February 29 is a leap year extra day.

February 28, 2006, was my day 0 for my SCT. Melphalan, then stem cells on March 1.

I was in the BMT unit 18 days and then released. I had to go back the next day since I spiked a fever, but it was due to not being hydrated enough, not infection. I was very lucky.

Even though it was the single worst thing in my life to go thru, and I got off pretty easy. NO infections, no mucousis( sp), just no WBC for a while. Two transfusions later much better.

It was a very difficult time, but I made it thru and had 4 years of complete  remission. Now its been 5 years of Revlimid and now Velcade.

update:

i thought 2006 was a leap year, but I was wrong.  So my Stem cell transplant must have started on Feb 28 2006!!!

update #2

it would be now  5 years that I was on revlimid/ then pomalyst last year, and now Velcade .

I don’t think I’d do another Sct , but who knows , right?

I’m just about done withThe Girl in the Ice“The Girl in the Ice”. The murder has taken place in Greenland, but the lead detective is from Copenhagen and mostly takes  place in Denmark, like the Henning Mankell books. It’s in the same style and it’s very good. I seem to really like these books taking place in Sweden, Norway, and that general area of the world.

Also, I’ve got “Simple Matters”Simple matters, to read but I’m waiting till I finish the other two. This looks like a very nice book.

The Ancestral Table,The Ancestral Table, is a paleo cookbook, but his take on Paleo is a little different and worth looking at. I don’t do Paleo because we like rice and beans and cheese but he adds some rice in and a little dairy.

That’s it in the books department.

Today is the celebration day. It’s day 1000 of walking every day. With sunrise now at 6:39 or so and daylight savings in 2 short weeks, we will be back to walking probably in the darkish. I don’t mind as long as it’s not freezing. Right now our weather has been quite nice. yesterday it was 70 degrees. Well, I guess we just keep walking!

Yesterday I got called to jury duty at the last minute. It was Friday so I was annoyed. Not that I can serve anyway since I’m on weekly chemo, butI still didn’t get out of there till 9:45 as all the beginning court stuff had to happen. Actually, I’d like to be on a jury ,but can’t right now.

Then my daughter and I did our first cruiser bike ride. We drove to the American river Bike trail. Some of my light gears weren’t working so I had to walk a few hills, but it was fun. Boy, though, this trail is really  popular and very well used. I’m a little sore today, but nothing unusual or painful. So that’s positive. I’m going to try and go there this week too. It took only about 25 minutes to get there.

This week my infusion is on Thursday ,not Wednesday, so I’ll go back to Costco for a few things. B is driving so I don’t have to take the old van!!!

We went to the farmers market as I was inspired by this new book I’m reading”An Everlasting Meal” by Tamar Adler. 

An Everlasting Meal

She has really great food ideas, meals and overall funny stuff about food. But she talked about prepping all vegetables after going to the farmers market. So I bought carrots, beets, onions, spring garlic, lots of lettuce and some other things.

If you love to read about food and recipes and food this is worth buying.

I’ve been on Jury call all week, and its been APITA. Every day at 4:30 its log on to the court site and check. My biggest concern was getting called Wednesday morning when I was scheduled for my Velcade shot. It worked out, but today is Dex day and I still need to call about tomorrow. WTF.  Hope it works out and I’m not scheduled. Mu daughter and I are going to try out our new cruisers on the American Rive r Bike trail. It’s about a 30-minute drive to get there but it’s the closest option. I can’t really ride too much  but I’m ging to try maybe 5 miles. Then were going to get lunch somewhere. Should be a nice day

The taxes are done and well owe @ $4000. This is because we sold that stock last year and it wasn’t taxed. But this is the first year we’ve been able to deduct medical and that was a big reduction. With my Invisalign at almost $6000 and then the medical copays for my bone marrow biopsy, the second opinion in Seattle, it added up. Plus we kept very detailed donation slips from Goodwill and used them. I need to just go over one last time. Pay for Turbotax set the withdrawal dates and were good to go. I’m thinking 2 payments but I may stick to the original 4. Not sure yet. We have property tax due to next month so,I’ll have to play with the numbers.

