To the Patron Saint of things Automotive Part 2

I'm not sure which saint it is, but it is one speedy dude. Thank you, God, for looking after me and my wallet. I had Triple A tow the car to my wonderful mechanic, expecting the worst. That was shortly after 10 this morning. Jerry (the wonderful mechanic) called me around 2 with the news that the car was good as new. The battery cables were loose and dirty. They cleaned and tightened them, and presto! My car is home, sleeping happily in the garage, ready to do my bidding tomorrow. I was thinking alternator--at the very least. I'm a happy girl.
We seem to be in the middle of a huge butterfly migration. I don't think I've ever seen so many mariposas here in San Bruno. They are followed by many birds, licking their chops and dive bombing the stragglers. Nature at my doorstep!
That's my news for today. I'm still not especially comfortable, but I made it to Curves this morning--between car being towed and fetching it.
xxooxx

To the Patron Saint of things Automotive

If it isn't one thing, it's another. I am the mother of a dead car. Last week I put it on the charger and it ran for 5 days. Now, in spite of the charger, it is deader than a doornail. Not a sound, not a click, nothing. My mechanic was going to come get it on Tuesday, now I may have it towed down to them tomorrow. They will be my first call of the day. Lee put in the battery Feb 07, so it shouldn't be that. No, it's probably something more expensive. So I'm driving Glenn's Grand Am--it is way sportier than I am. Still, I'm thankful I have to option to drive it. I even put gas in it last night, so now we're bonded.
On paper, I'm doing well--physically, not so well. I'm still having stomach pains that the Zantac isn't really helping. I suppose I should let my oncologist know--or maybe my primary care. It is possible that everything is not cancer related. Hey, cool, I could have unrelated things wrong with me. Wouldn't that be a treat.
We are having lovely spring weather, that I am not out enjoying. The weeds are thriving and I look at them and think I would be out pulling them--maybe tomorrow--after I talk to the mechanic....
That's it for today.
xxooxx

Today's report

It is all good. The left periaortic lymph node that measured in at 7.7 cm x 4.3 cm x 3.3 cm in November is now 18 x 20 mm. My doctor is very pleased and I am happy. Long term prognosis is looking much better than it did in December. My goal is to be healthy for my sister's 50th wedding anniversary--in ten years. The short term plans are for two more chemo cycles then reevaluate.
I've been to Curves twice this week and Glenn and I went for a walk on Tuesday. I'm doing an initiation tonight in Chapter, and that includes a lot of walking, so I'm saving my energy for that. Sometime today I need to find time when I'm not knitting long enough to do my nails, that are suffering the ravages of time and cleaning. I think I can manage that.
Nothing else exciting.
xxooxx

Catching up

It's been a pretty slow week. Tuesday I was really feeling bad, but went downtown to see my therapist anyway. He tells me I can cancel anytime if I need to, or we can talk over the phone, but it isn't the same thing. I did not, however, stay downtown for retail therapy.
Wednesday was Curves and the Bloodsuckers (my son says that sounds like a band). I didn't really want to go to Curves, but I went--like AA, when you don't want to go is when you really need to go. The Bloodsuckers was to check my creatinine levels after the yummy stuff I had with the scan. Levels were higher than the acceptable range so my doctor told me to do it again today and see how things were, before resuming one of my meds.
Thursday was walk day with my friend Kathy. We met at tenish at the city park. It was a lovely day. It was warm enough that neither of us had a jacket and bright enough that both of us were wearing hats. We circled the park three times--just over a mile and long enough for good conversation (for my younger readers, that's like texting, only with complete words and face to face with no electronics in sight). There are plenty of benches for resting. I had a special treat in the afternoon with a visit from a friend of 46 years--who is this possible when I'm going to be 21 on my next birthday? New math, I think--oops, if I'm old enough to remember new math, I'm in trouble. Anyway, it was a treat to see Karen. I finished two projects and added them to my Etsy site. Several people have looked at my stuff, but no takers. Sigh.
Today was another Curves and the Bloodsuckers day. This time my level was acceptable. My doctor also checked on my scan results--things are headed in the right direction again. I'll get the game plan when I see her next Thursday. The afternoon ended with a visit from another friend. I was going to go out tonight, but I haven't' been feeling good the whole week, so I canceled that.
See--pretty slow week. Slow is sometimes good.
xxooxx

