Wednesday April 30 2008

Cuzzins

Well, here we are all blurry. We went to dinner with Kathy and James yesterday evening at the Chinese Restaurant. .....At least the car started this time. I asked the waiter, who could barely speak English, to take our picture and he wanted to take a second one but I thought I was being polite by not wanting to bother him any further. Actually it took two of them to get the button pushed. Anyway you can see we were having a good time. We even got one of the Chinese warriors between James and Joe.

We went in to Pinedale about 3 p.m., got some errands done - P.O. UPS to return clothes, bank safety deposit box where I put our brand info and paperwork, and then stopped by Kathy and James house to trade their cooler with my suitcase. I took them a jar of the blueberry jelly. We visited there and they went to dinner with us. I had the best time just doing something socially, and being half silly. Really enjoyed the time together. They are going to Georgia for a month again soon to visit their family. This time they are going to bring back some Vidalia ? or ? the sweet onions they grow there. Afterwards we took the dogs to the park for a short walk and let them have Joe's leftover General Kung Pow chicken or whatever it is. I saved my shrimp and broccoli for lunch today. It was 60 degrees but the wind was so cold and I wore a lighter jacket- wished I had still been wearing down.

Wow can't believe April is gone. This morning woke up to it snowing again, and just above freezing. Enough, already. The two oncology doctors are having differing opinions and haven't decided on what to do with me. I finally called Oncology a couple of times when I knew we were leaving and wouldn't get the call. Dr. Ward was in Philadelphia so Paige will call me in the morning.

Have spent time organizing more of my photos lately. At least they aren't such a mess now. And I finally figured out why I wasn't seeing all of my blog, even though all of you were. Every day, since the blog with the photos of the calves, wasn't showing up for me. All the Internet windows were either half or one quarter of the page every time I opened one. Boy was I getting frustrated with it all. On that day I had clicked "Tabs"(some kind of view on the browser) to try to learn about that, and unbeknownst to me why at the time, the blog stopped showing up correctly then. I hate when that stuff happens. So yesterday I dug around in the innards a couple of times, and finally figured it out and changed it back. But am so proud of myself for getting it fixed on my own.

My fall road pastel landscape is about finished. I'll tweak it a little more and get a photo of it soon.

Vidalia Onions This is perhaps the most well-known of the sweet onion varieties. It was first grown in Toombs County, Georgia, but it came to Georgia from Texas. It is by law grown only in thirteen counties and portions of seven others in southeast Georgia. The soil and climatic conditions in these defined areas combine to produce the sweeter granex hybrid trademarked as Vidalia onions. The city of Vidalia was the site of a Farmer's Market since it was located at the junction of several heavily-traveled highways. The sweet granex onion came to be called after this hub city. Vidalias are harvested from late April through mid-June, and thanks to controlled-atmosphere storage, they are available through December. The Vidalia onion is a light golden-brown bulb with a white interior, rounded at the bottom and somewhat flat on the top stem end. ( The ones from Washington are the Walla Walla.)

Tuesday April 29 2008

Blueberry Jelly

Got two batches of blueberry jelly done yesterday afternoon. It did jell and turned out pretty tasty. I used some apple juice to make enough juice to make the two batches. Since my fanatic purging I found that I was lucky to have barely enough miscellaneous jars and old leftover lids to hold the jelly. I used paraffin to seal them just to be safe.

We have a few antelope around now that have drifted back into our valley. It's always fun to watch them coming and going. I also saw the first willets yesterday. The hawks are busy hunting and seem to be settled back into their homey nest in the only tree in the field. On the other hand..... the gravel trucks are incessantly rumbling by out on the county road. They start before daylight, so I don't know what time of the night they must get up in order to be out here at the crack of dawn.

About midnight last night I checked the email just to see if anything was working yet. Surprisingly I found that - YES!! it started downloading messages, and downloading messages, and downloading messages. Finally after 1300, some of them more than once when it got interrupted, all of them came in. No, that's not how many I would get in three days, even though sometimes it seems like that many. I know what happens is - if I don't go into hughes.net home page and delete out of there, everything is saved there and unless its deleted will come into my email again. And why I didn't just go there and delete all that I don't know. So all of March and April spewed into my inbox. It does seem much faster than before, that's good.

Not sleepy anyway, I sat and watched Ghandi while I downloaded and deleted. It was a very good movie. Had seen it years ago, but couldn't remember any of it and forgot he had been shot. I can remember seeing him on the newsreels when I was a kid. He really was an awesome person.

So... Come to find out hughes.net was doing some kind of upgrade and why it took four days (so far) I have no idea. This morning its off again and so no email today either. I want to shake them by the shoulders and scream "HOW MUCH LONGER!! My arm is sore - must be from clickiing the mouse too long.

