Tag Archives: cancer

Thankful Thursday

Posted in California, cancer, Gratitude, Myeloma by

It’s Thanksgiving Day so lots to be thankful for:

For B doing well after Chemo. It’s early days yet but still, it’s nice to feel things normal. It’s around day 10 that the drops happen. The chemo was reduced some so maybe he’ll not have as big of a drop. Still, I’m thankful for the chemo working even though it’s a very difficult drug. (Cisplatin).

I’m thankful my 2 children are healthy and happy. They both help us so much. S is around to do extra stuff we need done and I’m beyond thankful for that.

I’m thankful my cancer is staying steady with my light chains in the normal range. My ratio is slightly out of range but not by much.

I’m thankful I can walk in the mornings and enjoy the early morning sunrises.

I’m thankful that we have SS and it pays our bills. Since we still have a mortgage that’s a big deal. We probably couldn’t afford to live somewhere else unless we rented and then that would just be using money from selling this. We don’t want to do that at all so here we stay. My son is putting in some railings by our deck and the sunroom for safety.

I hope this day finds you as well as can be and what are you thankful for?

Thankful Thursday( late) and Frugal Friday

Posted in Blood test, books, budgets, California, cancer, frugalism, Gratitude, husband, peritoneal mesothelomia, Political things, Walking by

Yesterday was busy so I didn’t get anything written. I had to be down at infusion by 8:30am so needed to leave early. I did get my walk in first thing and that was nice. I’m thankful, I am still walking even though B isn’t. With his numbers so down he doesn’t have the energy.:(

I’m thankful infusion went ok. They are great nurses for sure. I noticed though there weren’t curtains to pull around the chairs which is odd for infusion rooms. All the UCD infusion chairs have some kind of curtain for privacy.

After infusion, I went to the library to pick up my holds. I am thankful for the Martha Riley Library as it is a wonderful community space.

I didn’t really have any enthusiasm to go to the gym. After that, I went back down to Winco. I finally saw where the new Trader Joe’s is and funny, it’s right down from Winco. But you can’t see it right off as the gas station blocks the view. It looks to be a bigger one than the Rocklin one so I’ll check it out next time I swim.

I’m thankful this fall has been colorful with leaves turning all shades of yellows, golds and some reds. Other than that, this week is really a downer if I’m honest.

Frugal-wise, it was ok. I didn’t really do a whole lot. All of the first-of-the-month bills are paid. There’s a little left over to get through till the end of the month. There’s Thanksgiving and so I’ll need a few more groceries for that. I ordered the Diestal turkey roast to be delivered on Nov 21. They are not cheap, but local and I’ve had good luck cooking them.

I spent $125 at Winco, $25 was on wine, so $100 was on food. I also filled the car up at Costco gas so that is a big $$ savings.

Today is a Dex day so it’s home for me. Barclay’s platelets have tanked so he’s going in for more labs this morning and hopefully scheduled for infusion. this is day 10. so we’re starting to hit the real downtime (days 10-15). He’s much better this cycle but still, there’s the platelets dropping. His hemoglobin is doing ok, but I think this is the period too where that started dropping. Fingers crossed it doesn’t.

My son is coming up today to work on a few things. If B needs an infusion tomorrow he could take him and my daughter go get him. We need the labs to come in till we know and the doctor says his platelets need to be under 50 for transfusion. I guess what she was saying is this is UCD policy. What a crock of shit. If it’s only going to keep going down and that means an ER visit, he knows he’s at 90 so why wait??? Doesn’t make any sense.

I’m still committed to not watching the news, it’s kind of a relief really. I know how I am with stuff that upsets me so much, so I feel this is a good thing for me right now. For how long? Who knows??

Monday Morning

Posted in Blood test, California, cancer, husband, peritoneal mesothelomia by

We at least had an ok Sunday.

I didn’t even walk or go to the gym. I think I just needed a total day to recuperate from the ER visit. It’s such a strange world to go into. Even though we have these doctor/medical things, we rarely have experienced ER’s. Thank Goodness, as it was pretty awful. I mean UCD ER is probably one of the top-rated in N Ca but still.

