Health – The Owl Underground

Same Song, Umpteenth Verse

We were going to try the allopurinol with Benadryl and prednisone, and my body said, “Nope. Not having it,” and threatened me with Stevens-Johnson syndrome if I didn’t stop this nonsense right this minute. I seem to tolerate the Venclexta — no nausea, vomiting or any of those shenanigans, but allopurinol is right out. And to be frank, I’m so glad the itching has stopped that I almost don’t care that I’m doing the skin peel thing all over my body again (except that my hands peel worst of all, which is severely annoying because I can’t knit!) I think I must be working on, like, my third set of skin this year.

I had a basic metabolic panel done yesterday and my BUN was the only value that was not within normal limits. It was high, but not all that high. I’m in limbo right now. Everything is stopped but the prednisone. I’d just as soon stop it too as I’m getting noticeably strung out on it. This morning, I felt nauseous after I took the two meds I have to take on an empty stomach, and I just rolled over and went back to sleep without taking any of the rest of my meds, including the prednisone. That was at 9:30. I woke up at nearly 5:00, having slept the day away. It felt good to sleep until I was done sleeping.

In the knitting news, I frogged that shawl I was working on because it wonked on me big time. It would have taken short rows to fix and I don’t have the band width right now to deal with short rows. But then I had this idea for a top-down crescent shawl with a twisted cable top border. You’re always seeing crescent shawls that start with a garter tab. If you want a fancy top border, you have to go back and knit it on. My idea was to use a Turkish cast-on instead of a garter tab, and knit the top border as you go. Turns out it works very nicely, thank you very much, even with a yarn over (yo) detail between the border and the garter stitch shawl body. There’s only a tiny wonky bit right at the center, but you have to hunt for it.

I’m about 5 inches into it and it keeps calling my name and I YEARN to be working on it, but I’ve tried knitting in these Laytex gloves and nope! And my bare hands are so snaggy because they’re peeling hand over fist. AARRGGHH!!

I’m reusing the same Caron Simply Soft (“Ocean”) acrylic yarn I was using for the frogged shawl. Caron Simply Soft tends to be splitty to begin with, and being knitted and frogged five or six times doesn’t help. (“Splitty” to a knitter means the strand of yarn has a tendency to untwist and separate into plies, which makes it harder for the point of the needle to catch the whole strand to make a stitch. That’s one of the downsides of acrylic yarn. Wool yarn, because it’s basically hair, has a “built-in” tendency to curl. A good spinner works the spinning and plying with the curl so that once a wool yarn is spun and plied, its natural tendency is to stay that way.)

Speaking of natural tendencies, I seem to have a natural tendency to dream during sleep. Even when I wake up without the aid of annoying noises (alarm clocks), I always seem to be waking up out of a dream. It’s like sleep is a sea of dreams, and I’m a whale. I sound down into the depths and stay down for hours. I come up for air briefly, and down I go again. Most of my dreams are fairly hum-drum and nondescript. I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time looking for my car in parking lots, or walking to some destination I’m not sure how to get to. My dreams have little emotional affect attached to them, apart from a vague, free-floating anxiety when I can’t find my car. (That’s what made the nightmares I had when I first started taking metoprolol so jarring and upsetting.)

I suspect that’s a function of my being where I am on the spectrum. Because of the unaddressed emotional disconnect my “light” autism created in my life from a very early age, I have become the cat that walks by herself and all places are alike to me. Being on my own has never bothered me.

(Our neighborhood feral cat.)

I’m basically a pretty stolid person, which I get from my dad, the Marine veteran of WWII in the Pacific. He was pretty much unrattleable. I did get a little “what-if” anxiety from my mom, but that plays out in an interesting way. (A “what if-er” is a type of anxiety where the busy brain is always asking — what if this terrible thing happens? what if that terrible thing happens? It’s pretty easy for them to spiral off into a state of paralyzing anxiety. I think my mom spent a good deal of her life anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop and anxiously wondering which shoe it would be.)

Gemini that I am, now and again, I will catch myself having an interesting internal dialogue between the “dad” part of my brain and the “mom” part. For a recent example, I’m walking from the building 40 feet to where my car is parked and I’ll have this random intrusive thought — (mom) What if I slipped and fell and hurt myself? There’s nobody around. I could lie here on the pavement for hours . . . (dad) I would get out my cell phone and call Security, and they would come and help me. It doesn’t happen all that often, but it’s interesting when it does. It’s that “dad” part of my brain that makes me stop and think through a complicated task before I jump into the middle of it by saying things like, “No, always sweep/vacuum first and dust last; that gives the dust you stir up sweeping/vacuuming time to settle so you’ll catch it when you dust.” Last week, when I was having those severe side effects, it was that “dad” part of my brain that said, “Maybe you need to get up and go throw the deadbolt before you close your apartment door just in case, so the EMS people won’t have to wait for Security to come open your door if you can’t.”

