Tuesday December 16 2008

Not sure I ever showed this painting or not. I've done several similar of this scene of Shadow Lake, our side of the Cirque of the towers, and the continental Divide - Wind River Mtns. It was hanging in the Big Piney Library when we were there taking down the show so I photographed it. It was bought with community members donations through the Friends of the Library and is in their collection. I like it better in real life than in this photo.

We left for Jackson and my chemo treatment about 7:30 this morning. Gina drove her car and came to pick me up and then brought me home. The weather was cold, cloudy in Pinedale and eased up some as we went north. There were some snow flurries here and there along the way. There was fine dusty snow on the road, so every time we met another vehicle it blew up and made the visibility more or less obscure. We had a little bit of every kind of weather. The ice on the Hoback river is closing in, and the water was all kinds of colors - blues, greens, white and almost black in places. As usual they have more snow than we do, perhaps 6 to 8 inches.

Drank the two bottles of barium "stuff" on the way up starting at 8 a.m.. Got up there about 9:30 p.m. It was the beginning of a long day. They gave me the contrast stuff through a needle in my left arm where they had drawn my blood tests. I had three CAT Scans, head/neck/; neck/chest, and abdomen. I am at the therapeutic (very good) level of blood and it only took one stick with the needle and it flowed really well this time, thankfully we are getting the coumadin at the right dose.

After the radiologist doctor checked the Cat scans, they could see that the blood vessels above the port were Occluded - (Occlude: to close up, to jam). Place your hand above your heart as if doing the pledge of allegiance under the collarbone, and that is the area that all the veins(vessels?) are scared. They don't know if they will go back to normal or not, and I don't know what the results of that can be - there was just too much info today to absorb and I didn't ask how serious this is. The abdomen scan of the size of the tumors looks about the same as last time.

Carol said "So this is why you were in such pain". It's been a year now that I've been having this pain and telling them all along - it has gotten worse and longer each session until it was up to 5 or 6 days the last time before it resolved. That has been what was causing all the pain. All the chemo and saline and heperin flushes they put through there couldn't get distributed.

So they didn't use the port today. Carol with help from Judy, put what they call a pick? line into my upper right arm almost under my arm pit. It will function the same way to get the chemo drips in as the port has. But it takes a lot more maintenance. I'll have to go to the clinic here twice a day, except on Sundays I'll do the maintenance myself. In the afternoon I did get the chemo through the pick line. It was a long day, for them too, with all the different procedures going on. I got a huge amount of information and still more to come.

The old port is in my left chest. They will do small surgery in the operating room with anesthesia to take out the old port on Jan. 6/7. On the afternoon of the 6th I'll go up for an appointment with Dr. Meno in Wilson, stay overnight at the hospital's Hitching Post Motel. There might even be some time for seeing the galleries or a little shopping. On the 7th I will have the surgery in the morning and probably get chemo and then home. I understand all that they say is happening, but not sure I get the terminology right so you can understand it.

Gina's son-in-law was getting a hernia operation this afternoon, so she was able to go to their room and visit a little bit. It had to be a long boring day for her, but she did get over to KMart to shop a little too. She also had me come out to see the most amazing "nativity" scene all built up over a graceful large branch, with a Christmas/hospital theme. She has a photo of it on her blog, which like she says doesn't do it justice( click on horseback up on the right. Lot's of little animals and rooms with activities going on. What patience it must have taken to build.

Coming home we had every kind of weather again. We started from Jackson at early dusk and had some light through the canyon and Bondurant. It was just as beautiful a ride home as it was going up. On our side of the Rim there are some cabins in the trees to the west. We saw the most awesome sight of about 6 of the cabins looking exactly like they were on fire, as in flames leaping from the windows, all orange and reflecting orange high into the sky as if onto the smoke. It was quite dark by then. The only other thing it could have been was some kind of phenomena from the weather, with fog and low clouds, but no lights from other homes looked like that, and not all one color, and the six houses were all giving off such an orange flame-like light. We haven't heard yet that it was fire though. The only way it could have been was if it were arson, or maybe something with utilities all at once. There is nothing about fires on pinedaleonline.

From below the rim we were in a blizzard which didn't last too long coming out of it about Daniel Junction where it was plumb clear with the stars shining. Gina brought me home about 6:30. I had baked a dutch apple pie for them - not my best effort. We had cereal for dinner, and soon I went to bed. I just couldn't get comfortable so tried the recliner and watched TV there. I know I was exhausted with all my body had been through, but all I could do was twitch and wriggle around trying to get in a position to sleep. Finally I did go to sleep on the couch, woke up several times feeling o.k., putting dogs in and out and making hot cups of tea. The radiology guy said to be sure to keep hydrated and flush all that nasty stuff out so every time I'd wake up I'd drink a cup of hot tea. I finally fell into a good sleep.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TAKING CARE OF ME TODAY, GINA. I ALWAYS ENJOY GETTING TO SPEND TIME WITH YOU AND VISITING. I LOVE YOU. So..... all in all everything is going along pretty well.