Terrapin Station

Grateful today for:

a cool breeze that means a much cooler one is coming later today

asters blooming

my home and my spouse, who feels well enough to work and to worry about the political scene

my two funny dogs

my coworkers

my friends with birthdays today!!

a weekend coming and Dia De Los Muertos in Denton to celebrate on Saturday

my knee getting better, and a brace to help it not go backward (pun intended)

my window, and the squirrels who come to eat sunflower seeds there

my parents and sisters and brother and their families

my RevGals

 

Turning the corner

This is the week when Ken turned the corner.

(A pause while you all jump up and down madly at home).

So, just for the record, he had:

2 full months of treatments (daily radiation and weekly chemo with a small break to be in the hospital, yuck) June 20 to August 22.

then he had:

2 months of feeling horrible and worse, from August 23 to October 16.

And then Monday of this past week the visiting nurse said, "what do you want to do?" and he said, "Ride the Rocket."

So they went outside and he rode up and down our street while she watched. We're gonna bronze that nurse.

Every day this week he has gotten better. Yesterday he drove to Aubrey with friends and picked up the motorcycle in the shop and rode it home. No, he probably wasn't ready for it, but he did it. And later in the day he rode to Krum to an auto show at the Sonic. (Could I make this up?) It was the first time he's gone anywhere (besides to doctor appointments) without me since this started. And that was good.

And this morning he reported "the best night so far" and "I feel good." I am definitely hesitant to report this because he has often felt really bad after feeling good. 2 good days in a row seems like impossible fortune.

I am still blenderizing his food and he is more than ready to start eating again, but swallowing therapy is needed first. Seems strange to have to learn to swallow again, when we were most of us born knowing instinctively how to do it. But radiation causes physiological changes, as does lack of use.

We've run into some challenges with the feeding tube for the first time this weekend (that's right, just when everything else is going so well). Nothing I can't fix. We'd both like to be done with this part. But that's ok. I still heart my VitaMix and figuring out how to do it best or right or somehow.

Last night we watched The Green Lantern on PPV. Good movie, clearly made from a comic strip. I decided that anything that Sheldon Cooper likes enough to wear on his shirt so often was worth a look.

Thanks for sticking with us. We're going to make it!!!

My Mortal Emenies

Yes, I meant to spell it like that.  It alludes to something, but I can't remember what.  "Yr. emeny."  maybe from Up The Down Staircase? 

So, in this week's Big Bang Theory, Sheldon referred to Wil Wheaton being his mortal enemy, and saying that he had a list of mortal enemies with 61 people on it.  As a nice INFP Christian, I would not readily admit that I think of anyone as an enemy, but the more I think of it the more I think of more people.  They are folks that I have something against, that I am letting "live rent-free in my head." 

I am too prudent or too chicken to put the full list online.  I'd like to think prudent is the word.  Some of them, if you know me well, you already know or can guess who some of them are.  It really doesn't matter.  But this morning I sat with Ken, who continues to be miserable.  He was in treatment for 2 months, he has been out for 2 months, he is wretched and improvement is so incremental that it's exceptionally difficult to recognize.  Certainly worse than he was before, because the cancer wasn't bothering him AT ALL. 

Very depressing.  Enemies?  I thought of these:

1. Cancer
2. Cancer TREATMENT that makes you so much sicker than you ever were
3. Doctors and other medical professionals who do not evince care
4. Doctors who did not tell us the severity and duration of treatment effects

and then, thinking of the particular doctor who is number ONE on my Emenies list, it occurred to me that I could totallly understand how someone could "go postal" and confront The Emeny with a gun or other means of making their anger and despair CLEARLY KNOWN. 

And then I burst into tears.  Obviously, just what I needed at the time. 

Note that I have no plans to go anywhere with a gun.  But I wasn't understanding just how angry I am.  A line that my friend Songbird has quoted from good old Jonah comes to mind... "Angry enough to die." 

I am not normally this forthcoming in blog posts, because my mother reads my blog and takes her role as Professional Worrier very seriously.  However, she is currently in the hospital (therefore away from computer and worry), having had spine surgery on Thursday (expected) and a seizure on Friday (unexpected, though she has a history of seizures).  I am hanging fire here, waiting to hear from my younger sister about the current situation; as Ken says, no news is probably good news. 

