a beautiful day in New England...

It's Sunday, a spectacularly beautiful day here in the East...it reached 70 degrees today, simply incredible. It was very windy here last night, and driving up Route 3 today, it was quite noticeable how "naked" the trees are becoming. In another week or two, there will be few leaves remaining intact on the trees. But the winter, the bare trees, and of course, the snow...have their own beauty and it's fun to start the "hunkering down" process. I removed Spring, Summer and Fall from the porch today, and readied it for the cold that is on its way to beautiful New England.

Some folks were distressed at my last post, the portion that talked about my diagnosis, prognosis and potential outcomes that the doctors have given me. Let me just say this....I am so optomistic about my situation, that I have to actually remind myself at times (the slam) what the reality is....that is not to say that I'm planning on that reality...but I cannot completely ignore it...that would be setting myself up for a huge fall, depending on where this goes. So, with that said, believe me, while my boat gets rocked occasionally, I do not and will not spend my days or nights dwelling on this. My life feels pretty normal and joyful, as always.

On Thursday, at work, I was freezing--had the heat turned up, coat on, couldn't get warm. I thought I had a fever again, but I did not. I decided that it was a symptom of the low iron, so I shopped for some high iron foods and went about my business. On Friday, I did not go to work--I was just truly fatigued and ended up sleeping away most of the day. Heather came down on Friday night and stayed over, I put streaks in her hair, and everything I did seemed like a huge chore...just no energy. On Saturday morning, we got up and out the door around 8:30, after having had a good breakfast, again trying to fight the fatigue with fuel. We went to Kohl's and while we were in the dressing room, I actually had to lay down on the floor because I thought I was going to pass out. Yikes, it was like I was just completely out of gas. Poor Heather, she's trying on clothes and I'm laying on the floor telling her not to worry, it's just the medicine. And it is---the gemcitabine is definitely working on me--b r i n g-i t-o n.....but is making me have these few problems. I soon recovered and we were on our way. Went to a baby shower in the afternoon and a movie at night with Carole--"The Secret Life of Bees"...loved the book, loved the movie. Another slight problem is the taste in my mouth---metallic I guess, seems to get worse with each round of meds. It definitely effects the taste of food. But these issues are pretty insignificant in comparison to the "knock 'em dead" chemo that many patients have to endure. So...I am not complaining, just explaining what's happening. Other than a few bumps in the road, really small bumps, I'm doing really, really great.