Feeling Normal

Peach was up, bathed, dressed, and ready to walk Bob to his exercise class.  "Today is the first day I feel normal," she said.  And it showed on her face.

After we dropped Bob off at exercise, we headed for the beauty parlor on the third floor.  She had decided to get her hair cut short, so it won't be so much of a bother...or a shock, if she begins to lose it.

I decided to take a "before" picture, but my camera was giving me a "disk malfunction" message.  I went back to the apartment to get the back up disk, but the original disk appears a lost cause.  I am hoping that I will be able to retrieve the photos I have taken thus far.  The important ones have been published on this journal, but in small form and there are lots that have not been published.

But at least I had a back-up disk with me.  The beauty shop is charming.  Eileen shares the space with a reflexologist, and the whole shop overlooks the scenery outside.

I watched the whole transformation take place.

And when it was all over, I had to take a picture of Peach with the woman who had transformed her.

Eileen wished her well, gave her a hug and sent her on her way.  When we arrived at the dining room, it was a repeat of yesterday, with everyone lining up to welcome her back to "dinner" with them ("dinner" is the noon (largest) meal, and "supper" is what you have at the end of the day).

When Bob saw Peach in her new hair do, his face lit up like I have not seen it since I have been here.  He looked like a teenager who was picking her up for a special date.  It was heartwarming to see.

 "Feeling Normal" is wonderful.  There are two more days and then her next chemo treatment.  If the second goes the way the first went, she will have two days after that before reaction sets in.  Four days of "feeling normal" is wonderful to contemplate.  

Maybe the next treatment won't be as bad as the last one, since it will be only 1/3 as strong.

I'm an eternal optimist.

Come Up and Skype Me Sometime

We finally got Skype up and working on a day when Peach was feeling better than she has since this whole thing started.

Maybe we'll convince my mother that there is some benefit to these modern gadgets after all!  

We found another use for Bob's walker, putting my iPad on it to wheel it from me to Peach to Bob and back to Peach again.

Bob was interested to find out if Walt had any information on the raise for federal government retirees (Walt didn't).

My mother wanted to know how Peach was feeling and, more importantly, when she was going to send me home.

It might have been easier for her to understand why I'm still here if we had done this on one of Peach's bad days, but not really.  This was fun.  We teased her about all the retired farm boys that live here and my mother assured us that the last thing she wanted at this stage in her life was a farm boy!

It was kind of an electronic kind of day from the get go.  In the morning, Peach was in the bedroom getting dressed, I was in the kitchen washing the dishes and Bob was sitting in his recliner.  The TV remotes were on a table, with nobody around them and suddenly the TV reception went off.  No TV.  No internet connection.

Peach immediately got on the phone trying to figure out what was wrong.  No connection meant to cop show marathons, no Netflix movies, no Facebook or e-mail.  Potential catastrophe.

Nothing seemed to work and I was resorting to checking Facebook with the 3G connection (the one we pay for).  And then, suddenly everything was back again.  We don't know what the problem was, but whatever, it is solved.

It was a very harrowing 5 minutes.

The rest of the morning was spent the same way I spend it at home...letting the dogs in and out.  It was in the low 20s and actually it felt kind of good letting in the dog (and the cold air) into this warm apartment.

There was a trivia quiz at lunch and the first question was which night of the week the Texaco Hour with Milton Berle was on, only the young thing reading the question stumbled over it and called him "Milton Burley."

Later in the afternoon, a package arrived, with a voice recorder for Peach.  She is going to be writing a book about this whole cancer experience and we figured that if she could dictate things as she is going through them, when she is feeling awful and doesn't have to think about writing, it would be a good start for this project.

Walt had sent my recorder for her to try out, but it didn't come with a manual (I don't know where mine is), so now she has a recorder of her own (so I can take mine home) plus the instructions for how to work it properly.

She's done so well the past couple of days that I dread Monday, when we start the whole chemotherapy treatment all over again.

Queen P

Today I have almost nothing to report about Peach.  Which is a very. good. thing.  Today she ate breakfast, got dressed, and actually went to lunch.  It was like a visit from royalty.  Instead of Queen Bee, she was the Queen P.

Sadly (for me), I had left my camera in the apartment.  I would love to have taken pictures of the number of people who came up to give her hugs and welcome her back to the dining room.

She had a small lunch and stayed for all of the lunch time.  By the time we returned to the apartment, she was exhausted and went right to bed.  I don't know why I was tired, but I took a nap too.

So the excited report was that today was boring and may we have many more of them.  Heck, even the weather was boring, after yesterday's 3 degrees, being in the balmy low 20s. Sophie found her place in the sun.

Almost makes you want to go out and buy a bikini.

I am trying to remember some of the people I am meeting here.

This is the lady you want to see at lunch each day.  Her name is Mika and she is the one who takes a large basket around to every table and gives each diner a freshly baked yeast roll.

