The boys -- that's what I often call Amos and Josie -- treed a bear yesterday. Yes, Josie is a boy; think: The Outlaw Josie Wales. Of course I also call Kit, Evan, Ned and Karl the boys, so it can get confusing. But in this case, the boys Amos and Josie treed a bear and the boys Evan and Ned were really happy about it.
Evan said holding on to the dogs was tough. He gets winded far more easily than ever before. He's hoping (it seems to me) that he'll get platelets tomorrow, which help him feel much better. The chemo is crap. Now the skin on his hands is peeling off. The boys -- dogs and humans -- seem to be thriving in spite of it all.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Another Saturday
It's hard to believe another week has flown by. It's also hard to believe I can lay out a blatant cliche right off the bat. Look, there's another one!
Evan was admitted Monday morning for his chemo. He was released Wednesday morning. I saw him very little, but I do know that he was not feeling well all week; still he mustered up the energy to go north last night with Ned to set out some bear bait (I was sleeping when they got home). This morning they left at 4:00 to let Josie and Amos do some tracking. They'll probably be home early afternoon.
Josie and Amos are Leopard Cur hounds that Evan bought a year ago in Missouri. Before they were part of his dog family, there was Daisy. She is a little Beagle/Spaniel mix who is a bit on the skittish side, but lovable. Daisy started out as a house dog, but her absolute refusal to follow the bathroom rules -- after two years of second chances -- made her an outside dog. Long before Daisy was Rufus, our good old Beagle mutt who trained us well and lived the life he saw fit: running free when he pleased, chasing rabbits as the opportunity arose, and sleeping on Evan's bed whenever he liked. He was a good old dog, albeit a smelly one. Rufus died last February, which made Daisy top dog. She's taken that to heart and trained the hounds accordingly. Much to her dismay, Daisy is not included in the bear tracking adventures. She's up and ready, but while Amos and Josie jump into the dog box, she is left behind. And she cries. Loudly. The truck pulls out of the yard and Daisy howls at the pain of being the only one left behind. At 4:00 a.m.
These bear chasing days leave everyone exhausted. Josie, Amos, Evan and Ned all come home ready for a long nap. Their early departure leaves me groggy for the rest of the day. The only one who is perky and ready for some fun is Daisy. Oh, and Paul, who has the ability to sleep through it all.
Evan was admitted Monday morning for his chemo. He was released Wednesday morning. I saw him very little, but I do know that he was not feeling well all week; still he mustered up the energy to go north last night with Ned to set out some bear bait (I was sleeping when they got home). This morning they left at 4:00 to let Josie and Amos do some tracking. They'll probably be home early afternoon.
Josie and Amos are Leopard Cur hounds that Evan bought a year ago in Missouri. Before they were part of his dog family, there was Daisy. She is a little Beagle/Spaniel mix who is a bit on the skittish side, but lovable. Daisy started out as a house dog, but her absolute refusal to follow the bathroom rules -- after two years of second chances -- made her an outside dog. Long before Daisy was Rufus, our good old Beagle mutt who trained us well and lived the life he saw fit: running free when he pleased, chasing rabbits as the opportunity arose, and sleeping on Evan's bed whenever he liked. He was a good old dog, albeit a smelly one. Rufus died last February, which made Daisy top dog. She's taken that to heart and trained the hounds accordingly. Much to her dismay, Daisy is not included in the bear tracking adventures. She's up and ready, but while Amos and Josie jump into the dog box, she is left behind. And she cries. Loudly. The truck pulls out of the yard and Daisy howls at the pain of being the only one left behind. At 4:00 a.m.
These bear chasing days leave everyone exhausted. Josie, Amos, Evan and Ned all come home ready for a long nap. Their early departure leaves me groggy for the rest of the day. The only one who is perky and ready for some fun is Daisy. Oh, and Paul, who has the ability to sleep through it all.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
It's Saturday
Evan will check into the hospital on Monday for a few days of chemo. If it goes well, he'll get out on Wednesday. Today he, Paul and Ned (I think) are heading over to Mike and Teresa's for some family fun.
I worked. It's not really fun, but sometimes it is kind of funny. Today, for example, one of my projects was revamping the health treatment codes available to the schools' health room staff. On the advice of the head nurse, I cut down the available treatment codes in our student data base from a list of 119 choices (a few duplicates there) to a list of 15. Sounds exciting, I know. But here's the good part: one of the previous choices was MES -- Message. All alone and I laughed out loud picturing some poor snot-nosed kid getting a post-it note slapped on his forehead before being sent back to class. I thought it was the best one until I went just a little further down the alphabet and found PIN -- PINCH. Even better.
"Mrs. Jones, I feel short today."
"Don't worry, Johnny, here's a pinch to grow an inch."
Or,
"Wah, wah, wah, this cut really hurts."