Anyway, the nose bleeds are back which means the platelets are down again. It’s not as bad as last time but he needs to get labs this morning and then call the doctor. Then hopefully schedule him for more platelets tomorrow?? My back up plan is if they want him to go back to ER then my daughter will take him, drop him off and then I’ll go get him when he’s done. I certainly hope it doesn’t come to that but I need a plan.

My guess is he’ll go to infusion for the platelets but it does depend on how far they dropped.

I’m off to get my labs this morning too, so once again my daughter will have to drive B to the lab. Then I’m going to drive to Roseville and go to the gym, library, and then home. I need to go to the bank for my LLS insurance printout but I can do that after everything. My insurance is covered by LLS and it’s a lot of money( to us) so that needs to be submitted a certain way to get paid.

My son came up yesterday and visited. I think he’s pretty stressed about his Dad. He’s taking on all the big projects with my daughter helping. So he did all the outside trim on the bathroom window that hadn’t been done. And then he even painted the wood.

My daughter will be fixing the drainage under the bathroom ( in the crawl space) so water doesn’t pool in there this winter. There’s always so much to do this time of year and without B doing it, it really does add up.

It’s a really hard time right now and we can only hope for the best.

Stanford Medical Center

Posted in California, cancer, Death, husband by

We got home quite late last night after the worst drive I’ve ever had. We left around 1pm after B had labs done.

From there, it was bumper-to-bumper traffic all the way to Livermore. Then it started all over again. Traffic was so congested on the freeway that I was completely shocked. Was this normal Friday traffic? Then it continued even as we got on 5 north. Then apparently an accident kept traffic at a crawl ALL the way to Sacramento. It was horrendous.

But to go back to the beginning. The Medical Center is certainly state of the art. Beautiful and so big.

We did have a nice drive down with only 3 tiny slowdowns. We got to Palo Alto Stanford Medical Centre by 12:45. Since our appt was 2 we had lots of time to relax and regroup. Dr. Lee had his Resident doctor come in first to go over things and then he came in. He’s the surgeon who does the Hipec. So he planned out, first Barclay will do 3-4 rounds of the chemo. Then sometime in the third round a PET scan to see if the tumors are smaller. Then if the chemo has worked he will do a laparoscopy on his abdomen to look at the tumors with a camera. Depending on all that it might be surgery after that. It’s all a bit iffy at this point.

We left feeling positive and confident he is the leading expert in this field in N.California.

We headed over to the hotel and checked in. It was almost 4 by then and we we’re pretty tired so we rested a bit. Oh, we had stepped at Safeway to get something to snack on. We had seen a Mexican place on our way to the hotel so we shared a dinner there around 7. We were quite tired by then and just watched a little TV before lights out.

The next morning we headed back over and parked by 10 am. His appointment was at 11. But, then the appt was late and we only got in to see Dr. Neal’s NP at almost 12noon. I was definitely feeling annoyed as I wanted to get on the road. But after running through everything AGAIN with the NP, he went out and discussed things with Dr. Neal. So Dr. Neal is the leading expert on Peritoneal Mesothelioma. He was quite honest and straightforward that there is no cure and the best they can do is lengthen his life with the chemo and the Hipec if he’s eligible. I appreciated his candor. He talked about lots of other things but the main jist is 3-4 rounds chemo. Hopefully getting the tumors smaller and stabilized. He certainly wasn’t a warm and fuzzy kind of guy but more to the point. I liked him for that though especially when he said, it doesn’t matter where it came from the point is to go from here to help you live longer. He sees mesothelioma patients all the time so I guess he’d know.

So then we left feeling positive for the most part. I mean there is going to be some difficult times ahead but that’s then.

So then came the worst drive of my life home and I’m not kidding. But we got home safely at least.

Today, B has to go pick up about a zillion prescriptions. One of the prescriptions has a huge copay and we said no way are we bankrupting ourselves for this, so the patient advocate is filling out something for the financial aid? or grant? I ‘m not sure what, but I know we’re not doing it.

Today is just a regroup day and plan out next week with Barclay’s first chemo on Wednesday.

Midweek

Posted in budgeting, budgets, California, cancer, Gardening, plants by

I’m off to Sacramento this morning. After my appointment, I plan on going to Costco and picking up a few things. I need coffee, maple syrup, and some other random things. I just love not doing huge shops, it makes it so much easier for me. Plus I’m in and out in half an hour.