As I say, right now I’m in a holding pattern waiting for a call from my oncologist as to what to do next.

I Think I Have It Sussed

It’s going to be a jugging act, though. The hospital system my cancer center belongs to has a “patient portal” where I can access things like lab tests, appointment schedules, etc., on line. Mine are mostly white blood cell differentials (how many of each kind of white blood cells), complete blood counts (how many red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, etc,), and basic metabolic panels (the amounts of a select group of substances i.e., sodium, potassium, uric acid, BUN, creatinine, etc., are present in the blood). Which means I can look at these test results on the computer whenever I want. I get these lab tests before I do the second day of chemo, so I can track that data over time.

What’s been causing my weakness is low blood pressure due to dehydration. I get IV fluids with the chemo to help my body flush it through my system. I empty out my legs for an hour or two every night, but then my sodium (table salt, one of those “electrolytes” that are all the rage these days) drops, and my output gets ahead of my input. What’s been causing my hand and foot cramps is not low magnesium or low calcium, but hyponatremia — low blood sodium (“Na” for the STEM crowd).

My sodium dips below a certain point and the “thirst” circuit in my brain gets switched off to protect what little I have left. My blood pressure falls (90/51 mmHg, for example, which is almost “fainting low”) because I don’t have enough water to go around. I need to drink, but I’m not thirsty. My kidneys need to keep the chemo chemicals and waste products flushed out of my blood, but I’m not thirsty. It’s a vicious cycle. My blood sodium levels are the key. If I can keep my blood sodium levels within normal limits, my thirst circuits will do what they’re supposed to do and we can keep the system flushed out.

Cardiologists put you on a low-salt or no-added-salt diet because eating a lot of salty foods causes you to retain fluids and raises your blood pressure, which makes your heart have to work harder, not just from the extra volume of fluids it’s having to push through the system, but because of the weight those fluids add to your body. The World Health Organization (WHO), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and American Heart Association (AHA) all recommend keeping sodium under 2,300 milligrams (mg) per day. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) suggests aiming for about 1,500 mg per day. Because my cardiologist has me on a low salt diet, I keep an eye on how much sodium is in a particular food. (Don’t just look at the amount of sodium per serving, look at the serving size, too!) There are foods I’ve stopped eating because they are so high in sodium. Soft drinks, for one, particularly the “diet” soft drinks. Potato chips and corn chips for others. Wolf Brand Chili. (1000 mg per 8 0z serving, almost half the American Heart Association’s minimum daily requirement!)

It was blustery and rainy and down-right COLD today. I got up at still dark o’clock and hunted down my rain coat. The wind kept batting me around and trying to take my umbrella away from me, and I thought I was going to have to tack to get into the cancer center. (To tell you how much the salty food has helped, yesterday I slept through most of the 6-hour infusion and my blood pressure was 110/51 mmHg. Today, my blood pressure was 125/60 mmHg and I read for the 3 hours I was there.)

On the way home, I stopped by Market Street to get cheese, scallions and some other stuff, as well as a little pop up bouquet for my lawyer because she’s such a champ.

I was going to hold out for a blue orchid and then quit acquiring them (you can quit laughing any time . . . ), but today I rescued this little guy. He was the last of this color scheme and had obviously been bullied. His flower spike was almost completely broken in two and the top part was just hanging by a thread.

I had already decided to quit after I got one of the blue orchids owing to window room, and had already ordered the water container and orchid pot for it (arriving Thursday) but I will wait till he’s done blooming to repot him. Once I get the arrowhead plant rooted and potted, I’m going to “free to good home” it so that will open some window-front property.

Today my lawyer and her two witnesses came over at 1 o’clock. We signed papers till the world looked level and notarized about half of them before the witnesses. (My lawyer put herself through law school by working as a legal assistant for the law firm my mother worked for, which is how I knew her. When she was a legal assistant, the firm got her commissioned as a notary public, and she has maintained that status.) This is part of the ongoing saga of me getting my legal and financial ducks in a row. (Will, Powers of Attorney, Advanced Directives, etc.)

This afternoon, I tuned in to the “Suburbs of Goa” channel of SomaFM and got lucky. They were playing a block of “Middle Eastern” music. Then I unearthed my pasta pot, boiled up a box of small elbow macaroni, got 2 cans of Wolf Brand Chili (with beans), dumped them in my blue casserole dish, added a small can of sliced black olives, four chopped scallions (green onions), a heaping handful of Sargento’s 4 Cheeses Mexican blend, and about a cup of little elbows. (This was the first time I have used a stove since I moved to Carillon!) That makes about 6 servings. I had one for a late lunch. I had 16 oz of Dr. Pepper and a single-serving bag of Chex Mix yesterday, and my thirst circuits were firing on all cylinders today.

My Christmas cactus, bless it’s little green heart, sneakily put out this single bud, as though expressing solidarity with the local representative of Mother Nature. (G. Who) I need to go exhale on it a couple of five times and give it some CO2 love.