"Don't worry, we'll just put a little pinch of salt in that wound."
I mean, really, who in their right mind would enter a pinch for a treatment. I chuckled to myself for quite a while. Actually, more than chuckled - laughed really hard. All by myself while working on 2 computers at the same time in an attempt to take care of the code changes while also running processes that take forever. Pretty absurd. Just as absurd as realizing that I hit hour 65 of this week about an hour before. It's August and this is how it is, but enough is enough.
I got home at 2:30. Changed clothes, pulled on 2 quilts, finished the last chapter of "Julie and Julia," and took a nap. (I also laughed a lot while reading the book. Julie is an irreverent, foul-mouth young lady with admirable political leanings who makes me wish I knew her personally.) I'll go back to work tomorrow when I'll be able to create health tutorials without laughing. Or at least not as much.
I worked. It's not really fun, but sometimes it is kind of funny. Today, for example, one of my projects was revamping the health treatment codes available to the schools' health room staff. On the advice of the head nurse, I cut down the available treatment codes in our student data base from a list of 119 choices (a few duplicates there) to a list of 15. Sounds exciting, I know. But here's the good part: one of the previous choices was MES -- Message. All alone and I laughed out loud picturing some poor snot-nosed kid getting a post-it note slapped on his forehead before being sent back to class. I thought it was the best one until I went just a little further down the alphabet and found PIN -- PINCH. Even better.
"Mrs. Jones, I feel short today."
"Don't worry, Johnny, here's a pinch to grow an inch."
Or,
"Wah, wah, wah, this cut really hurts."
"Don't worry, we'll just put a little pinch of salt in that wound."
I mean, really, who in their right mind would enter a pinch for a treatment. I chuckled to myself for quite a while. Actually, more than chuckled - laughed really hard. All by myself while working on 2 computers at the same time in an attempt to take care of the code changes while also running processes that take forever. Pretty absurd. Just as absurd as realizing that I hit hour 65 of this week about an hour before. It's August and this is how it is, but enough is enough.
I got home at 2:30. Changed clothes, pulled on 2 quilts, finished the last chapter of "Julie and Julia," and took a nap. (I also laughed a lot while reading the book. Julie is an irreverent, foul-mouth young lady with admirable political leanings who makes me wish I knew her personally.) I'll go back to work tomorrow when I'll be able to create health tutorials without laughing. Or at least not as much.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
And more chemo
Tuesday's PET scan showed that the cancer in the lung did shrink from the most recent chemo treatment. That is good news. Now Evan will continue with this recipe for two more treatments, three weeks apart, to attack it further. He wants to start on Monday. We'll see how that goes, but the bottom line is that he's home for another six weeks.
It occurred to me yesterday that it wasn't too many weeks ago when more chemo was bad news. Now it's good news. The difference being, of course, that a few weeks ago we learned that the last regimen hadn't taken care of all there was. This week, we learned that the current regimen is working. It's all a tightly wound yo-yo that never quite unwinds before snapping back with a sharp smack. Maybe the string is really barbed wire. I don't know. It's too early to wax metaphorically anyway.
Evan remains his strong self. He drove to Minneapolis on Tuesday, dropped some things off at Alyssa's apartment, had the scan, drove to Eau Claire to have dinner "with his donor" and home again. By the time I got home around 8:30, he was out with a friend.
When I told my cousin that Evan had relapsed the first time, Kevin said that it was important for Evan to define the cancer rather than letting the cancer define him. I don't know if I ever told Evan that (he hates when we talk about him and blog about him, etc) , but I don't think I'll ever have to. He does have amazing control of all that he can control.
And I control the blog ...
It occurred to me yesterday that it wasn't too many weeks ago when more chemo was bad news. Now it's good news. The difference being, of course, that a few weeks ago we learned that the last regimen hadn't taken care of all there was. This week, we learned that the current regimen is working. It's all a tightly wound yo-yo that never quite unwinds before snapping back with a sharp smack. Maybe the string is really barbed wire. I don't know. It's too early to wax metaphorically anyway.
Evan remains his strong self. He drove to Minneapolis on Tuesday, dropped some things off at Alyssa's apartment, had the scan, drove to Eau Claire to have dinner "with his donor" and home again. By the time I got home around 8:30, he was out with a friend.
When I told my cousin that Evan had relapsed the first time, Kevin said that it was important for Evan to define the cancer rather than letting the cancer define him. I don't know if I ever told Evan that (he hates when we talk about him and blog about him, etc) , but I don't think I'll ever have to. He does have amazing control of all that he can control.
And I control the blog ...
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Waiting for the next step
Evan will go to Minneapolis on Tuesday for PET scan to see how the last chemo treatment affected the Hodgkin's in his left lung. Once that is determined, he'll get the next step in the game plan.