WE went to Costco after my shot and did a stock up shop. canned goods, TP, soap, some meat stuff, cheese and more. There was more on my list but it can wait till next time.

Today, a dex day, I’m going to tidy the house, and a few other things. I decluttered another cabinet and threw away an enormous amount of outdated vitamins I thoughtI’d just done it a few months ago, but obviously, I missed some. I’m going to do another cabinet and the maybe go out to the barn. I have a stack of magazines to go and would like to get a few more.

Dinner is polenta with black bean chili and a salad.

Cooking from the freezer is going well, I used two things yesterday and will use a few more today.my Catherine holm collection, one of the few midcentury things I’m still completely in love with. Very hard to find. really only on Ebay.

We’re really close to our goal of 1000 days of walking. The target date is next Sunday. I will update on the big day. I use Runtastic to time my walks and record them. It actually says I have 1010 activities, but there have been a few times when I put it on twice so it’s not quite accurate. I n other fun news B went and bought me a cruiser bike. I have a really nice Trek I got for Mothers day@ 8 years ago. I love it but it’s a mountain bike and you lean forward. So that’s hard on my arms. The cruiser is where the handle bars are high so no leaning into the handlebars. I’m hoping it works for me, not that I can do tons of biking, but maybe I can build up. In our area,there are no separate bike paths. There’s one in theTahoe area, lots actually ,but of course, they’re not open now. And there’s one called the American River bike trail. Very nice, but about 45 minutes away so not a daily bike ride.  I use to ride my Trek by the side of the road in our area, but its way dangerous the way people drive.

I’ve been working on a monthly menu plan for March.  Almost done. I’m trying to have 2 nights a week that are the same every week. Bean, rice bowls(like Chipotle) with chicken, or beef or veggie, with avocado, lettuce sour cream olives.  The other is Friday night pizza.

Either homemade or take out. Then a pasta night? we don’t always eat pasta once a week so, not sure about that. A soup night. We love different soups so maybe I’ll add that as a regular weekly one.

Still working on our taxes. There’s no hurry since we know we owe, but I ‘d like to wrap it up this week. The big hold up is the 1099B . we have the 1099 R but there should be a B also, at least, we think. Since there was a small loss on the stock we sold , we think it could lower the tax we owe.

Well, dinner is a new recipe I found for stuffing and chicken breasts in the crock pot. Plus I have a Gardein (veggie) turkey roll for B. I’ll run to the store for some cranberry sauce later.

This was one of my best selling magazines I had. It went for $80 dollars. That actually was kinda cheap. It was one of my raining

It was one of my raining on my walk and then it even hailed a few minutes. We’re on the countdown to 1000 days of walking. I miscalculated and thought it was this week but it’s next.

Yesterday went well. Doctor visit was good as there was no new news since I’d had all the labs last week while he was on vacation.  He offered to cut my dex, since dex is what is hard to take plus its clearly affecting my eyes with this gland blockage, but I want to wait till this 3rd cycles over and then maybe go down to 16, then 12 or even lower if I can. Dex is not a good thing to be on the long term and I’ve been on very long.

Today was my lunch day with the Friends but I decided not to go and do some cooking(meat sauce for spaghetti and then tidy some and a couple of readers were interested in some magazines, so I was going to go out to the barn and see if I have them.

I’d love to pass them along:)

Budget is looking slim but manageable. B will get a bonus in March and that what keeps us going. We will have property taxes due  and federal. The federal we will do payments. so it won’t ‘hurt ‘ too bad. Well, it will be what are you going to do?

Well, off to do some laundry and then check on magazines.