The small entryway rug arrived and has been put in place. It is in the same pattern as my big rug and in exactly the size I needed. The apartment last had thick pile carpet and the bottom of the door was cut to make allowances for that. But, because Carillon is also an assisted living and skilled nursing facility, health care regs require that when one occupant moves out, they have to trash the carpet. I chose luxury vinyl plank flooring but the rugs help define areas.

I think I’ve finally got my apartment the way I want it.

Oh, and our environmental tip of the day is to save and collect the little snibbies of yarn you snip off when you work in ends. In the spring, when birds are building/renovating their nests, they love these little bits of yarn to use to line the inside of the nest. You can rub the yarn snibbies over the rough bark of a nearby tree and snag them where they can easily find them. How snuggly for a baby chick!

Here We Go Again

I have definitely turned the corner. Wednesday, after I drove myself to the VA for my appointment (and got labs drawn — there is some question about my thyroid function), I went to this friendly neighborhood nail salon that’s in a strip mall at 19th and Quaker, right handy. My hands were still peeling, but just peeling, not peeling raw anymore. It seems most of the good nail salons in town are run by Vietnamese-Americans, including this one, but it’s nice and the people are nice and it’s named The Orchid Nail Salon. The nice lady who massaged my hands and feet got a little happy with the callus scraper on my feet, so I just blew off going to Walmart and went home. Sufficient unto the day.

Thursday, I took it easy and lay in bed all day. Carillon, in it’s inscrutable grounds maintenance, has been doing something that requires drilling through concrete, and they are doing it right outside my window in that little patio area. They drill for a while, then they have to have a discussion about it for a while . . . They start bright and early at 8:00. Since I can’t hear myself think, never mind sleep, I’ve been having breakfast, which I usually never do. I appear to be on a scrambled eggs and bacon kick. Some nice protein never goes amiss, though.

For weeks, I had been contemplating a slight rearrangement of furniture involving the scooting down of a rug, which was part of the reason the dinette set had to go. It was taking up too much space for only being used as a place to collect flotsam and jetsam. The desk works much better in the space. Friday, I reached critical mess and went after it. I have a little tank vacuum with brushes and crevasse tool, etc., but apparently the floor wands didn’t make the move. Never mind. All the furniture came off the rug, everything got scooted back, the rug got repositioned, and then I vacuumed skin flakes off the rug, off the floor, off the chairs . . . and everything went back.

I had gotten some organizer bins for this collection of little seasonal signs that I hang on my door. (That’s a thing here. We are very liturgical.) I got those sorted, and put my woolen shawls in a sweater keeper with cedar. I replaced a plug strip with a better one that makes life easier. And I vacuumed up skin flakes off the floor until the world looked level. (Insert joke here about cleaning up before the maid comes on Monday. )

Today was Walmart run day. It was busy but not heaving. I desperately needed to go as I was out or nearly out of many things. I went home by way of Whataburger, absconding with a chicken strips meal. I had been noted to have hyponatremia in the hospital, and I figured I could get away with all the salt. I have this wonderful little folding cart that goes in the trunk/boot of my car. Money well spent. I unload my trunk into it and roll it into the freight elevator (!) at the end of the hall, and it’s a straight shot to my door.

I still have two cases of Ensure High Protein in the back seat of the car that I need to go down and get. (I’ve been taking my meds with a bottle of same, morning and evening, trying to load on all the nutrition I can.)

I’ve gotten my printer moved and I have a sack set out to purge files. I need to check with various people about how much of mom’s stuff I need to keep for how long and purge everything else, as well as purge some of my own files. My poor little filing cabinet is rather stuffed at the moment.

Tonight (if I have the energy) and tomorrow I need to do at least two loads of wash, and probably three. I have new sheets that have to be washed before they can be put on the bed, plus a load of clothes, and then the sheets and towels that I replaced with clean need to be washed and put away. (I have two sets: One clean and one on.)

Monday, I start chemo again. I’ve gotten a ride with the Joe Arrington Cancer Center shuttle bus and have to be down in the lobby at 7:30 in the morning (!). I’m getting a ride this time because I’ve never had this regimen before and I don’t know how I’ll feel when I’m done. My messenger bag is packed with the stuff I’ll need — tunes, a book, antinausea medication, snacks. The main infusion takes 6 hours. Not my first rodeo. Cowgirl up.

Oh, What Fun

Sunday night week ago (the 10th), I was so weak that while I’m putting ice, drink mix and water in my drink bottle, I have to stop and rest four times. Fortunately, its only about four o’clock in the afternoon and I can call down to the front desk and have a nurse from assisted living come up. He calls the ambulance and off I go. We will gloss over the episode of projectile vomiting I had shortly after getting to a room at about 1 a.m. and go straight to the hospitalist deciding there’s this one medication I don’t need to be taking and decided it would be perfectly fine to cold turkey me off a medication that must be tapered over 2 weeks to be discontinued because stopping it abruptly can cause serious neurological consequences. I had to threaten to go home against medical advice before they’d give it to me, and I was already suffering some withdrawal symptoms (ants in the brain!).