Scanned

I felt pretty wretched Saturday night--I think little orclets were starting to work on my tumor. Gretchen went out to dinner with her daughter, so I waited up for her to let her in the house. We exchanged comments on our individual days, then went to bed.
Got up at 0 dark hundred to get Gretchen up yesterday. I got to sleep another half hour while she got ready to go, then I got up and made coffee and we breakfasted. We got her off for the last of her workshops and the drive home and I went back to bed to read...and sleep. The next thing I knew, it was 9:30 and I barely got to church on time. I slept most of the afternoon.
I had to get up at 6:30 again this morning to eat my breakfast before the CAT scan--no food or drink three hours before you arrive at radiology. They were doing a land office business at the hospital--the parking lot was crazy. Fortunately, they have free valet parking, which I learned to use when I went every day for my radiation treatments. I checked in and was given my lovely contrast to drink--they say one cup every 10 minutes, but if you sip it, you just fill up when the cup is empty. The last cup is saved to drink in the CAT scan room--a little added treat.
At the appointed time, they took me back to change into a gown, then I was escorted back to the room. Drink the last cup of stuff, get on the table, get positioned--oops, take off my necklace--back into position, get the IV started for more contrast, then zip, zip, we were done and I got to go home. I still felt pretty wretched, so I rested most of the afternoon. Oh, and drank water. Eight cups to flush out all that lovely contrast fluid I'd been filled with earlier. I suppose I can call for the results later this week--I don't see Dr. Chee till the 26th. I'm hoping things have continued to shrink. I'm still tolerating the Doxil fairly well, so I'm guessing that I'll have a few more cycles before Monica and I go to Canada.
That's about it for today. I still have about a cup of water left to drink. I think I'm retaining a lot of it, because I feel like the Pillsbury Doughboy.
xxooxx

Full of Music

So much has happened since my last post. Dentist on Wednesday. I have a shiny new crown that I hope will be there for years to come. Since I was already there, they did my semi-annual cleaning too, saving me coming back on the 31st. I guess that was good. I was numb, but it did mean more holding my mouth open a little wider. But my teeth are now all pretty.
Thursday was chemo--not bad. I have yet to feel an orc this round. I feel little pacmen that I visualize eating the tumor and the lymph nodes. The CAT scan is Monday, so we shall see what's going on. I really wanted to collapse when we got home, but there were still things to do to get the house ready for my sister. I'd studied my favorite cookbook and came up with two things I'd never made but that looked good. We had a beef barley vegetable soup on Thursday. Last night I made a Basque Lamb stew. Both were quite yummy. Gretchen went out to dinner with her daughter tonight.
Today was our Ceili at church. Pronounced Kay-lee. Scottish spelling ceilidh. A social gathering with music, singing, dancing, food, and friendship. The Band, Anne and the Bethany Brawlers, had 33 numbers to play, split into three sections, with jokes, singing, dancing, and food, lots of food, in between. The music was great. The band has such a great sound. We are blessed with many musicians at church, I just play the notes on the page, the things the guys can do with harmony are amazing. The tunes will be running through my head for days to come. Good thing--we have a couple more gigs coming up. God willing, I'll be up for the fifth annual Ceili next year, on the Saturday closed to St. Pat's day. Now I'm going to put my feet up and rest and wait for Gretchen to come home. I haven't seen much of her, but she has been enjoying her conference. I am happy to provide bed and breakfast for her, along with a little visiting.
xxooxx

