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Hilly shot some video of Laura surprising us on Saturday morning. We haven't seen her for several months so this was a wonderful treat. Grandson Zach took the video, did some editing and added music for a fun visual memory of Dooney Surprise.
Where to begin?
Tom called and wondered if we’d like to join them at an Angels’ game on Saturday….Field Level seats! Sure!!!
Naomi called and said she wanted to come over Saturday morning …Evan needed to see his Nana! Well sure! Makes for a busy day but that’s great. Luckily, it was a weekend when we both felt really good.
So Saturday morning Naomi drives up with Evan, we go outside to greet them and around the corner comes daughter Laura, all the way from Montana and Hilly who was videoing the whole thing!! I was absolutely blown away. Usually I have some inkling when the kids are planning a surprise but I had NO CLUE on this one.
After the tears stopped flowing we had a great visit and then Tom and Renee came and whisked us away to the game. Seating was 6 rows up from the dugout between home and first! Wonderful. Angels’ lost but it was a very exciting game.
Son Jim volunteered to make pasta for dinner so we headed out to Renee’s where everyone gathered for the evening. Almost the whole family was there!
Sunday was our planned April birthday party for Renee and Brad so we all collected in the early afternoon for another party. About 2 PM I looked out the window and here comes Jimbo. Another long trip for him from San Luis Obispo but he couldn’t miss the party! Wow!!! It’s been a long time since we had this much family together. What an amazing, incredible feeling to be surrounded by so much love!
Tom cooked up a wonderful beer-can-chicken and ribs BBQ and everyone added a dish. I think we ended up with 16 or so for dinner. It was especially delicious to me because I could actually taste the ribs!
Kudos go to Naomi for being the elf behind the scenes making lots of arrangements and keeping lots of secrets! I couldn’t figure out why she was so insistent on coming down for breakfast on Saturday morning. I wasn’t the only one surprised! Laura arrived at Renee’s on Friday night and blew her away too!
Lots of laughter and tears of joy this weekend! Lots of hugs! AND a couple of great group pictures which I”ll post and a video that Hilly shot and Zach edited! More on that later!
We had a fun dinner with Tom and Renee on Saturday, celebrating Renee's birthday. They took us to Bubba Gump's Shrimp House where the waiter had to try 3 times to stump Tom on Forest Gump trivia questions. The best part of dinner to me was the Key Lime pie because it tasted just right.
Here's the birthday girl and her parentals...
I couldn't wait to get my wig off after dinner because my scalp was very itchy. Middle of the night I was up putting cold compresses on my itchy head. By morning, I realized it was more than my head and by noon on Sunday I was covered in hives!! Half a dozen times in my life I've had severe hives but his was about the worst. I thougth it wasn't serious as long as my breathing was OK but it was pretty damn uncomfortable. I considered going the the ER but couldn't bear the thought of sitting in the waiting room itching and scratching! Dumb move!!!
I took Benedryl every four hours, dozed through most of the day, trying to keep my hands off the hives, and called the doctor this morning. When I saw her at noon she got almost teary eyed and gave me a little lecture on waiting too long to do something. Seems she (or the ER) could have fixed me up pretty fast. 30 minutes of IV drip benedryl and steroids and I started feeling better. I actually had a 99 degree temp from the hive activity. By 4 PM I could barely feel the stinging, burning, itching, nasty hives.
What what caused it? Our best guess is the antibiotic I took last week (Levaquin). That makes four antibiotics I'm allergic to. We decided to drop the antibiotic regimen from the next round of chemo. It's given as a preventative measure but seems to give me more grief than benefit. I'll just need to monitor my temp closely to be sure I'm not getting a fever/ infection because my immune system is compromised for several days during chemo.
I'm feeling about a thousand percent better tonight and look forward to a good week!
Half way through chemo! The second round left me feeling not so bad physically but hit with really low energy and a lack of interest in doing much of anything. The last couple of days have been better so thought I'd just jot a note here to let you all know that we are surviving pretty well. We're driving, shopping, doing laundry, cooking when necessary and keeping things up to snuff around the house.
Overall, on a scale of 1-10, with ten being "I feel great" ....I probably never go below a 6. And that's only for a couple of days. Jim has been a rock, maintaining that he was just fine, until last night when he sat down and admitted to being very tired. So we just chilled out watching TV and reading; today we're ok.
I have to get some projects going here! I read a few fluffy books, then started in on another Outlander saga but I can only read so much. And TV is such a wasteland of nonsense to me. So what shall it be? Edit old movies? Scan slides? Crochet something? Ahhhh....decisions take such energy! Think I"ll just read!