In the meantime, they’ve decided I must have some kind of infection and have started me on vancomycin. I have a really messed up metabolism and I’m very allergic to molds; most antibiotics are mold-derived, including vancomycin, and they’re giving it to me too fast besides. It’s called Red Man Syndrome for a reason. I’m beet red with a splotchy rash, and they’re having a committee meeting trying to figure out what’s going on and is this actually Red Man.

My hands are peeling raw, my face is peeling. Do they stop all antibiotics? No. They change to a different one which causes intense itching all over my body for over an hour until they finally decide to give me some IV Benadryl and Atarax, which does take the edge off.

My histamine response is already in a tizzy and I proceed to have a full blown asthma attack, the like of which I’ve never had, even when I was living in the house with black mold in the attic in 2014. (and hadn’t needed any asthma medication at all since moving out of it.) We’re talking breathing treatment with nebulized albuterol because of severe bronchospasm asthma attack. That’s when they decide maybe they’d better stop the antibiotics — like the three sets of negative cultures doesn’t clue them . . .

And all the time I’m there, they’re pumping me full of IV fluids faster than my poor little kidneys can throw it off — to the tune of gaining 24 pounds of nothing but fluid in a week. So I already am having trouble breathing because my spleen and liver are enlarged and there’s no room for my lungs to expand downward. Now I’m in fluid overload and gasping for breath at the slightest exertion. Lasix! We finally managed to get enough fluid off me so that I could go home Sunday evening.

And they’ve got me scheduled for doctor’s appointments immediately Monday morning. No way I can drive myself. Carillon can drive me but they need 24 hours notice . . . I was able to get them rescheduled.

Oh, and did I mention they issued new key cards while I was in hospital and I had to call security to let me back in my apartment. Security had to resort to the actual metal mechanical emergency pass key to get my apartment door open because her key cards wouldn’t work either — nor do my new ones. Tuesday maintenance had to change out my whole door lock to a newer kind. And fix my broke doorbell. And the internet is down. Again.

I could have coped just fine if they hadn’t messed up my hands. That just adds two orders of magnitude of difficulty to everything. The skin on my hands is peeling like a snake and in places is cracked down to bleeding. Thank goodness I happened to have a box of latex gloves I got when mom’s floor had COVID, or going to the bathroom would have been extremely problematic . . .

During my January to October stint of chemo in 2022, whenever this one nurse would access my port, she would give me the packet of gloves that come in this little kit you use with the stuff you need to do that, and I had about 6-7 packets of those gloves, which are latex free. When my new oncologist saw me Wednesday, he prescribed some Silvadene cream for my hands, and then I put these gloves on. Thank goodness that’s helping.

My whole body is flaking like a really bad sunburn. My face is peeling. My lips and nose openings are peeling. Imagine painting your face with a thick coat of white glue and having it dry. It pulls my eyelids in odd directions and makes seeing out of my glasses problematic.

I’ve finally managed to throw off all but about 5 pounds of fluid now, and my lower legs no longer look like the Michelin Man. I seem to have found my ankles again. My strength is coming back. My hands are noticeably improved. I’ve turned the corner. They have me on 20 mg of prednisone a day to chill out my histamines and help with my enlarged spleen, and I’m not nearly so wired as I get with larger doses.

The white orchid started to bloom while I was in the hospital. That’s three for four. The flower spike on #4 orchid continues to grow. The arrowhead plant has embarked on a campaign of world domination. The Christmas cactus has been budding and asserting its dominance. The tumult and the shouting has died. The captains and the kings have departed. Elvis has left the building. Slowly but surely, things are settling back down into what passes for normalcy these days.

Saw something the other day about human insulin cells especially modified to release insulin when exposed to sound. They tried various types of music — orchestral, classical, Broadway show tunes — to stimulate insulin production. Guess what music worked best. Queen. We Will Rock You. I’ve been giggling about it for days . . .

Well, That Explains It . . .

When I had my first bone marrow biopsy in 2017, they did it on both sides, instead of just one. Now I know why. They tried the left side first and didn’t get any. Same thing happened yesterday. She tried and tried and couldn’t hit marrow. So then we had to try the right side, and did manage to get some. As a consequence, I have two big square Band-Aids across the lower part of the small of my back. The first time I had a bone marrow biopsy, they were also removing a lymph node from my left armpit and knocked me out to do it, otherwise I would have known to tell the lady not to bother with the left side. I think if I have to have another bone marrow biopsy, a radiologist had better do it under fluoroscopy.