(Tomorrow there will be home made cinnamon rolls.  I had them last week and they are fabulous)

The thing that is great here is that everything is freshly home made.  I could even tell from the taste of the macaroni and cheese that it was home made, not from a mix.  Today's chili was wonderful. 

Though I wonder how prevalent Mexican food is here in Iowa.  Last night the dinner was quesadillas.  Most people seemed suspicious and made alternate choices.

I overheard someone asking the server what a "quesadiLLa" was and she hemmed and hawed and said it was "kind of a triangle like thing."

There are sing-alongs occasionally in one section of the dining room, before lunch.  This lady at the right is the pianist and I imagine that she is like dear little Ida Sue at Atria, who used to be a wonderful accompanist, but whose dementia has robbed her of that skill.  The last time we went to her sing-along, she could barely pluck out a tune with one finger.  I think the sing-alongs have stopped now.

The lady in the back is someone of whom I hope to eventually get a better photo.  This is Renee, whose mother's name is "Bev," so she always calls me by name.  Not only is she one of the servers at lunch, but she also cleans this apartment one day a week. 

Like everyone else here, she has Peach's best interest at heart.  The lady in the apartment next door to Peach and Bob is dying of pancreatic cancer.  They are hoping she will last until Thanksgiving, when all the family plans to be here.  

Renee stopped me today and told me she had talked with a massage therapist they hired for the woman and learned that if a doctor prescribes massage, insurance will probably pay for it.  So I'm going to ask the doctor about it when we go for the next treatment on Monday and see if we can get Peach a free massage, which I think will help a lot (based on how much the brief massage by the Occupational therapist yesterday helped relieve the tension in her shoulders.

So today was boring.  Let's hope tomorrow is just as boring.

The Arm Lady

It is unlikely that I will wake up and find it colder than I did this morning before I leave here.  If you can't read it, the wind chill factor was -13. 

But of course that was at 7 a.m.  By the time we left for the cancer center at noon, it had "warmed up" to 12.  And, ya know what?  If you're only going from house to car to office to car to home, it really isn't bad at all.  I didn't even wear my sweatshirt or gloves.  I don't have a hat, and I wore my lighter weight jacket and I was perfectly fine.  Of course, if I had to do anything outside, I would have needed more insulation than just my built-in blubber.  Tomorrow the high will be 21, which sound absolutely balmy.

Today there were two appointments, the first with a social service worker, which I didn't go to.  We thought the appointment with "the arm doctor" was at 2:30, but it was actually 3:30, so we had an extra hour to wait.  Fortunately, Peach found a recliner and was able to sleep a little.

When she finally came to call Peach, the "arm lady" (Occupational Therapist Kathryn Eberle) was delightful.  I liked her instantly.  She was empathetic, gentle, and gave lots of positive reinforcement.

She validated Peach's concerns about the bras she was told to wear and offered constructive ideas for alternative, less painful options.  She gave her some massage for her sore tight muscles...

...and gave her some exercises she is to do daily.

I hope she felt better at the end of the appointments, both from constructive suggestions, encouraging support, and practical solutions.

When the day was over, she was exhausted, so we stopped and picked up sandwiches at Subway for dinner tonight (didja hear that?  we picked up sandwiches for dinner...which means the diarrhea is over and with medication, she can eat without nausea.  Halleluiah!)

We are finished with medical appointments for the week (barring unforeseen problems), so the rest of the week should be pretty quiet, and time to get lots of healing rest. 

Shelter from the Storm

I'm getting into the habit that the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is to reach for the phone and check the temperature.

You'd think 9 degrees would be freezing (well, it is) and that I would bundle up to go outside, but to let the dogs out and then stand on the patio to take a photo it's fine, even in my stocking feet, though I wouldn't want to stand there for a very long time.

The snow is all still on the ground, but there are bare patches now.  Still the trees are laden with snow and look so pretty,

This afternoon, I watched a bunch of these birds trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to fly in the wind which is blowing large amounts of snow off of the roofs.

They finally gave up and a bunch of them grouped together among the branches of this bush.  It was difficult to see them in the viewfinder of my camera, so I was only able to get one at a time, but there were actually at least four all huddled together, nestled down as far as they could get in the leaves, feathers fluffed up to insulate them against the wind.

Peach also spied a fox on the ground opposite the house, but I didn't get there in time to see it.

There is also a lot of static electricity in the air.

With all this cold weather, we were off to the Cancer Center for treatment #2 this morning.  This is how you dress to go out in 9 degree weather.

This was a frustrating morning.  The anti-diarrheal meds seemed to kick in yesterday afternoon and she was actually able to eat. 

but then the diarrhea was back again.  This is all so overwhelming for everyone, especially Peach, who only discovered a breast lump a little over a month ago and has since had numerous scary tests and procedures, including having her breast removed and now she is having toxic chemical pumped into her body with uncomfortable, painful, terrible side effects.  She has lost about 20 lbs in this time. 