Our weather has been picture perfect for August. It’s been a little warm in the afternoons but with the angle of the sun it isn’t as intense. And by evening it cools way down. The garden is almost done. I have another box of tomatoes to process and I think that’s probably it. We had a great crop. Our peppers did not do well which is unusual.

Yesterday, we went to the nursery and I picked up some pots to split a very big spider plant. I also picked a larger pot for my ficus. Pots are expensive which seems weird. We also filled the VW with gas. Then we went to Panera for a snack but it was almost 11am so I had my favorite broccoli cheddar soup. Yumm

Simple Sunday

Posted in bread, California, cancer, cooking by

We had RAIN! Such a surprise! It started yesterday morning @ 4am and kept going off and on till about 11 am. It was so nice.

I’m back from the gym and working on doing my folds in the cheddar/jalapeno sourdough. One more fold and I’ll put it in the bucket to do the bulk fermentation. The house is chilly so it could take all day. I have some chicken I want to use up. It was kind of a mistake order from Walmart a while ago. It’s not super great quality so I think I’ll put it in the IP with some seasoning and see how it turns out.

This week I have 2 appts. The dentist for a cleaning and then Dr. Laptalo. After the dentist, I might go down to the Roseville gym and the library. It’ll be too late to try and swim. We’ll see. I’ve been so uncommitted to things lately. I wonder where that is coming from? That’s definitely not my usual M.O.

No other news from cancer world. He did get a call from a UCD oncologist’s office and made an appointment. But it’s really only like an info appt not about treatment per se. We’ll do it because that may be the doctor who does follow-up after Stanford. But right now we don’t know that.

Here’s a Gus picture:

And here’s Chester

Simple Sunday

Posted in Blood test, California, cancer, cooking, Death, Walking by

A wonderful walk this morning. Cool air and only us. Whenever I’m on DEX I can walk a little more since Dex masks arthritis. So we did 2 miles.

Of course, now Dex will wear off and I’ll see how my knee is 🙂

I decided to go to the gym since I don’t have any major cooking to do or house stuff. It was pretty mellow with only a few people.

For dinner last night I made up the honey garlic tofu again with jasmine rice and a salad. It was just as delicious. Tonight, I’m going to try the frozen tofu and bread it and make a tofu parmesan. This block I cut horizontally. I have leftover Rao’s sauce and mozzarella to use.

This week I have labs, swim, a gym time and that’s it unless B gets a call from UCD. If he does we will take the appointment as we’d like to get the chemo or whatever it’s going to be going.

So after the team of doctors met to discuss his case, they decided to do more testing on the first biopsied tissue, and the answer was revealed. Unfortunately, it is very rare, Peritoneal Mesothelioma. It knocked us for a loop. He’s never been around asbestos but apparently, there can be other causes? what, I’m not sure. The doctor who was doing this diagnosis has also referred him to Stanford. This is a pretty grim diagnosis and incurable so facing us is what time do we have. It’s hard to get this processed and I’m sure we will be going through a lot of emotions. I tend to freeze up emotionally and/or shut down so I’ll need to work on that. Well, at least we know.

That’s all I’ve got today.

Quick Update:

Posted in California, cancer, Uncategorized by

The doctor put on urgent on the PET scan and lo and behold he got a call yesterday to come in and get the PET scan this morning. So he’s off to UCD at 7:30. This is important as the radioactive dye lights up the cancer and it should help locate the origin. So even though this a shit deal for Barclay to have to go through, maybe we’ll have some answers by early next week.

On a positive note, my labs came back with kappa in the NORMAL RANGE at 19.2 so exciting. My ratio was out of range though at 1.76 ( high normal is 1.65). The reason for this is if Lambda also goes down the ratio between the two goes up. But I’m grateful this is ok now since we have so much to deal with and as soon as he starts treatment there will be lots of trips to infusion. I need to be strong enough to get through this. My daughter and son can also drive him if needed. She’s taking him Friday for the colonoscopy so that’ll give me the morning home.