The desk is still in a box on the floor (at left), but I got the TV table put together Thursday night. It’s not bad for what it cost, and actually looks quite nice. It was simple to assemble — four screws to hold the legs on, four screws to attach the bottom shelf, and Bob’s your uncle.

Of course, you use an Allen wrench, key, thingie, whatever you call them (included), to tighten the screws. Did I mention I HATE ALLEN THINGIES, I HATE THEM! (Inarticulate utterances of rage!)

I may go ahead and put the desk together tomorrow and maneuver it out of the way behind the dinette set. Or I may just put the box out of the way somewhere and wait until the dinette set is gone. The side board is on casters. I can flip the rug back and move the side board forward, then slide the new table in behind it and move everything over to it except the TV. I’ll need help moving the TV, not because its heavy but because it’s big (55 inch diagonal).

One of the other reasons I’m ditching the sideboard is because when they moved me into my apartment, they racked the sideboard and pulled the legs loose on the bottom. I’ve never trusted it since. The TV table is good and sturdy. I need to put those felt dots on the bottom of its legs so it will slide without marring the floor. I think I’ve still got some tucked away somewhere

This coming week, I’ve got the people coming to get the furniture on Monday and a chiropractic appointment on Tuesday. Apart from that, the deck is clear. Chemo starts bright and early Monday week. I suspect I’ll have to be going by the VA at some point and picking up medication. But in the meantime, I think I’ll go get my book and snuggle in for a good read. Yeah. That’s what I’ll do.

Fasten Your Seatbelts . . .

To slightly misquote the late, great Ms. Bette Davis, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. I’m trying to juggle lawyers, banks and doctors, clear the decks, and strip for action. I was originally going to start chemo tomorrow. Now I’m having labs and a bone marrow biopsy done and starting chemo the 11th.

I saw the sinus doctor Tuesday and he didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. Afterward, I got a manicure (I’m inept with the nail scissors and weak using the nail clipper with my left hand) while waiting for it to be my turn to get my hair cut. I took home a Pizza Hut personal pizza, which, personally, was a big hit. I was on a roll yesterday, and if the Goodwill truck had been in the Market Street parking lot as it usually is, I would have accomplished everything on my to do list for the day. I met with the bank guy, closed out mom’s accounts at her bank and moved the funds to the account I opened for that purpose at my bank, and got the rent draft transferred to the new account. Then I did a paper goods run to Walmart — tissues for both ends, paper towels, two boxes of Ensure High Protein and a few groceries. I finally took the stuff of mom’s that I wanted our good friend CK to have to her house and had a nice little visit with them.

Monday, I reconfigured my computer and desk, and finally set up the new printer. I disassembled the world and had monitors in the kitchen and on the table (I had to take their pedestals off).

The monitor mount is like a wall mount for a TV except the arms are pole mounted instead of wall mounted. It has two options — a clamp mount or mounting through a hole drilled in the surface of whatever you’re mounting it on. The way my desk is constructed, drilling a hole in the desktop and using that option was the most stable option. Then I discovered it required a 3/8th inch hole in my desktop and I only had a 1/4 inch drill bit (yes, I am a Toolbelt Diva), so I had to “enlarge the hole” using the drill bit to rasp the sides of the hole larger. Got quite a little pile of particle board dust on the floor, but I achieved success. I screwed the little mounts on the backs of the monitors, mounted them to the arms, then reassembled the computer. I have a whole lot more desk space now, and everything works better. I did have to pull the desk back out and switch the monitor connecting cables so my goofy computer would call the righthand monitor “monitor 1.” (%*&$#@!)

The new printer was ridiculously easy to set up. Took me all of 10 minutes and was completely painless. It prints purty!

The people are coming for the dinette set and sideboard Monday. In the meantime, I ordered a TV table , the pieces of which are now unpacked and lying on the floor (some assembly required, of course). I currently have my TV on the sideboard, which is 38 inches high; my chair is too close to the TV and at that angle, watching TV is a pain in the neck. The TV table is 30 inches high. One of the reasons for ditching the dinette set is so I can get more distance between the TV and my chair. I can flip the rug back, pull the sideboard out (it’s on casters), slide the TV table in behind it and transfer the VCR and black box, etc., to it, but it’s going to take two people to move the TV, not because it’s all that heavy, but because it’s a 55-inch diagonal.

#3 Orchid is MAGENTA! It has two blooms open now. Mr. Balls is next up to bloom. I already know his flowers are white as this will be the second time he’s bloomed since I got him. Don’t know what color #4 Orchid is, though. (Oh, the suspense!)

I’ve just started on book #2 of the 19-book Sebastian St. Cyr series re-read– murder mysteries set in Regency England. C. S. Harris is a pseudonym for Candace Proctor and her husband Steven Harris. Harris is a former intelligence officer. Proctor has a Ph.D. in European history and specializes in this time period. Her settings are not the romanticized, sanitized, “movie” version. She shows you Regency England, warts and all. I find it fascinating the way she fits her plots into the context of what was going on in the world at the time, not just in Europe, but in America as well, and that some of her “characters” were real historical figures (e.g., Benjamin Franklin’s oldest son) doing things they actually did. If you like Regency romances and murder mysteries, these books are the best of both worlds. Each book is stand-alone, but I’d start with the first book and read them in sequence as they occur in chronological order.