And Bob, god love him, wants so much to help, but doesn't understand what is going on and all he knows is he wants a magic pill to bring his wife back.  She is trying to hard to hold everything together, but it's so difficult.

The one big thing she has going for her is a support system. I am here, of course, but so are her daughter, son-in-law, grandson and his fiancee.  At least two of us are with her for every exam and every procedure.  This morning there were four of us and the nursing staff seemed surprised at the size of her entourage, but were welcoming and brought enough chairs for all of us.

Kris got an appointment for her with her therapist, which I hope will help a lot in letting her have a safe place to deal with the emotional side of all of this.

In the "shelter from the storm" category, the doctor heard about all of her symptoms (and saw that her temperature was slightly elevated) and decided not to give her second chemotherapy treatment today.  Instead he is trying meds to cure the diarrhea first, so that we won't have to worry about adverse after effects of the chemo this week.  I hope that will give her a chance to stabilize and get a bit of strength back before she gets Round 2 next Monday.

Housekeeping

As I posted to Facebook this morning, apparently I proofread in my sleep.  I had written yesterday's entry and called it "Exultation of Larks."  As I woke up this morning I realized it was exAltation, not exUltation, so changed that first thing.  Color me embarrassed...I know better!

It was COLD when we woke up this morning.

But the yard was beautiful.

And I found a little bird on the bush right outside the door.

Today was kind of a housekeeping day, not the dust-wash-organize kind of housekeeping, but the kind of housekeeping you do when you have cancer and are expecting things to happen, or need help doing other things.

Kris and Tom came by with the groceries Peach ordered.  We were running out of bottled water, dishwashing detergent, Tide pods, and dog treats.  Each in its own way vital for keeping this house running.

Kris measured Peach's head for future cancer-baldness

And the two of them went through the "tlc" catalog to see which hats, scarves and wigs might work best.

Tom, the meantime, helped Bob take a bath, since they have reached the end of their insurance-covered bather and Peach is not able to help him right now.  No, I did not take a picture of the bath, but did snap this one afterwards.

Kris helped him brush his hair.

Tom also found out that when they fixed the closet door, they only fixed one door and I apparently knocked two out of alignment (I do not do things by halves), so he got that fixed for us.

Compared to the last several days, Peach is doing great today.  She got dressed for the first time in 3 days, was able to take a little food and keep it (for the most part) -- she's lost nearly 20 lbs since this started.  A rotten way to diet.  She's still exhausted but stayed up today longer than she has in days, due to Kris and Tom being here.  

Of course now that's she's returning to a semblance of normalcy, her next chemo treatment is tomorrow (coincidentally expected to be the worst weather day this week).  This is a short treatment (1 hr vs. 3) and we don't know what kind of reaction this week is likely to bring, but we will find out tomorrow.

Exaltation of Larks

In 1993, James Lipton (the host of "Inside the Actors' Studio) published a book called "An Exaltation of Larks," which consisted of a number of names for collections of things that he had read in his research over the years.  We all know herd of cattle, pack of wolves, but lesser known were things like exaltation of larks, murder of crows, parliament of owls, etc.

Today I decided that Peach, Bob and I constitute a "cliche of seniors." Among the three of us we represent:  vomiting, diarrhea, incontinence, and poor balance.  Could there be anything more cliche!

Things are a little better today.  While Peach is not anywhere near "comfortable," she is starting to be able to eat a little bit.  She's had some jello, some chicken broth with a tiny bit of rice in it, and a tiny slice of apple.  It hasn't all coursed throughout her system the way she would like, but it is at least an improvement over yesterday.

Today was the first big snow day for Iowa for this year. By morning there should be about 3" in the ground.  Kris and Tom were going to come over, but the roads are too icy, so they called to say they were turning back.

Bob and I had lunch today with Mardel and Dennis, the folks who sent her the roses the other day.

Very sweet people.  Like Bob, Dennis has had a stroke, but he is in a motorized wheelchair.  He and Bob joke every time we get together about meeting at night to go out and chase girls.  Mardel and I ask them what they would do with girls if they caught them.

They are kind of interesting in that they own a farm somewhere around here. It's a multi-hundred acre farm, passed down from generation to generation.  They still keep the farm and live there except in the winter, when they move here.  Apparently they aren't the only people who do this.  We ate with a couple last night who also have kept their house and are thinking of moving back at the end of the winter.  I don't think anybody at Atria does that (but they we don't have the harsh winters that they have here)

By the time the sun went down, we had had lots of snow and it continued to snow.  

Tess seemed to like being out in it, sniffing; Sophie, obviously the more sensible of the two went out with great reluctance to relieve her bladder, but then came right back in again.

It will be interesting to compare this photo with what it looks like in the morning.  I think predictions are for the snow to stop, but to stick around on the ground for awhile.

As I have enjoyed this first snow of the year with the giddy delight of a little kid seeing her first live snow, I was reminded of this essay I saw printed several years ago....and am glad I won't be here this long!