Sunday I made dinner. Went to the grocery store on my own, bought all the ingredients, prepped everything to make a nice Gumbo with sausage, chicken and shrimp, and I made an easy version of dirty rice with ground pork for the Gumbo to be served over. This was the first time in months, many months that I cooked a complete meal like this. Dinner was good and as we were finishing up eating we found we had Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Animal Kingdom in our driveway. A fledgling crow was learning to fly, and he managed to flap his way into our driveway. I had seen the crows out of the corner of my eye while we were sitting around the table talking and eating, and heard the mom and dad crow calling, but didn’t know what was going on. Then The Middle Son started washing the dishes and he was the one to discover the fledgling flapping around the driveway, which eventually made it to the roof of my car.
After several attempts to get to either our roof or the neighbors roof, the fledgling was back on the roof of my car and decided that was where it was staying for the night. Mom and Dad went back to the trees in front. We got up Monday morning to find the roof of my car covered in crow poop and the fledgling still there. He made an attempt for the garage roof and made it to the next door neighbor’s wood pile. At this point Hubby tried to go and wash my car off, but the parent crows were having none of that. They were immediately on our roof and yelling at him and one flew by him really close. He hightailed it back to the house. I had an appointment to get to so I was prepared to make a bee line for Hubby’s car when I was ready to leave. Turns out, I was able to turn on the hose and get a good portion of the poop rinsed off my car while the fledgling watched from the wood pile and parents watched from the trees. I talked to them all in a calm reassuring voice. Hubby was flabbergasted they didn’t yell at me.
Monday was also the first session of an 8 week lecture series I signed up for through Cancer Support Community. It’s based on the book “The Artist’s Way” written by Julia Cameron. With all the questions running through my mind about what my new normal will be once I am done actively fighting cancer and move into the surviving part, and how will I feel, what will be different, how will I act/react, I was drawn to this lecture series as part of the description was how do we put the pieces back together again after cancer? Maybe not in the same way, but in a new picture. I liked the idea of building a new me, a new outlook, a new future.
So Monday I went to the first lecture, purchased a copy of the book, and have been working on the homework assigned the first week. It’s been interesting and the person leading the course is dynamic and did very well keeping a large group of people on course so we finished on time. I am looking forward to the next session. When I got home the fledgling was gone and I could hear crows calling from further away a street or two over. Fledgling was back on our shed roof later, but he seems to be getting the hang of flying as they have not been back like they were Sunday night.
I finally convinced Hubby to get a physical. I’ve been bugging him for years to get this done. He finally agreed and we were able to get him scheduled with our Primary Care doctor in the appointment after mine on Tuesday morning. I had an 8 AM appointment, and they scheduled him for 9AM. Getting up that early was more difficult than I thought it would be, but I did it and we headed into the doctors new location. To remind you, previously I had received a notice from my doctor and my insurance company that our PCP was closing her private practice and moving into a multi-doctor practice. Her office is in the same general area.
Because this is a new office, even though all her patient files were transferred over, there was still some paperwork for me to fill out, and since Hubby had never actually been to her before now, he had an even larger packet of paperwork to fill out. Before we could finish filling everything out we were called back and shown into a tiny exam room with one chair, an exam table and a computer on a wall mounted swing arm. Since my appointment was first I took the exam table and hubby the chair while we waited on the doctor.
We didn’t have to wait too long. She reviewed where I was in my treatment plan and asked what was up. Told her the neuropathy was getting to be too much. I thought I could tough this out, but the daily numbing ache was wearing me down. And now I am starting to experience sharper stabbing pains in my hands and feet. Center of both; in my palms and then the middle of the arch of my foot. I also get some throbbing aches in my toes, with most of this happening at night when I am trying to fall asleep. As if I don’t already have enough problems with sleep. Add in the hot flashes and sleep is difficult at best. We discussed starting Gabapetin which is the go to drug to relieve neuropathy pain, and she put in for a referral for a neurologist so I can get scheduled with that. Now we just have to wait on the approval from the insurance company. In the mean time she did suggest I not walk for exercise, or anything that requires me to be on my feet. Swimming was her first suggestion. Ok, yeah, hole in the boob…. Bike riding? Well, I still have to hold on to the handlebars and my hands don’t like that for very long either. See how the Gabapetin works… and what the neurologist says.
I asked her how she likes the new office and working with the computer (she didn’t have that in her old office). She said the computer system was the deciding factor to move into the multi-doctor practice. She just couldn’t afford to implement a system on her own and the insurance companies were pushing hard for this. She said the system is nice in some respects, but she misses how she and the staff worked together to get things done, not like in this practice, if she can’t figure it out in the software, she asks her nurse and the nurse comes in and tells her which screens she needs to go to and then leaves. She doesn’t feel the same camaraderie or collaboration with the staff yet. She’s hoping over time it will get better.