Now, if I can just catch the Goodwill truck and unload the stuff in the trunk and back seat of my car, I will be a happy camper.

Holding Patterns and Other Spirals

My oncologist has referred me to a colleague in his group who specializes in lymphomas. After several days of frantic thrashing about at the VA (there is some urgency here), they decided I didn’t need a new consult but could use the one already in place since there’s no actual change in the billing end of things. I met with the new guy Wednesday. My previous oncologist was a short (barely taller than me and I outweigh him), voluble bundle of energy from Peru. The new one is a tall, laconic, thin bearded guy from India who has vitiligo (which is neither here nor there but which may account for the short beard).

I start another round of chemo next Thursday with different drugs. The last chemo I had was antineoplastics with a single monoclonal antibody (*rituximab). This round (I think) will be only monoclonal antibodies. There is concern about tumor lysis syndrome, and I probably will have to take allopurinol for that. Oh, what fun.

At some point in the immediate future, I’ll be having another bone marrow biopsy looking for a particular genetic mutation (p53?) and to see how much marrow involvement I have, which would help them choose the most effective drugs. At least this time I won’t have to drive 200+ miles to another city to have it done. Of course, any time you’re talking any kind of surgery, my cardiologist has to get involved as I’m on a blood thinner.

Last week in and amongst the CT scans and abdominal ultrasound they also wedged in an echocardiogram which showed an ejection fraction of 61% (normal is 50-70%), so there’s that on the plus side.

Next week I meet with the bank guy to get mom’s accounts shifted from her bank to my bank. I’m trying to find somebody to act as Power of Attorney for healthcare, and somebody else to be POA for financial matters. A maternal cousin, who is in his 80’s, is a 4-hour drive away. His daughter lives in Oregon. I’ve got other maternal cousins 10+ hours away who are as old as he is. I have a paternal cousin who would be an excellent choice, but she live 10+ hours away near the other cousins who live in the Greater Houston mishmash.

I just finished rereading Shogun by James Clavell, all 1210 pages of it, which is an interesting exploration of Japanese culture. One of the interesting Japanese ideas the Japanese character Mariko was trying to get across to the Englishman Blackthorn was this idea of mental compartmentalization. (Scarlet O’Hara’s “I’ll think about that tomorrow.”) It has to do with living in the now and not borrowing trouble (“Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.”). You decide on a course of action, work out contingency plans, then you put it away in its compartment and get on with the minute by minute aspects of your life. I’ve always been like that. I fortunately got my dad’s temperament. My mom didn’t really know how to be “still.” She didn’t wait well, and she was a “worrier.” When I’m confronted by a problem, I work out what I need to do to deal with it. Then I let it go. Weeping and wailing and gnashing teeth does nothing but waste energy that could be used more productively.

I don’t know what chemo will entail this time, whether I’ll require a long infusion or what, but I’m prepared with WIPs that need finishing. And a new Sebastian St. Cyr book comes out in April, so a whole series reread might be appropriate.

Why I haven’t turned the blooming orchid around so I can see it from the front . . . .

And I have a bad case of second bootie syndrome . . . First purple one is not finished, second aqua one is started . . .

I have had a lifelong problem with my purse strap slipping off my shoulder. I know I could wear it cross body, but it feels uncomfortable to me. I got some of this to stick on the strap. Stay tuned.

I’ll be needing some catitude to deal with the next couple of weeks.

* Fun Fact:  When the generic name of a drug ends in -mab (trastuzumab, bevacizumab, rituximab), that indicates it is a monoclonal antibody.

¡Ay, Caramba!

The view outside my window just now. It’s snowing like crazy. We were supposed to have “flurries.” Guess again. It’s wet, fluffy and we have accumulated about two inches so far by the look of it. You will notice in the picture at left the light magenta blooms of my newest green child, a calla lily (Zantedeschia rehmannii).

It’s currently 31 F/-0.5 C with a wind chill of 21 F/-6.1 C, and the snow is coming down on a diagonal. I was planning to stay in today anyway. Now I’m definitely staying in. Thank goodness I’ve got my electric foot bag, else my tootsies would be frigid.

The calla lily is my reward for all the adulting I did last week. (I named it Maria Calla, of course.) I have one bit of business still to wrap up on the adulting I did Tuesday. I need to scan a document and email it to a lady to conclude our business, but my “building” internet has been down since Friday week ago, and I’ve been using my cell phone as a hot spot, and my printer is only set up for the “building” WiFi. Consequently my printer and my computer are not speaking to each other at the moment and the thought of trying to set my printer up to work off my phone’s hot spot makes my brain ‘Nope’ at me. I may try to take a picture of the document in question with my phone because I have a phone app that sends photos to my computer just fine. Otherwise, I’d have to take it downstairs and get the receptionist to scan it onto a memory stick for me. Sigh.