The latest scoop

I set the alarm for 4:45 yesterday morning. I got my friend, Meg, to the hospital in plenty of time. I waited, napped, and knit while she was in surgery and talked to Dr. Gorgeous when he was done. All sent well. I went to see her this afternoon and had to remind myself that she'd had surgery yesterday. She's on good drugs.
I was home by 10:30 and spent most of the day napping. 4 anything is really early in the morning.
I saw my primary care this afternoon. He's doing well, so we can put off plan B for a while. He isn't saying what kind of cancer he has, but he's already had three chemo cycles and is handling it well with good results. Keep praying for him, because I really like him and I don't want to have to find a new doctor. I'm feeling good. I have stray fungus infections that are popping up on my skin, but I got something for it today. It seems to be a side effect of all the other fun stuff I'm doing. I visited with Meg in the hospital after my appointment, then stopped off to get my prescription filled and finally got home around six.
Glenn had the day off and worked like a Trojan cleaning the bathroom until it fair sparkles. We ordered Chinese for dinner and were about to settle down for a nice mom and son dinner when I was reminded that we had a ceili practice at church tonight and I set the time for 7. Yikes! I had 15 minutes to eat. Good thing the food came a little earlier than they said to expect it. Practice went well. Wish we had time to get together before Saturday, but we don't so I guess I'd better do some practicing on my own--between the dentist tomorrow and chemo on Thursday.
That's it for now.
xxooxx

Making Plans

Planning trips--my all time favorite thing to do. I'm taking my granddaughter, Monica, to the Canadian Rockies this July. We've been planning this trip for two years. We had reservations set for August 2007--got Monica a passport and everything. Then Lee's cardiologist said it would be a bad time for me to be out of the country, so I canceled that trip. As it happened, he was right. Lee died before we would have come home. Monica understood when we canceled that trip. Last year, I took her little sister to Hawaii for her 13th birthday, in January. I had reservations to take Monica to Canada in July. Well, we all know what happened shortly after Rebecca and I got back from Hawaii. We canceled last year's trip too--and Monica understood. Now, we have hotel reservations, we have plane reservations, and we have a car reserved. The plane didn't happen quite the way I planned. I had intended for us to fly into Edmonton, rent a car, drive around and leave the car at Calgary. I found that if we flew round trip to and from Calgary, we would save almost a third the cost of the flights. So we're flying to Calgary and driving to Edmonton. It is about a three and a half hour drive. I will get to see new territory, because I've never driven Canada Highway 2. I did make a small boo-boo--I didn't check the hotel reservations I'd made till AFTER I booked the flights. Oops--the hotel reservations started the day before I had us flying up. I cut out one of the most expensive days in the middle of the trip. No harm, no foul. Monica will still have a great time and so will I.
I also made my April reservations for Sonoma. I'm taking my friend Luanne, as a congrats for the surgery she had last month and for all the years of wonderfulness I've gotten from my friendship with her. We might be joined by another friend--Julie, if you're reading this, it will be April 26-30. Think about it.
Other than that, life continues at a steady pace. We had a band practice this afternoon after church. We got some good work in for our ceili next Saturday.
That's it for now. I'm taking a friend to the hospital tomorrow for surgery. Not a problem, except that she has to be there at 5:45 AM--so I'll sign off for now.
xxooxx

