Joan on the Road...of Life

Another family birthday party ....this time for Great Grandson Evan Patrick. We all had a fun time paying homage to the little guy! He got lots of nice gifts including a snazzy bike from Mom and Dad. The favored gift at the party was a cheapy auto car carrier that Evan's Papa bought for him. Here's a picture (thanks Elaine) of Evan opening cards! You'd think he can read...not quite.

Evan had a Transformer cake with black frosting so everyone ended up with black teeth...pretty funny!

All is well here at the home front. Bruiser the bike rider is doing fine. The scraped knee is healing well, the bruised hip is getting less sore, the blood counts are good! Tomorrow we get the results from the CAT scan...keeping our fingers and toes crossed.

As I write Mr. Big Puff the hummingbird is sitting on a twiggy tree fending off all little hummers who dare to come by for a drink. He ruffles up his feathers and dive bombs any bird who comes near. He'll keep this up for an hour or so then he goes off and all the little guys come to sit on the feeder ring and slurp. Whap!!! What's that? The diving birds just hit the side of the motorhome!

Posted by Joan at 08:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

About half way through our morning bike ride I noticed a formation of old planes above us so I pointed them out to Jim. He looked up and couldn't see them, continued looking and looking....until kerplap!!! He veered off the road into a graveled space and fell off his bike.

Scraped knee and ...oops a painful hip! Oh No!! Actually, I said many four letter words. We rode home where I cleaned off the knee and it doesn't look too bad. Surface scrapes with lots of loose skin. Lucky for Jim the cuts stopped bleeding pretty fast. I was about ready to bean him with the nearest skillet.

We had a couple of cups of coffee and a light breakfast while contemplating what else to do. I had to practically tie him to a chair to keep him still with knee elevated. After a few ups and downs I encouraged him to consider checking in with a doctor to see about the hip. I wasn't too worried about the knee scrape. (Although Renee, we did recall your infected knee adventure on our Michigan vacation long ago :)

We decided to go to Urgent Care just to get the knee checked out. Amazingly, we were done with both the doctor visit and the Xray in an hour!! Incredible! Doctor doesn't think anything is wrong with the hip, just bruised but better to be safe than sorry. Xray results later today.

For my patience and good nature I was rewarded with lunch at Appleby's. That was nice and relaxing. A glass of Merlot, spinach appetizer and grilled shrimp on spinach salad. A very Mediterranean style meal. Jim is now comfy in his lounger watching TV. Maybe that will keep his mind occuped and he'll stick to his chair.

Oh and yesterday's health adventure included getting a platelet transfusion (that's why the knee didn't bleed today). Half way through the transfusion process the disaster alarms went off in the Cancer Center and all the patients were evacuated to the parking lot! Yikes! I was not impressed with the evacuation process and will be talking to the people in charge. It took them several minutes to decide that they should actually pay attention to the screaming alarms! Maybe I should get back in my training mode and give them a class on emergency response!

Posted by Joan at 03:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We've sure enjoyed this week off from daily doctor trips but today the respite ends. We'll be heading out in a bit for Jim's hopefully last chemo session. In the next week or so he'll have another CAT scan and next steps will be decided. We are both feeling fine...nice and relaxed.

Yesterday we put up a hummingbird feeder and I'm enjoying the flittering wings by my window. This feeder has a nice perch so the little guys sit still while they drink and I have a "birds eye" view of them. I'd forgotton how nice it is to have this little connection to nature. We've decided against having a pet so these little critters, the birds and bunnies, will have to do.

We bought a new crockpot because the old one had a bad seal between the lid and crock. Never could get it seated quite right. And God forbid Jim should open it to check out the meal...he never got it back in place. Our first meal in the new pot was a 7-bone pot roast with carrots and onions. Oh My!!! We ate most of the roast. Just enough left for a soup-like meal for Jim's lunch. It was delicious.

I'm on hiatus from morning bike rides because my knees were hurting so much. The problem is that I don't know if the hurt is from just old-age achiness or from the new meds I'm taking. I don't think I ever wrote about the pill I'm supposed to take for 5 years, post cancer treatments. My type of cancer is treated with radiation, chemo and then hormone therapy in the form of aromatase inhibitors. This is a pill taken daily for 5 years that blocks the production of estrogen which in my case promoted the growth of cancer.

I've tried three versions of the pill and have experienced the achiness side effect. Last week I put the doctor under the third degree...do I really have to take this pill. I hate taking daily medications! She showed me statistics and charts that convinced my I should do this. It's all very iffy and scary but I choose to think, every day, that I HAD cancer. Been there, done that.

Now my challenge is to do the few things that prevent recurrence. Hormone therapy, lose weight, limit alcohol, and exercise. Whew! That's a challenge. No more Ding Dongs for me :)

My current book (when not on Facebook and Farmtown) is Roads to Quoz by William Least-Heat Moon. He writes about his travels (Blue Roads) in very miniscule detail. This is one of the rare books that has a word I don't know on just about every page. Yikes! It's a slow read because his sentences are complex and the words are all 4 syllable (did I spell that right?). But for an RVer it's an interesting read. Makes me think about how to approach our travels. Shall we follow a river? Look for towns with strange names? Stop at every BBQ joint? Food for thought.

As I sit here writing I'm watching the bird feeder. It's only been up for 12 hours and I already have a dominant bird sitting on a little tree scaring off all the other hummingbirds! He's funny! Gets all puffed up and attacks any approaching hummingbird, then sits on the perch and has a drink!

Posted by Joan at 07:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The weather has been cooling down every day by a few degrees so today's high will just be low 90s. What a wonderful relief. We've been going for a bike ride every morning while the coffee brews and then sitting outside in our cozy corner enjoying the cool breeze and breakfast.