I’ve got a chiropractor’s appointment Tuesday and a VA appointment Wednesday, and I’m still waiting for my oncologist’s scheduler to call me. I’ve got phone calls to make Monday, and that document to get to that lady, as well as mount an expedition to take the tax stuff all the way across town to the CPA whose done my mom’s taxes for years.

There is some degree of urgency behind all the adulting I’ve been doing. Seems both my liver and my spleen are enlarged, never mind a bunch of lymph nodes in my chest and abdomen which seem to have responded to all the chemo I had in 2022 (Jan-Oct) by thumbing their noses at it. The liver and spleen are up under the rib cage next to the stomach, and it’s getting pretty crowded up under there, especially when I eat more than a certain amount at one sitting and feel like a blown up balloon for hours after. My oncologist and I have to come up with the answer to the question, “Now what?”

It was rectangular when I put it in the shopping cart, but when I got home with it, my 7-grain bread looked like this. (The sacker strikes again!) Thank goodness my loaf of artisanal bread made it home unscathed. Trying to make a sandwich out of this stuff results in serious lunch meat overhang, which is a real (first world) problem . . .

Cold Enough For Ya?

Our high today, when I had to traipse about out in it, was 30 F/-1.1 C, but it was sunny and not windy (tradeoffs). Tonight’s predicted low, 2 F/-16.6 C. Thats T-W-Ooooeee that’s cold! Actually, I didn’t do too much traipsing about, just to the doctor and to Wal-Mart, and home again by way of Whataburger . . . I had packages to pick up down at the front desk — supplements and stuff I order off Amazon, like medium size Breathe-Right strips, which I can never find in the store. They’re either out completely or all they have is large, which would fit a bull moose just fine. I bought five boxes off Amazon. That ought to last me a while.

The front desk is in the lobby, and the lobby has automatic doors to the outside, and what with the door opening and closing all the time, our poor receptionist about freezes her petunias off. She had this electric heater set on “Arc Weld” next to her chair. I was telling her about these lap robes I made, and decided to make her one, just as a public service.

So, while I was at Wal-Mart I got a twin size fleece blanket in dark blue which I’m going to make into a lap robe tomorrow (as well as make another one for me!) because it’s 10 o’clock at night right now and I have to get out and set up the sewing machine . . . and find my sewing accoutrements . . . and thread . . .

They’re dead easy to make. You cut the hem off as close to the seam as possible so you’ve just got a flat piece of fleece material. Then you fold it in half “head” to “foot,” smooth out all the wrinkles and pin the two layers together. Sew a seam around all four sides, including the fold side, in one long continuous seam with about 1 mm (1/3-inch) seam allowance except for about 8 inches along one of the cut edges, which you leave open so you can turn it inside out. Then, from the inside, you push out all the seams as far to the edge as they will go and pin the two layers flat, fold the edges of the “hole” down toward the inside about 1 mm and pin. To finish, you sew around all four sides about an inch in from the edge to make a border. With a needle and thread, you seam up the “hole.” This converts a 66″ x 90″ single-thickness fleece twin size blanket into an approximately 63″ x 42″ double-thickness lap robe. The beauty of this size is that you can put one corner of it down on the seat of a desk chair, sit down and flip the part that’s draped over the chair arm, over your lap to get full draft protection. And you can machine wash and dry them. So snuggly and warm!

These are so easy to make and they make great gifts for couch potatoes of all ages, especially if you wait until spring to buy the blankets when they’re on sale. (Can you tell I like leopard print?)

I went to see the oncologist today, and had bloodwork done beforehand. All my bloodwork was within normal limits except for those pesky lymphocytes which were slightly elevated. (lymphoma). He wants to see me again in May and do a CT scan. In the meantime, I finally got an appointment with an ENT doctor. (earliest available appointment end of Feb!)

When I got the mail today, there was a jury summons addressed to my mom. Um . . . I think she has a permanent exemption?

Plus Ça Change . . .

. . . plus c’est la même chose. A drastic change happens, like a breaching whale, with a lot of splash and carry-on, but then the whale submerges, and the splashes and ripples of its wake dissipate, and life goes on. Or tries to, anyway.

