Joan on the Road

Fifteen of our family and friends gathered for the Thanksgiving feast at Renee and Tom's "party central." The table was overloaded! Everything was delicious ...but my favorites are turkey, stuffing and gravy....then more gravy!

Here's the menu: Oven roasted stuffed turkey, Weber grill smoked turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans with bacon and mushrooms, fresh asparagus, sauteed spinach and mushroom, Grandma's "spinach thing" (aka spinach/artichoke casserole), cranberry chutney, butternut squash with cilantro, glazed sweet potatoes and various condiments. There was not room on my plate for everything...had to go two rounds.

We had several wine toasts with a Maurice Carrie Muscat Canelli that everyone thought was the perfect pairing. Toasting is a part of our family tradition. The host or hostess starts off with the "formal" toast and then anyone, anytime chimes in with what they want to say. We all have to "clink" to pass the good juju along. I love it.

After the leisurely meal we migrated to various entertainments...Wii bowling, movie watching, card games and Farkle. Yes, Farkle with real dice and score keeping on paper. That's what Renee, Jim, Evan and I wound up playing. Now Evan is just four so he thinks shaking the dice and dumping them on the table is the best part. He wasn't very interested in keeping score. But we continued to coach him and since he was winning he was happy.

But then he started to lose, throwing Farkels (no score). We all made the computer losing sound...sort of like "wah, wah, wah! He's seen us play on the computer and knows that sound so he joined in when someone else lost. However, after he lost a few times and we gave him the wah-wah, he put his hands to his face like he was shouting and said, "OK, if you guys don't stop saying wah-wah-wah I'm going to quit!"

He was deadly serious. We had a hard time keeping straight faces! Jim said "fine"...and Evan was stunned. He thought we'd all give in to him. So that straightened him up and he got back in the game. When Grandpa won, Evan was cheering for him and all ended happily.

When enough time and stomach space had passed Renee put out dessert and coffee. 6 or 7 pies...I'm not sure. 2 kinds of pumpkin, 2 apple, pumpkin cheesecake and pecan! Oh My...I had to have a tiny piece of every one. Oh and homemade pecan icecream too!

Everyone contributed in some way to this wonderful feast. But I have to acknowledge the "above and beyond" contribution of Renee and Tom who had to go out and buy and new stove the night before Thanksgiving because their oven broke down in the middle of pie baking. Can you imagine? 8 PM....no oven. So Tom runs over to Lowe's thinking to buy more gas for the grill so he could do turkey's outside. But he had to walk by the appliances and spotted a stove they'd looked at and ....lo and behold they had it in stock. 9 PM he's installing the new stove. We guests would never have known that anything traumatic had happened....they just managed it.

Gotta love family get-togethers! Good food, good fun, good conversation, good music and lots of laughs.

Posted by Joan at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted by Joan at 09:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We are thankful!!! The CT scan shows that Jim's tumors are now small enough to be blasted away by the RFA treatment/surgery. We meet next week with the radiology surgeon to get that scheduled, hopefully before Christmas. Chemo is over for Jim!!!

We are thankful that I passsed my first annual mammogram checkup with flying colors. My hair is growing back in, maybe even thicker than before!

We are incredibly thankful for the health care people who guided, treated, and supported us over the past year. With luck and research we found just what we needed at Hoag Hospital, Breast Care and Cancer Center.

We are thankful that my Mom and Dad are still managing ok. They live in their own house, my Dad still makes his daily rounds for groceries and mail. They have a little help with cleaning and heavy chores. I'm so glad I was able to visit with them recently.

We are thankful for our wonderful family who love and support us and each other. Why were we so blessed to have three great kids? We are thankful that we did something right along the way....and it seems they passed it on because our grandkids are following in the same path. They are loving, caring, smart young adults.

We are so thankful that we can see light at the end of the tunnel....and it's not a train. It is the bright light of freedom to hit the road again, to live our lives without the constant stress of health issues. It is an indescribable feeling to have that pressure going away. We are thankful!

Posted by Joan at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yesterday, after our trip to Newport for blood checks and platelet transfusion, Jim decided he really wanted an x-ray of his rib injury. We stopped at the doctor's, got the order and got the x-ray. Within 30 minutes we had the results. Would you believe...4 broken ribs. Four!!! No wonder he was in such pain.

He is moving much better and improving each day. So in a few weeks we'll put this adventure behind us. And tomorrow he gets the CT scan, Tuesday the results. We are keeping fingers and toes crossed that this will be good news and he'll be able to then have the RFA surgery. That would be a great Christmas gift!