That last treatment was pretty darned nasty, but Evan received a platelet transfusion on Monday, which helped tremendously to bring him back to himself . On Tuesday he mowed Grandma's yard, helped Paul fix the haybine and made dinner. The rest of the week followed suit. Today, he and Ned are back chasing bears with the hounds.
Ned had his cast removed on Tuesday. He's now got a boot and is still on crutches, but he's got a little more freedom of movement with the foot. He starts physical therapy on Tuesday (Tuesdays seem to be big in the Ruesch medical world) and then has the surgery to remove the pin or pins that can come out of his ankle in another month or so. He's gotten pretty darned good with those crutches. Even so, I'm sure he won't mind ditching the things permanently.
Alyssa is 31 today. Amazing. Her birthday gift -- the bedroom curtains -- never got made last weekend. We didn't sew a stitch, but we did some great cooking and a lot of very ambitious planning. That's got to count for something. Since it's August, I spend a lot of time at work, so it's no surprise that there's been no progress on the sewing front just yet. The end of September is realistically the soonest I'll be able to tackle much and I really can't ask Paul to learn to sew. He asked me to learn to bale hay last month. A couple of loads of bales convinced me that we had the right set-up all along: he uses the farming machines; I use the sewing machines. No sense messing up a good thing.
That last treatment was pretty darned nasty, but Evan received a platelet transfusion on Monday, which helped tremendously to bring him back to himself . On Tuesday he mowed Grandma's yard, helped Paul fix the haybine and made dinner. The rest of the week followed suit. Today, he and Ned are back chasing bears with the hounds.
Ned had his cast removed on Tuesday. He's now got a boot and is still on crutches, but he's got a little more freedom of movement with the foot. He starts physical therapy on Tuesday (Tuesdays seem to be big in the Ruesch medical world) and then has the surgery to remove the pin or pins that can come out of his ankle in another month or so. He's gotten pretty darned good with those crutches. Even so, I'm sure he won't mind ditching the things permanently.
Alyssa is 31 today. Amazing. Her birthday gift -- the bedroom curtains -- never got made last weekend. We didn't sew a stitch, but we did some great cooking and a lot of very ambitious planning. That's got to count for something. Since it's August, I spend a lot of time at work, so it's no surprise that there's been no progress on the sewing front just yet. The end of September is realistically the soonest I'll be able to tackle much and I really can't ask Paul to learn to sew. He asked me to learn to bale hay last month. A couple of loads of bales convinced me that we had the right set-up all along: he uses the farming machines; I use the sewing machines. No sense messing up a good thing.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Another week
Evan came home from the hospital last Saturday afternoon. Kit was heading this way to visit Evan and was able to bring him home from Marshfield. Whatever was in that chemo recipe certainly seems to have knocked Evan for a loop. Although he's not down and out, he has been resting a lot and finding meals to be rather poor-tasting necessities. He'll probably perk up on Saturday when he heads north again to go chasing bears. Karl is coming for the weekend, so he'll go along, too. And Ned, too. Karl will be the only able body in the group and since he works nights, I can't imagine that he'll be a ball of energy when Evan and Ned plan to leave at 4:00 a.m. Saturday. But, if they see some bears, they'll all be happy.
Alyssa is coming home this weekend, too. She'll drive as far as Eau Claire and then carpool with Karl for the last leg of the trip. While the males are chasing bears, we'll be working on her new bedroom curtains. All of the windows in her apartment have blinds, but she thought curtains would add a greater degree of light control for Evan's long stay. I ordered some great fabric that arrived today. As usual, we let our optimism get the best of us and think we can sew with marathon endurance and results. She's thinking maybe she can get a dress cut out and I'm thinking that I might finally be able to make the shower curtain. Realistically, we'll be lucky to get her bedroom curtains done.
Evan will return to Minneapolis in another week -- or, as he says -- after another weekend, for a PET scan to see how the chemo has affected the Hodgkin's in his lung. That will determine what happens next. So he waits and Karl waits and we all wait. Patience is overrated.
Alyssa is coming home this weekend, too. She'll drive as far as Eau Claire and then carpool with Karl for the last leg of the trip. While the males are chasing bears, we'll be working on her new bedroom curtains. All of the windows in her apartment have blinds, but she thought curtains would add a greater degree of light control for Evan's long stay. I ordered some great fabric that arrived today. As usual, we let our optimism get the best of us and think we can sew with marathon endurance and results. She's thinking maybe she can get a dress cut out and I'm thinking that I might finally be able to make the shower curtain. Realistically, we'll be lucky to get her bedroom curtains done.
Evan will return to Minneapolis in another week -- or, as he says -- after another weekend, for a PET scan to see how the chemo has affected the Hodgkin's in his lung. That will determine what happens next. So he waits and Karl waits and we all wait. Patience is overrated.
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