Mom’s memorial service was on 15th November. I was not feeling quite the thing and had an intermittent hacking cough, but I just figured beta blockers, lack of sleep and the onset of a life-changing event, etc. But I kept feeling lousier and lousier until Saturday morning I awoke with a very sore throat, stuffed up head including both inner ears and packed tight sinuses, a nasty paroxysmal cough, and the realization that you, oh, Best Beloved, are sick as the proverbial dog. Long about the following Tuesday, I happened to think that the next Monday was housekeeping’s day and I called down for and got a COVID test which was positive. I was quarantined for a week. It’s only been this past weekend that both ears have finally opened up, and my cough has calmed down to manageable levels. A fried chicken breast from Market Street for supper did wonders for my sinuses yesterday. They used a lot of pepper in their breading, which brought tears to my nose, but in a good way. I’ve been gulping hot tea, with and without spices, and with or without creamer.

This past Sunday, I was determined to have my afternoon ration of YouTube with a side of bacon and Havarti cheese on crackers. I zotted four slices of bacon in the microwave and cut them in thirds, got three slices of Havarti cheese which I cut into quarters, and then discovered that the sum total crackerage on the premises was 11 water crackers. Story of my life. (The dearth of crackers was attributable to a cream cheese with onions and chives smeared on crackers kick that hasn’t quite run its course . . .)

They’ve refurbished my WalMart of choice. They have fancy new shelving, and rearranged it just enough that you can’t find anything. I’m in the middle of a wardrobe turnover. I’m getting rid of the stuff I wore because it fell into that narrow ellipse of styles and colors where mom’s and my tolerances overlapped, and replacing it with stuff I 100% like. (Goodwill and Catholic Family Services are making out like bandits . . .) While I was at WalMart last, I picked up 2 pairs of velour “leisure pajamas” to wear around the house –a rampant pink pair and a pair which is really too orange of a red for my skin tones, but who cares? They’re warm and snuggly and soft against the skin. Oddly, both pairs were cut out with the nap of the velour running upwards instead of downwards like you’d think. They were made in China (what isn’t, these days) and the Chinese do have a reputation for 不可理解性 . . .

My mom, a product of the helmet hairdo generation, did not care for long hair, especially when it was unrestrained. She liked it short, ratted up to give it height, and glued into immobility with hairspray. I like mine long, the longer the better, swept back into a pony tail at the nape of my neck. In my misspent youth (high school) I did back comb it, blow dry it and use curlers, a curling iron and hair spray, but once I left home, I stopped mistreating it as my hair is so fine that back combing, or any kind of heat gave me split ends like crazy. My current approach to hair care is very laissez-faire: I wash it, comb it out and let it dry in the air. I use barrettes but not elastics. The less I have to futz with it, the better.

Mom’s 8 balding brothers. Her sister 2nd from L wore a wig later in life due to hair loss and mom got thin on top. Every one is in age order L to R except mom, far R in blue, who should be squatting next to her youngest brother, as she is the baby.

In the ultimate irony, a combination of chemotherapy, menopause and the male pattern baldness gene I got from my mom (so did my brother), I have gotten to the point that every time I brush my hair, I get this big wad of hair in the brush.

My hair has gotten so thin on top that I have finally admitted defeat. I got it all whacked off yesterday to about 3 inches long all over. It’s easier to care for, and dries in less than half an hour now. Sigh.

I have three things left on my to do list regarding mom’s passing. I have to send a copy of the death certificate to the people who paid dad’s pension to her, I have 15 thank-you’s still to write (mañana). I got a little refurbished Kindle for mom after she moved to Carillon so she could get on Facebook and send and receive emails. I need to take it over to one of the activities ladies whose elementary-age son comes up to Carillon after school and visit with some of the residents including my mom. I think she would have wanted him to have it, especially since his mom is an Amazon Prime member and she can get ebooks for him. Neither I nor my brother had children, so mom and dad adopted other people’s children to grandparent, like this little boy. I already have two Kindles, and if having a Kindle will make a reader out of this little boy, I’m all for it.

I got my BFF’s packages mailed today (Bday in Nov, Xmas) and got stamps, and the green thingies for registered and return receipt requested mail so I can get the pension thing mailed. There’s still taxes, mom’s and mine, but that’s months away. (Sufficient unto the day . . .)

My Christmas cactus is blooming elaborate fuchsia flowers. It has two lovely blooms and a couple of buds. The amaryllis* “bub**” is being green and leafy, but as yet shows no sign of a flower bud. The arrowhead plant is profusely arrowheady, and the antherium’s shiny red blooms are very Christmassy.

Orchid #2’s and Orchid #3’s flower spikes are now long enough to stake, and guess what?

Mr. Ball is putting out a flower spike as well. That’s 3 for 4! I am delighted, and not at all disappointed that Orchid #4 is not spiking as it had just finished blooming in September and I suspect it’s “tord.**” It needs repotting and fertilizing — yet another thing on the To Do list. (Now, where did I put that roundtoit?)

* The little girl playing piano in this clip from the 1962 film of "The Music Man" is named Amaryllis.  She makes fun of Ron Howard's character (Winthrop) saying her name because of his lisp.  If you will notice, the melody of this song is the same as the melody of "76 Trombones."
**"bub" - Texan, "bulb."
***"tord" - Texan, "tired."