had a good time, the wedding was lovely, Elaine was a tremendous help--I've traveled alone so much recently that it was a pleasure to have her there being my beast of burden. I am still battling exhaustion and batting my eyelashes (I still have those) pretty much requires a nap to recover.
Anyway, I'm back with just the annual Labor Day weekend outing to look forward to between now and the end of September.
More later with pictures.
xxooxx

Utter exhaustion

I knew that somewhere I would have to pay for doing what I did over the weekend. The price was exhaustion. Total and complete exhaustion. I did nothing at all on Monday--just rested. I may have changed out of my jammies at sometime, but I never got far from my chair. Tuesday I had an appointment downtown, so I dutifully got up, had breakfast, got dressed, went to BART. made the appointment, deposited a check at the ATM, BARTed back, did necessary grocery shopping--well, maybe some of it unnecessary, but I was hungry, cane back home, eat my lunch, and slept for three hours. I woke up in time to watch the Giants loose. I'd been invited to the game but knew there was no way I could stay conscious to get back downtown and stay upright for the game. Just as well--it rained, which it NEVER does here in August.
On top of the exhaustion, every muscle I owned hurt--well, maybe just my neck, back, shoulders, and arms. It seemed like all of them.
I think I was asleep five minutes after the game. This morning, the muscle aches and exhaustion were still with me, but I had things to do. I had my simulation appointment at the radiation oncologists. It consisted of getting there, no mean trick, then being CT scanned so that they could make a computer image of my abdomen to plan my treatment. Now I wait till they call me for the next steps. Haven't even really started and I can almost see the end. Of course, I'm old enough to remember that sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the oncoming train, so I won't get cocky. I made two stops on the way home--one for gas and one taking my cross-stitches of Hawaii for Rebecca and Lower Yellowstone Falls for me to the framer. I always feel a sense of satisfaction when I do that.
Now I have to pack for tomorrow's trip to Las Vegas. What to wear to a wedding in Las Vegas in August--that is cool enough--that fits. Once again I have wheel chairs arranged at the airports. Since we're only going for two nights I shouldn't have to take my entire wardrobe, all the books I have left to read and all the yarn I have left to knit--just enough to keep me entertained.
I expect to return with pictures.
xxooxx

Made it Through the Weekend

Thanks to the wonders of Dexamethasone, currently my steroid of choice, I made it through the things I knew I had to do this weekend, plus a few little surprises, with a minimum of orc intervention. I knew I had a reception I wanted/needed to attend on Saturday and a Tea today. and I knew about both of them several weeks ago. That's when I moved up my last chemo by one day, as though that was going to help. Then my doctor told me about extending the Dex. I'm sure there will be some sort of adverse reaction somewhere because all of life is a balance, but I made it through. I was exhausted when I got home this afternoon and slept through the end of the Giants LOSS--they still don't get it that they are the ones who are supposed to bring up my morale.
Anyway, the things I had to to do turned out to be more than I expected when Lee's niece, Deborah, called the afternoon of chemo to let us know that her mother had died that morning. The services were set for Saturday at noon. Good thing I'd already found out how to survive the weekend. Then the funeral was moved to 1 PM--the reception was at 2 ten or so miles away. No problem, I could be late, they would just be happy to see me, I hoped. I got up early yesterday morning with a list of tasks to accomplish. Find something appropriate to wear to both events that didn't make me look like a stuffed sausage--I still don't think it is fair that chemo wasn't the perfect diet plan for me. Not that I mind not dealing with the nausea, but I would have liked to look more like someone out of Biafra than the Arctic Circle. I found a black (with a little white trim) skirt that would do, a black top, a jacket that was mostly black but couldn't close in front, then decided that the Eastern Star reception would just have to be happy with me in funeral togs, because (1) there's no way I can fit into my regulation Deputy dress for this year--it was made shortly after Lee died when I was at my lowest weight in about 25 years, and (2) because there would be no time to change.
Now, to make myself look like a grown up lady. When I was a little girl, I wanted to be an actress from the time I was about four years old--this lasted until sometime in my freshman year in college when I decided I really didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up--I'm still stuck in that frame of mind. One of the things about acting that fascinated me was the make-up. I have tons of make up, and I love it all. Some of it belongs in the Smithsonian and I'm almost (but not quite) thinking about having a ritualistic dumping of the high school make-up. Now do I use all this stuff? Well, I have on occasion. I was really good about it for a while, and I look pretty good with a pound of two of paint. Then I got lazy. But I had to look good this weekend. My skin is normally pretty red, and any sort of emotion makes it redder. Dex also makes it redder. At first at the infusion center, they would ask me if I'd taken my Dex the day before, then they just learned to look at my scarlet face and they knew. A few years ago, someone in a mall kiosk talked me into buying mineral make-up, saying it would help the redness. She was an adorable girl from Israel and I was in a mood to be sold to. Did I ever open it when I got home? Of course not. It was sitting waiting for this very weekend. And I think it worked. I went blonde this weekend, so yesterday I used the eye make-up that I got to go with the blonde CP. Today, I wore a light blue suit, so I branched out into cornflower blue and faded denim. And the eyebrow pencil, that I never in my life used before, has become my best friend. Even if I wear nothing on my face, I use the eyebrow pencil. I think I have maybe a dozen hairs in each brow and I truly mourn each new hair that falls out. I have gotten to be a bit of an artist with the pencil, so it isn't that bad.
Now that we have me dressed and painted, off to the funeral. I got there early and collapsed on a comfy couch till the family got there. It started late but didn't last very long. My sister-in-law's older granddaughter gave a beautiful eulogy for her grandmother. I don't care who you are or how old you are, when your mother dies you are a five-year-old motherless child and suddenly know the true meaning of bereavement. It's your Mom, for goodness sake--the rock in your life who was there before the heavens and earth were created and who is supposed to be with you forever. I felt very sad for Deborah, her daughters, and her brother Jeffrey. Glenn went on to the funeral reception before he had to go to work (he traded shifts) and I went off to the OES reception. I got there in time, surprise of surprises. It was a lovely afternoon and I'm glad I made the effort. Still, I was glad when I could go home and get into my jammies.
Today, I pretty much repeated the process of turning myself into a grown up lady, just wearing the pale blue suit and matching makeup and going to church rather than a funeral before the tea--also and OES function. I was a little more unsteady on my feet today, thanks to the peripheral neuropathy. That will get worse and then get better--or not, but I think it will. I spent much time sitting at the tea. Once again, I was really glad when I'd eaten myself stupid on adorable little cookies and could come home and crash. It is now pushing 9 PM and my bed and book are looking very good to me.
It was wonderful to be out and about and see dear friends, but oh, my, did my Queen Anne Wing chair look good to me when I got home.
I haven't checked the calendar for tomorrow, but I don't think I have to do ANYTHING. Tuesday I have an appointment downtown, so that's a BART trip, and I think I will take my completed cross stitch projects to the framer, who always goes on vacation for the month of July. Wednesday is the radiation simulation and Thursday, Elaine and I are off to Las Vegas for a wedding.
That's it for now.
xxooxx