I guess. 

I/we are okay and will be okay.  Not least because I know some of you will read this and comment, or not, but at least will lift us up in prayer, or intent, or good thoughts.  For that I thank you.  Some days when I feel down, I feel what I call the Great Cloud of Witnesses (and you are in it, and you and you and you!) bearing me up.  I am grateful for that. 

Oh, and I really am still counting my blessings every morning.  Chief among them is that I am well and have no cancer treatments in my immediate future.  Thanks be to God. 

Gratitudes

...because it's been that kind of a day...

My computer at work now has Windows 7 and Office 10 on it.  I will love these programs once I figure out where they've put everything!

Weather nice, a little warm but I'll take it over 105. 

Ken feeling pretty good when I went home midday.

I rolled my chair over the end of my phone's power cord, ruining it.  But I have an extra at home.  :) 

I'm going to Jazzercise this afternoon (if I say it here I HAVE to go)

Tomorrow's the first day of my caregivers' support group at the university Psych clinic.

My parents' joint birthday party is next weekend (8th October).  Dad will be 86, Mom will be 80. 

The instructed Eucharist was awesome on Sunday.

It's almost the end of the month!

I love playing Words with Friends and Hanging with Friends on my phone. 

I have HAD IT with Gardens of Time on Facebook. 

tonight: I sweep floors. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gratitude

and you know what THAT means.

Grateful for:

1. my husband who makes me laugh, even though sometimes he makes me want to scream.  I am certain the feelings are quite mutual
2. Good insurance coverage
3. A job
4. A job I LOVE. 
5. Our home, dogs, vehicles.  Damn, we're lucky.
6. Our business and workers.  Ditto about the screaming in 1, but also ditto the reciprocal nature of it. 
7. Blogfriends
8. Facebook
9. Curry Cabbage for lunch
10. Air conditioning

 

All the miracles...

I have been having some medical tests to determine why I have such a lot of pain in my right shoulder and arm.  It turns out there are some issues (treatable ones) with my spine.  Researching it, I found the above video, which I think is gorgeous and shows so beautifully the miraculous way our spines are designed and function.  And the music is awesome too! 

This morning, we saw a show on the Science Channel called "Weird Nature" (from the BBC).  It was amazing to see the specialized ways in which animals have evolved to survive and thirve in their environments.  But what is MOST amazing to me is that we have such wonderful, clear, close-up film of things like this, available at 6 in the morning or just anytime on YouTube.  I wish, I wish, that my Bigdaddy could see it.  He died in 1991 and he loved shows like this...but I know that 20 years ago there was nothing like this.  I still remember how, in first grade, we used to watch those Disney movies of flowers opening in fast-motion photography, and what an amazing thing THAT was. 

I said to Ken, "I NEVER want to take this for granted...being able to see these things."

Watch this one: 

What's striking you as miraculous today?

My Daddy

Today I am grateful for my dad. 

This is his birthday; he is 84 today. 

Here are some of the things he taught me:

to fish

to run a motorboat

to sail a Sunfish

to hit a golf ball (but I didn't learn very well!)

to eat greens with vinegar on (yum)

to say "God-a-Friday!" and "What a bunch of potlickers." 

to never apologize for getting good grades

to do my job with pride, no matter what is assigned to me

to value my family and my heritage

to love and honor my God

to be loyal

Thank you Dad!  I love you! 

K of Gratitude

Yeah, I kind of got stuck on the alphabet of gratitudes.  Was not feeling all that grateful, in fact.  Which means that I really NEEDED to be doing it!  So back I go: 

K is for KNITTING which I adore...for knobs, as in the glass doorknobs in my old house...for my two knees, which I am grateful to have and immensely cautious of, after my difficulties with the right one earlier this year...kittens...and knowledge.  Which is power, y'all!

I of Gratitude

Image:  Amy Zaleski Illustration and Lettering

"I" things I am grateful for: 

imagination...impressions...inability...ivory (the color)...ice...irrigation...and idiom.

H of Gratitude

 

H is for home, hugs, hamburgers, hippos (which are so very fast underwater), hydration, humanity (Oh! the...) and Humbug.