Joan on the Road...of Life

The spaces here in Orangeland are not huge but are pretty well laid out. I'd guess they are about 45' long and maybe 25' wide. I took this shot below while Jim was out because the car is usually parked in front. The little patio area with the umbrella table and comfy chairs is pretty nice. I'm looking forward to warm mornings so we can sit outside with our tea.

We don't have the privacy that we had in Hemet where almost every site had hedges on both sides. But we do have lots of fruit trees here and guests are welcome to pick the oranges, grapefruit, lemons and limes. We need to take a bag out and harvest some grapefruit for breakfast :)

Posted by Joan at 04:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our RV Park is smack dab in the middle of Orange County, well, maybe not geographically, but certainly business and entertainment-wise. Here's a view of our location:

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You can move the map and zoom OUT and click on the markers to see what's what. Wouldn't it be nice if it were baseball season ? :)

Posted by Joan at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you tuned in here for RVing chatter you probably won't get much for awhile because we are parked for several months...either in Hemet or Orange, CA....due to my health issue. Breast cancer. This is sure not what I expected to be doing but that's life and I'm trying to make the best of what needs to be done.

I'm recovering nicely from the surgery and the doctor told me I can now do anything that feels comfortable. So I've taken off my princess crown and am back trying to do my share :) In the long run I'm going to be just fine, I' m sure.

In the short run I have some "doctoring" to do. This week I saw the medical Oncologist (chemo) and the Radiation oncologist for initial assessment visits. The chemo doc wants to do a further sophisticated test (oncotype DX) which determines the percent chance of distance recurrence of the cancer. That will take about 2 weeks. The results of that will help decide if I need to do chemo. So far the risk/benefit leans toward no chemo.

If chemo is recommended and I decide to do it that would take about 12 weeks. After that I will do 33 treatments of radiation. So in 2 weeks I'll know if my treatments will take 3 or 6 months.

We moved into Orange County to an RV park near Angels Stadium so that we're much closer to the hospital/doctors.The Upside is we are back in the fast life and lovely weather of OC :) Downside is the park rent is double what we paid in Hemet. And It looks like we moved here at least a month early. I just wanted to be closer during radiation. This is certainly a live and learn experience because we did not know that if I do chemo it would take place before the radiation. Oh Well...

I share all this with all of you because a couple of you have said you didn't want to bother me with questions in case things weren't going well. While I/we certainly have "down" times I absolutely know that in 6 months I'll be through all this and we'll be on the road again. My goal is to make each day of the 6 months be a good, special day in some way...small celebrations, mini tours, laughter, movies, walking, biking, new recipes, taking pictures and smiling.

I am so lucky to have a great family and friend support system and to have my special Jim to help me through all this. He now has a 3-ring binder filled with all my medical info, reports, questions, etc. Today the doctor asked what Jim did before he retired. I said, "Guess!" He looked at Jim and the binder and said, "Engineer."

I hope to do some interesting things here in OC that I can share with you. Even after living here for 27 years I'm sure there's stuff to do that we missed out on. But tonight...I'm up for a movie and popcorn :)

Posted by Joan at 05:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's two weeks since I had surgery, two weeks of being a princess with my every wish taken care of...nothing to do but relax and recover. To occupy my brain I've been into a "book a day." But I've not been in the mood for intellectually challenging books so I've read a lot of "girl meets guy" stuff in various venues. But that grows old and I was happy to tackle The Birdcage by Marcia Willett. The setting is England and although it's still boy meets girl the language is lovely. I was really lost in this book all day Sunday.

Being lost in books I don't think about what's for dinner, floors need vacuuming, bathroom needs cleaning, lamps need dusting. Jim does all these things very willingly but needs to be reminded on occasion. Yesterday he went shopping for dinner stuff and was going to bring home a deli meatloaf. Instead, he got a pound of dover sole. Now what do we do with that. It seemed too hard to describe to him how to cook that so I took off my crown and sauteed it up with butter, lemon and capers. Jim added a homemade Ceasar Salad and specialty bread dipped in olive oil. A pretty good meal.

Today I'll probably dive into another book. If I don't have something to occupy my brain I quickly sink into worry-wart mode. Believe me there's enough out there to worry about and if there's not I'm pretty good at making up scenarios. I have to keep telling myself that worry is a useless emotion...unless I can do something about it and usually I can't. Anyway....I'm still a princess for a few more days and a princess should not have to worry :)

Posted by Joan at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One more piece of good news from the doctor today. "Clear margins" is what you want to hear in the pathology report and that's what I got. All the bad stuff plus surrounding good stuff was removed. Next step is probably radiation starting later this month. So I continue to enjoy my recuperation (vacation Jim calls it). No dishwashing, laundry, cooking, bedmaking, vacuuming for me! Just lead the life of leisure.

My friend, Char, contributed to that today, sending me a box of Shari's Berries. Chocolate covered strawberries decorated with pink ribbons. It was the perfect celebration gift to find on our doorstep when we got home! Yummmmmmmy! Thanks so much, Char. Picture me reclining in my rocker with strawberry juice running down my chin and my eyes glazed over from chocolate joy.

We had lunch with son Jim and then stopped at an RV Park in Orange to pick out a space to move to later this month. This way we'll be much closer to the hospital for the radiation treatments, 5 days a week for 6 weeks.
I'm not looking forward to that routine nor paying the pricey space rental. But the central OC location will be fun with lots of stuff to do and friends nearby.

Right now it's on to a movie....Fargo...to help us remember why we like to be in SoCal at this time of year :)

Posted by Joan at 06:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well not really :) But I did wash my hair, put on some makeup and lipstick (thanks Donna Jean) and took a walk around the block. Came back and, see Mom, I'm perfectly fine!

Yesterday we watched the Rose Parade and wondered how many thousands of people would decide to move to SoCal. We're having lovely weather though a bit on the cool side. Too cool for me to sit outside but the folks here from Canada are sure enjoying it. We laugh when we see them sitting outside in the sun in shorts because to us it's just not warm yet. Give me 70 degrees.

I tried watching a little TV yesterday but kept falling asleep in the middle of the show. Finally got in a full movie at dinnertime,. (Thanks Jim! We watched Amelie.) Then I was off to snooze land again so finally gave up and went to bed about 10. I actually got my first good nights sleep in a long time. No stress, no Vicodan...just good sleep.

Now after my brief walk I'm ready for another nap. (Good idea, Carla) I'll just turn on the TV and I'm sure to fall asleep

Posted by Joan at 02:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Happy New Year to you all! 2009 has got to be a great year. Two important things will happen this year. Our grandson Zachary will graduate from high school AND Jim and I will celebrate 50 years of marriage. That's two great celebrations...June and August!

Yes! I'm back home after just 12 hours in the hospital. My breast lumpectomy went well. The good news is that cancer has not spread to lymph nodes. We'll know the complete story next week after pathology but the doctor was very pleased with the results of surgery.

Amazingly, I'm not in much pain. And I'm taking full advantage of the doctor's orders to do nothing for a week. So Jim gets to wait on me totally. I can live with that for a little while;) We have a stack of movies to watch and today there are lots of "marathons" on TV. Currently I'm watching the Twilight Zone. Never was another show like it!

I may have to take a short nap here soon so bye for now. Thanks to you all for your notes, comments and support :).

Posted by Joan at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)