Nothing exciting, so into the archives we go

It's been a pretty boring month, so far. We've had great rain storms--that won't help the drought, they never seem to--sure sounded like a lot of rain. I had my taxes done yesterday. It is amazing how much a poor old widow, on a fixed income, with cancer, can owe the governments. I'm excessively depressed about that. I'll manage, somehow, but I'm still depressed.
Because there's nothing going on, I decided to reach into the memories, and tell you about one of our real trips. You don't get the entire journey, just a little piece of it. Call this little snippet "How I learned to appreciate water."
In 2003, before I realized how sick Lee was, I planned a great trip. I called it "Five States, 10 National Parks, and 2 National Monuments." I'm going to tell you about our visit to Capital Reef (one of the many national parks in Utah). I didn’t know what to expect but had studied the hiking guides and was armed with information from the hosts of our bed and breakfast. The big hike was Capital Gorge. Like There is a main road that goes in and out of the park. We took that to the end, and then took a two mile unpaved road to Capital Gorge, which was rumored to be an easy walk. Points of interest included petroglyphs, the Pioneer Register, and The Tanks. The petroglyphs were a little hard to find. Pioneer Register was about 2/3 of a mile in. That was interesting. Now it would be graffiti and illegal, but the early pioneers who passed down that old wagon track signed their names and the date on the rock face. The oldest were from the late 1800’s.
The Tanks were not by the side of the road. About a mile from the start, there is a sign, “The Tanks .2” and it points up the rock face. Lee said, “No way!” and settled down on a soft rock with two ladies who were waiting for their husbands. I thought, “How hard can .2 miles be, even if it is climbing?” So up I went. It was not straight up like El Capitan, but it was up and it was scrambling over the rocks and it was hot and we only had ½ liter of water each. Still, up I went, following the rock cairns, to view The Tanks. I don’t know what I was expecting, but The Tanks are depressions in the rocks where water collects. You can’t swim in it, you can’t drink it. You just look at them. I looked. I still had to get down the side of the canyon and back out to the car. Down was easier than up, but it was very hot and I was getting tired—and thirsty. When I got down to the trail and staggered over to Lee, he asked me if it was worth it. My response was “(expletive deleted) no!” In retrospect, I’m glad I did it, but at that moment, I wasn’t so sure. We still had a mile to walk out. And it was very hot and water was running low—and getting hotter. I rested for a while then we started out. It was noon. Noel Coward was right, “Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.” The canyon walls were very steep and there was very little shade. At one point when we found some, I said I was going to wait for sunset. I was husbanding my water and would only take small sips, hoping to make it last. We passed Pioneer Register. Yippee! We passed the petroglyphs. Everyone we passed going in I said, “Turn back!” By this point, I was fantasizing about water. We met one group, two men and two little boys. They each had half a liter of water and a bottle of Gatorade. The younger of the boys kept playing with and dropping his Gatorade. By this point, I was so tired and thirsty that I almost said, “Drop that one more time, and it’s mine, kid.” I didn’t. We could almost see the car by then. Back at the car, I drank half a liter of water in one gulp and a bottle of Henry Weinhard’s Orange Cream Soda. Nothing ever tasted to good.
I haven't taken a hike since then without more than enough water. Every time I see Gatorade, I think about that hike and the kid I nearly mugged for his bottle.
That's it for now. Next week promises to be more exciting, as it is loaded with appointments--and an act of kindness. Stay tuned.
xxooxx

Sunday, March 1

I got home on Thursday, with fingers and toes painted Malaga Wine. It is an elegant winter color. Made it to Eastern Star Thursday night, thank you, Dory, for the ride. I had to cram myself into a dress because the theme was Mardi Gras and only certain colors would do. I thought I had a purple dress I could fit into, but no, that was not going to happen. So I wore a green and gold skirt and top, which felt much better in the car when the top rode up over my stomach--not the best look for the meeting.Friday I pretty much hung around the house, though I did get out to Curves. Not feeling excessively well, but pushed past the pain and did the circuit the requisite two times and stretching. Saturday, the big daytime activity was to go to the post office and the bank, then come home and rest up for the effort of being charming all evening. It was our Worthy Grand Matron's Official Visit. It was also a Mardi Gras theme, so once again I crammed myself into the green and gold number. I also wore make-up--beloved by me in my youth, but now I'm just too lazy to wear it on a daily basis. I did my eyes in several lovely shades of purple to complete the Mardi Gras theme. Today they are a lovely shade of red--another reason why I don't paint too often. I've upped my morphine to 15 mg three times a day, hoping to get a better handle on the pain. I did more than fine on 30 twice a day--then cut it to 15 twice a day, and that just isn't cutting it. So we'll see. Playing with drugs to get the best balance.
It's another rainy day today. For my money, it can rain clear through to the end of May if it will keep drought fears away. That's it for today.
xxooxx