It is going to be a very beautiful day here in the Sierra foothills. Like 75 degrees. But tomorrow a storm is coming in and the temperature is going to drop to low 50’s. Wind and rain… I have to drive to Sacramento, so I’m hoping I can get there and home before it gets too yucky. I see the doctor tomorrow, so it’s a longer appt time and then my sub q shot.

Everyone is off working today or Z is off to school. So I’m going to tidy the house and then go drop a thrift store load off. I have some more Life magazines to give. If there’s anyone who reads my blog and would like these, they’re free. Just would need some postage money. Some are 1958 and some 60’s. I’m working on trying to get my magazines down to just 4 bins. I made alot of money from this collection so now it’s the left overs plus the ones I want to keep, Kennedy assination, MLKing assinations etc.

Menu for today is split pea soup wtih ham in the crock pot.

My daughter and I went to the nursery to get some seedlings. We picked up 4 pony packs of onions, chard and collards.  Also a few more rosemary plants, I think are going to a new bed. Plus some tomato seeds for her to start. She’s really the gardener now. I’m more,’oh look, let’s get that’.  our weather has been really nice and things are beginning to pop. We still have a long way to go until its really gardening time and in March were ordering some  manure for the gardens.

Our bulbs are all coming up and at Costco, I saw some nice lily bulbs for a great price I’d like to back and get before their gone. I’ll go Wednesday after my doctor appt and infusion.

Tonight we ‘re having ‘Drunken noodles’. Not sure why there called this since it’s just tofu and noodles with bell peppers and chile? but that’s what’s on the menu.

Today, at Grocery Outlet and the nursery, I used cash. I will use cash till payday since I don’t want to touch our checking acct. It’s always good to use cash since it makes you so aware of what you’re buying. the budget is tight till payday so probably a good thing.

We watched the season finale of Downton Abby and it was great. No spoilers  but they did a great job ending the series. What a geat period series.

It almost more than I can bear. One of my dearest myeloma cyber friends is on life support. He had endured so much in the last 6 months, undergoing two salvage stem cell transplants. These were very hard on him especially the second. A few days ago he was admitted to the hospital with a fever, but things got worse when they discovered his kidneys failing. As Pat said, he never had kidney problems so this was a big surprise. But that’s not the worse. What they discovered was a rare blood problem, where blood clots were forming in veins and not letting oxygen thru to the organs. He also had a brain hemorrhage and became unresponsive.

Pat Killingsworth is a myeloma hero to us all. He worked tirelessly for us all. He wrote a blog post every day to keep us informed of new drugs, trial, his own issues and more. He was a wonderful friend and husband and fur daddy to Finnegan and quite a lot of cats.

I just cannot believe he is gone.

Okay, last night was pretty tough. My son and his best 3 friends decided to go up to the snow. His one friend has a fancy  4 wheel drive with lots of extras.  Fast forward  to 10:30 pm, when I get woken by one of the moms calling and leaving a message, that the kids weren’t home yet. I didn’t think too much about it, well, a little, but my son Zephyr is often out quite late. So forward to 12:30 am, and another phone call. This time, I pick up and its the Nevada County sheriff calling( okay, the heart stops for a minute), whether we know where the boys went. No, only up to the snow. Okay, I start freaking out. No cell service up there. Phones turned off.  Okay, really freaking out with, of course, the worst case scenarios. There’s have been an accident, someone’s hurt…

A few phone calls to the one mom and then a very, very very long night.

No sleeping here. Finally around 4 , I fall asleep till maybe 5:45. No calls. So finally I call the mom, and she says they’re getting the helicopter up to go look in this quite remote area…… wait ,wait, wait……..

And wait…. Finally, my son calls at 10:30am….. They’re out of the snow bank and on the way home. Okay… I am too old for this. I think I aged another 10 years over night. .. Okay maybe more.

Well, he got home and I gave him a big hug and said I love you. And you are never going to the snow again ( ha ha ha)!

So tonight , I’m going to bed early, as is my husband  and my daughter and hopefully my sweet 6 ‘4″” son. I love you Zephyr!!