Posted by Joan at 05:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The bicycle boy had a follow on appointment today with the doc re his fall/back/rib pain. While he thought he was improving, on Thursday the pain got worse and he's having muscle spasms. This is all making me/us very anxious because of the chemo situation and effect on blood. Anyway, PA Henry did another good exam and told us that he's pretty sure Jim has a broken rib....4-6 weeks of recovery. No evidence of internal bleeding. Possibly the chemo caused the pain to flare up.

We asked about an xray and he said that often the xray will not pick up broken ribs because there is so much muscle tissue in the area. Also, Jim doesn't need to add anymore xrays to his body. Henry said with this type of injury they assume the worst, broken rib, because the treatment is the same for breaks, muscle bruises and damage. And the treatment is ....not much! Just take it easy, alleviate the pain and wait for things to mend. So wait we do!

In other news.... I had my first hair cut! Carla at Tangles trimmed up the back and evened out a couple of spots. My hair is coming in straight, medium blond and no gray! Not bad for 70. I'm using mousse and then brushing it up, making it look kind of curly. I'm getting lots of compliments. It no longer looks like a chemo cut !!! Yeah!

Posted by Joan at 09:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Remember how I ended my last blog entry..."ready for whatever comes next." ? Thursday morning, the day after chemo, we set out for our bike ride around the park. I took off first, got to the end of the road and looked back....no Jim. So I headed back to our site and he's standing there by his bike. He says, "You won't believe this, but I fell off my bike again!"

Seems he was putting his leg over the bike to mount it, became unbalanced and fell against the hood of the car, ramming his right back rib cage area against the car. Yikes! At first, it didn't seem too bad, but after we parked the bikes and went inside he felt very nauseaus and then the pain set in.

So it's off to the Urgent Care again! After a pretty good exam of feeling bones and muscles the doc said it was probably a severly strained muscle injury. Could be a broken/cracked rib but the treatment would be the same. So Jim opted not to have an xray. He probably should have in retrospect....just so we'd know.

He got prescriptions for muscle relaxers, pain killers and directions for hot/cold treatments and exercises. He was in a LOT of pain. The first 48 hours he zapped out on drugs. Sunday he finally felt a little improvement and today he's moving around without pain killers and it's bearable. He says he now feels like he won't be a cripple forever. Maybe you know the feeling! Everyday you wake up hoping the muscle pain will be gone but ...damn...it's still there.

Normally this would not be scary....just a real pain in the a$$. Being in the midst of chemo with all the blood ups and downs made it very worrisome. But no symptoms of internal injury have developed so I guess/hope he's out of the woods on this.

It seems like the chemo has affected his sense of balance and feeling in hands and feet. So needless to say his bike has joined the knives in "lock-down".

Posted by Joan at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today was a day to enjoy the lovely weather, each other and celebrate life! We headed down to the Temecula Wine Country for lunch at Carol's at Bailey's Winery. Closed!!! But the wine host suggested the cafe at Ponte Winery...Smokehouse Grill or something like that.

Here's a collage of our day...

The setting was soooo relaxing. Our "lunch" lasted 2 hours and cost @#$ bucks but what the hey...life is short and we're going to enjoy it! We started with a light foccacia bread dipped in a garlic aoli sauce accompanied by a bottle of Ponte Dry Reisling.. The appetizer was called a Nosh...marinated olives, garlic hummus, and crostini bread. (I'm not a gourmet cook so if I've spelled anything wrong...please ignore).

We both had fish entrees that were delicious and unique. Mine was halibut with an Anahiem chili "sop"...meaning it was brushed over the fish. Yummy garlic mashed potatoes and sauteed green beans finished it off. We cleaned our plates like good children...because it was really delicious. I didn't think I could eat more but the Chocolate cheesecake with raspberry cream sounded too good to pass up. Topped off with espresso, it was a wonderful experience.

The grounds at Ponte are lovely...maybe Bryan and Dani should look at a Winery wedding setting ? :) We wandered around, snapped a few pictures and worked off the bottle of wine. Just down the road is Maurice Car'rie so we stopped there as we enjoy their Muscat Canneli, a lightly sweeet wine. We thought they might have a good price....but they didn't even have it in the shop.

We used to do the wine tasting thing when it was free or maybe even a couple of bucks each. Now the wineries want $10 each. Of course you get to keep your glasses.....whoopee. So we passed on the wine tasting and slowly wended our way home, totally relaxed and ready for whatever comes next.

Posted by Joan at 07:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)