Then it was Hubby’s turn. First the doctor took his history and then asked about things that he might be concerned with; his shoulder that he was told 10 years ago needed to be “cleaned out”; the fatter tumor on his back that is now starting to hurt, things like that. Then she told him he needed to strip down to his undies so she could do the physical part of the exam. I had a water bottle with me. One that came in my chemo care bag from my cousin way back in October. It is plastic, has a pink ribbon charm that hands from the handle and printed on the reusable bottle – “No one fights alone”. I like it because the lid is leak proof with a button that needs to be pushed to open the lid so you can drink. I sat in the chair and moved the bottle to the floor next to me while Hubby went to the exam table. Both of us had laid our clip boards of paperwork on the counter where the sink was.
Doctor comes back in and while going through the physical part I had to scoot the chair closer to the counter so the doctor could get into the corner she needed. My nice spill proof reusable water bottle knocked over. I didn’t think anything of it. He had to drop trou and bend over too for that wonderful prostate exam. Doc left and as Hubby was getting his clothes back on he noticed my water bottle was over AND there was water all over the floor. Seems I managed to knock that damn bottle over so it actually hit the one little button to pop open the lid! As I was grabbing paper towels to clean up the water off the floor I hit the faucet that is one of those touch anywhere to turn on the water, and sure enough the water turned on and proceeded to get Hubby’s clipboard with his paperwork all wet. I was a hot water spreading mess, and laughing hysterically. Hubby was afraid to admit he knew me. At one point Hubby had to follow the nurse out to pee in a cup and then get scheduled for an ultrasound on that fatty tumor to see where it is hitting on his back causing pain, and the doctor came back in. I admitted my water mess and she and I had a great laugh.
Hubby was back and then we were waiting on one last thing before we could leave and he looked at me as said, “She saw my twig and berries!” Yes, I agreed she had seen them. He then said she was the first woman in many years to see his twig and berries besides me, while I sat there nodding, yup that’s true too. Then he says “It’s cold here! That was not a good showing!” OMG I was laughing so hard.
We finally made it out of there and both of us were very hungry, so a stop at our favorite burger joint was in order after we got the car washed. From there we went home to eat, but were quickly back on the road to head to the post office, then to GameStop to get ourselves an updated PlayStation. We have a PS2 from a bazillion years ago when the kids were teens. It still works, but try finding games… and the controllers were not that great anymore. The Grandson has a PS3 in his room at home so we figured to make our home more grandson friendly, as PS3 to play on here when playing outside is not an option was in order. We picked up a used PS3 console, an extra controller and some games the Grandson might like. Later we had to head over to Costco to pick up the prescriptions the doctor ordered for us. We got back in time for me to sit and relax my feet for a bit before heading to Support Group.
Wednesday found us up early again to head up north to my parents house to pick up some more of their left over hardwood flooring. We brought a few pieces of their leftovers the last time we were up there and put it on our kitchen floor and kind of liked the way it looked in that little patch. Hubby wants to set up a bigger sample before we decide if we want to take all their leftovers and use that as our new kitchen floor. So we drove up Wednesday and arrived early afternoon. Dad wasn’t expecting us so soon, so we cut into his “chore” time. I don’t think he minded too much. He was going to work on planting grape vines in the back yard. Instead we put him to work helping Hubby load up some more of their left over into the trunk of our car while I took the time to respond to an Army of Women request for eligible candidates for a new study Stanford is doing on Breast Cancer patients. If you are interested in seeing if you qualify for this study you can find the information here. Turns out I am one of their ideal candidates, so I am in the study. It means another trip up north, but anything that helps out Breast Cancer patients in the future is worth it. Plus it gives us another excuse to go visit the parents.
Once Mom#2 got home, we headed out for dinner and had a wonderful meal where Marine World used to be in Redwood City. It’s all business complexes now, and so different from what that area looked like when I was growing up. I remember one trip there with my mom, stepdad and brothers, one of my brothers went “missing” and my mom tripped on some raised black top. Turned out she broke her foot on the “trip”. We found my little brother in the gift shop area checking out something he coveted.
Our evening ended all too soon and we all headed to bed. Said our goodbyes to Mom#2 as she would be up before us to head to work. She did let us know that the Starbucks we normally go to was closed for renovations. She gave me directions to a new Starbucks in the area I could go to for my Latte in the morning.
This morning we got up, packed up our stuff, said goodbye to Dad and headed out. Hubby wanted Noah’s Bagels, so we still headed over to the small shopping area where the closed Starbucks is and Noah’s Bagels. While in line to place our order I noticed they served espresso drinks, so I told Hubby I would get my Latte there at Noah’s so we didn’t have to make another stop before hitting the freeway and the morning traffic. Hubby asked me if they made the espresso in the back as he’d only seen the standard coffee makers there. Nope, there is a Latte Machine, right over there under the order screens next to the counter where they make the bagel sandwiches, etc. As I was saying this I realized what I was saying – Latte Machine, because there are NO other espresso drinks EVER. Only Lattes! Now I am tired and need a few days to catch up!
Life is adventures in klutziness