Yesterday we were pampered by Naomi and Brad who invited us over for spaghetti dinner. Renee, Tom and Hilly were there too so it was a little party. Evan had to show us his train track building skills and he didn't want any advice from his Grandpas. He's learning about jokes so I asked him what you do if you hurt your toe....call a toe truck of course. He giggled and then was able to retell the joke later.

Little did I know that son Jim broke his toe yesterday. Big owie. Not much you can do with a broken toe but tape it to another toe and hope it heals quickly. I doubt Jim would appreciate the toe joke :)

Evan is also starting to play games so we did a round of FISH. The most fun for him was telling us to "go fish!" Someone called me Joan while we were playing and Evan said, "She's not Joan, she's Nana!" We could not convince him otherwise.

The spaghetti was great, with sauce cooked in the crockpot all day. We devoured the whole pot along with two loaves of french bread, salad and topped it off with brownies and icecream. Thanks kids!

I'm managing to keep occupied with FarmTown, Angels baseball, scanning pictures and reading. I remodeled my farm which took a lot of hours, sometimes tedious but I enjoyed it. The Angels are struggling currently to maintain their lead in the division. It seems they can't have good pitching and hitting at the same time. Not much more baseball left so I've got to enjoy it all while I can.

My picture scanning seems to me like it will never be done! I'm doing 1987 pictures which is the time frame for grandbabies being born. So the pix are fun to scan....lots of great memories. Maybe I should post a golden oldie here once in awhile.

Posted by Joan at 01:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted by Joan at 08:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On the way home from the doctor/ blood checks yesterday we decided to stop for more tomatoes at a veggie stand in Yorba Linda. This takes us about 20 minutes out of our way but the quality veggies are well worth it.

As we neared the veggie stand Jim wondered when the stands would be closing. We figured early October. Well Damn! We came up the hill to the stand corner and the whole lot is empty....plowed over. No sign the stand ever existed there :) Oh well...there goes our yummy bruschetta, capelline pomodoro, tomato and mayo sandwiches. "Til next summer :)

Jim's blood counts were good, platelets have bounced back nicely. So chemo 3 is on for today. Then we get a whole week off!!! What will we do? Just keep Jim away from dangerous things is my thought!

Posted by Joan at 08:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I gave my self an attitude adjustment and decided to smile :) Remember this song:

Gray skies are gonna clear up,
Put on a happy face;
Brush off the clouds and cheer up,
Put on a happy face.
Take off the gloomy mask of tragedy,
It's not your style;
You'll look so good that you'll be glad
Ya' decide to smile!
Pick out a pleasant outlook,
Stick out that noble chin;
Wipe off that "full of doubt" look,
Slap on a happy grin!
And spread sunshine all over the place,
Just put on a happy face!

It's not quite that easy but we do choose our attitude. So we are looking at this whole health adventure as a JOB. Our job is to get to the doctor as needed and get through this! We can do that.

Today...heat relief!!! Just 10 degrees cooler but what a nice change. We went for a bike ride, had our coffee and coffee cake outside and now I just put out a crockpot of BBQ ribs. That will slowly cook and make all the neighbors hungry.

Today being Labor Day I'm going to do laundry but that encourages me to spend time at the pool reading while I wait. Not a bad setting. There's golden oldie music playing and the pool setting is cool and relaxing. Take a good book and I'm in business.

Posted by Joan at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Every now and then I wake up feeling like a big black cloud is over my head. I can't think any good thoughts, only worries. That was yesterday. I don't know why this happens. Sometimes I think I must dream something bad or sad and then wake up unable to let it go. And then I start dwelling on the realities of our situation. I felt close to tears all day long.

We had to make the trek to Newport for another blood check for Jim which showed platelets still low, not recovering very quickly. So he needed another platelet transfusion but they could not schedule him yesterday so we are going back today. This is not unusual in the chemo process, but yesterday it cracked my usual upbeat veneer. I cried.

Jim decided we needed to go for a relaxing lunch. At first I didn't want to. Just take me home. Let me wallow in my black hole. But he insisted I make a decision on where to go. Ok, Olive Garden. (I know dear son, but I feel very comfy there!) So we took a few hours for lunch, stopped and bought tomatoes and corn and headed home.

After a couple of glasses of wine, some snacks, an Angels game that they won (!) and two episodes of The Closer my cloud was quite a bit lighter :) All those things help me "stay in the now" as my friend, Vickie, says.

This morning we enjoyed a cool breeze as we took our morning bike ride (only 10 minutes but at least we're out there moving), had our coffee outside, enjoyed fried egg breakfast cooked by Jim and now we're preparing for our journey to the hospital. I know, this too shall pass. We'll be on the road again. Today the clouds are brighter.

Posted by Joan at 09:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We set up a cozy little area outside to take advantage of some morning shade from our oleander hedge. Little did we realize that the bushes would spew flowers and leaves. Worse than that, the bunnies consider the green grassy carpet their playground. You know what bunnies like to do...well other than that they also leave little round, brown deposits behind. Add one more task to the daily list...sweep the carpet for bunny turds!

Look closely in the lower right corner to see one of the culprits.

We realized this morning that we are sitting between two major natural forces--raging forest fires and Hurricane Jimena. Wouldn't it be great if they got together?! We have hazy skies and a light ash coating on everything outside. The major fires are maybe 30 miles away from us. Some smaller fires are burning in the National Forest here in Hemet but are probably 5 miles away. The hurricane is predicted to head into CA/AZ so maybe we'll get some cooling, dampness from that.

Our power went out for a couple of hours yesterday early morning and once again we were reminded how dependent we are on the power system. Our MH electrical kicks right over to the house battery power but that can't handle the AC. Thankfully, the power was quickly restored and we enjoyed our cool little house.

Posted by Joan at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)