Thankful Thursday

Posted in California, cancer, cooking, Gratitude, home stuff, knee injury, Political things, swimming, Walking by

Still no biopsy results. My guess is someone dropped the ball as to who was going to call. Tomorrow is his NP video appt so we’ll know then. Still, I hate to go into the things uninformed. Because he doesn’t have the oncologist yet, and his PC didn’t do anything, I’m guessing the results are just sitting there waiting for someone to release them.PITA>

I’m grateful at least he has the appt tomorrow. I’ll sit in and hear what is being said.

My doctor is on his way to Croatia so I think my labs are going to be stuck in cyber space too. He’s gone for 2 weeks. I may call down there and ask that another doctor release the labs.

I’m thankful our temperatures are finally dropping out of the 100’s. since we just had the 2 hottest days on record, I think heat waves like this will be the norm:( But wait, Republicans think climate change is a hoax. Remember the movie ‘Day after tomorrow’, when it’s too late, it’ll be too late.

I’m grateful my sourdough starter is working perfectly. I had made at least 3 loaves that didn’t bake right and looked up why. First, the starter needs to be robust and second, the bulk fermentation phase is the most important. So I was underproofing the dough. I’m quite pleased with the loaves I’m getting.

I am thankful I had a good swim yesterday. I got there a little later than usual, and it was mellow. I still shared a lane but that’s ok.

I’m grateful my daughter loves gardening and right now I’m processing another pan of tomatoes for sauce. Since this is a water bath process, I don’t worry too much about exact quantities because it’s just tomatoes. If this was a meat sauce or a pressure canned recipe exact measurements are necessary. I like the baking of the tomatoes as the skins come right off.

I’m grateful to be walking in the park. It’s been almost a year since my torn ACL and meniscus. So I’m really happy to just be walking. It’s still not a lot but that’s ok. On any given day I do between 2-3 miles. So I’m good with that. If I could do more I would.

Here’s giant Gus and his momma, Ciri.

Finally, I’M INCREDIBLY GRATEFUL THAT KAMALA HARRIS IS THE NOMINEE. I THINK WE CAN BEAT THE ORANGE GUY, WHO NOW IS THE OLD MAN:)

Is 2020 over yet?

Posted in camping, cancer, cooking, covid-19, Myeloma, Political things, travel, Uncategorized by

What we have 15 days left till January 1st. Honestly, some things about 2020 were awful and some less awful. I’m an introvert in a house of mostly introverts(my son is pretty outgoing) so staying home wasn’t a biggie for me. Not being able to go on camping trips was an inconvenience especially with all the reservations I had and that are frankly a PITA to reserve. Going into stores just for a few things is a thing of the past except maybe our market at the bottom of our hill. Literally I could walk down there in 3 minutes. It would be the walk up that would do me in. Our driveway is probably a 45 degree angle. Okay maybe slightly less. I wonder how you could figure that out?? Anyone? with an engineering degree? The political shit was too much to bear and still is with Trump not conceding and still whining like a toddler that he didn’t get his way and the sycophants that should be removed from office for supporting him.

And I guess I can’t ignore that I’ve relapsed and cancer is back. So starting treatment in January 2021 may not be the best start to a new year. 😦

Well, anyway, I find myself somewhat depressed these days. Maybe it’s all the political crap finally taking its toll on me or not sleeping well or who the F*k knows. I’m sure that this too will pass at some point.

We have been having some nice walks in the early morning and haven’t seen the jerk for quite a while. I think he’s just taken to getting there earlier so as to avoid everyone that shows up a little later. That’s fine with me.

I’m half way thru the Obama book and some of the political stuff is a little over my head but some stuff is so poignant and really speaks to how much he cared about this country. The other book I’m reading that I picked up at the little free library at the park is Chris Bohjalian’s book ” the Guest Bedroom” . His books always have a controversial topic and this one is no exception. It’s about the sex slave traffic from Russia of under age girls. Pretty tough reading but well done. Maybe I need a cozy mystery next.

Last night we had chicken tortilla soup made in the Staub. It was quite good. I’m seriously loving this pot and would highly recommend. Actually, I think I saw the sale was still on ($99.00). I’m convinced it has something to do with how the top is made that is keeping the liquid from evaporating and just deepening the flavors.

Tonight’s dinner is unknown right now but probably something easy. I have salad stuff and maybe a pasta? Or I do have some chicken brats, that would work too.