The Oncology department was supposed to call me yesterday let me know what Dr. Ward and Dr. Jones had discussed, and to set up my next chemo appointment, but they never called. Maybe today. I've been going on Wednesdays lately, but tomorrow is supposed to be a stormy day - would be nice not to have to drive in a snowstorm one of these days. Will just be here waiting to find out.

Otherwise, yesterday I had more ambition than for a long time, got quite a bit done - jelly, laundry, changing sheets, vacuumed and mopped, made a pot of turkey vegetable soup, even some few marks of pastel onto the drawing. Makes me know I would feel better - for a while - without any chemo.

Joe got the SUV battery charged. He invited me to go to dinner today, maybe the Chinese place. I'll go to UPS to return the clothes, and the post office.

Monday April 28 2008

Deer at Dawn

A nice day, although its mostly cloudy, the sun is shining. At 8:30 its 45 degrees already, so looking to be warmer again.

Woke up very early and finally just got up. Am getting resigned to this crazy sleeping schedule. I am just going to do things when I'm awake regardless of the time, and sleep when I need to. Have been reading more of the symptoms about liver disease and jaundice (googled) and learning.

Today the plan is to make some blueberry jelly. I always save the juice from canned blueberries when I make muffins and it is very flavorful. Maybe a call to the chevy dealer to try to find out what's going on with the lights on the SUV. And make a few other phone calls.

Hope the email might come back on today. Wonder if they will make us pay the full amount of the monthly bill when for a big part of a week we have no service.

Are you getting the whole blog - new entries- when you go to my blog? Yesterday the new one wouldn't show up. Hope that doesn't continue. I don't want to deal with getting anything more fixed.

Check back later, I might update this if something interesting happens. Got a start anyway.

Sunday April 27 2008

The Neighbors Place

about a week ago

If you noticed you haven't been getting email from me, its because for two days hughes.net has been saying my ID and password are wrong..... NOT! Thought it might resolve, but it looks like I'll have to do a technical support call, and just hate that. I can't get to my email at the hughes.net home page either although I was able to send them an email outlining the problem hoping they would look into it. I'm not optimistic they will. I expect there must be a lot of emails sitting there. The first thing they'll tell me is it's not their fault, that something must be wrong with my connection but the Internet connection is fine, as I'm able to go to the Internet and do this blog etc.

Yesterday was still cool and breezy, never got over 34 degrees, yet sunny pretty weather. Today is also sunny, still windy but over 50 degrees, so we're getting there. This week should be warmer and that will be a welcome change. The snow is almost off the whole field now. The big drifts are still laying around.

This morning Joe asked me if I wanted to go to town for dinner again, so we'll be doing that. I don't know where yet.

I saw all five cats together again this morning and watched them go from the garage, and clamber over Big Kahuna to get to the corral. All winter I've wondered how they were getting back and forth to their food in the shed, and that's what they've had to do. They all were playing and look good and healthy. Yesterday I saw our first little flock of mourning doves, and today there was a shrike in the rose bush. Looked like it was either finding some bugs or eating rose hips, either would be an interesting departure from its diet of birds. Or... Maybe it had impaled a bird in there. We have also been having quite a few juncos and the first sparrows.. Tonight there was a rabbit in the yard and it was about half brown now. The dogs went out and the rabbit wouldn't even run, just wiggled its ears.

I've got another pastel nearly finished and not looking too bad. I keep loosing some of the freshness by going back and overworking, but on the other hand they aren't to the point I want them with lovely color and feeling either. So I keep fiddling with them. You can have the same problem with oil painting, so I'd rather just try to make something better out of it, whether it's as spontaneous as I'd like or not. It will feel good to take some new things to the framer.

This morning I tried on the new clothes, and need to send several things back. The trouble is that something has to go back to each of the three places I ordered from. So have to look up three sets of paperwork and make three packages. I got the box ready to mail to Cabelas. I like the things that fit, which I'm keeping.

Debbie called this afternoon and we got to visit for a while. They have had company for several days. Everyone there is fine.

P.S. Oh Poooh..... When Joe went to get the car out to go to dinner, the battery was dead again. The headlight switch was left on by the unnamed person who put the car away last Friday. But this still isn't right. I'm going to call the Chevy dealer to ask why this is happening. Everything is eventually supposed to go off when the key is turned off. I'm suspecting that something with the programing that is possible on that panel is out of kilter. So I made some homemade pizza for dinner.

Saturday April 26 2008

Continued:

So After seeing the elk herd, Gina and I went on down the road to Jackson. And after I took several wrong turns, stopped at the post office where I mailed an envelope of black footed ferrets to Judy in CO. I don't know where my mind was that morning but I really was spacing a lot of stuff out, probably because of the appointment. We went on to the hospital and found it was head of the Oncology department Judy's birthday. There was even chocolate birthday cake. Judy got my "vitals" and then I had an hour visit with Dr. Ward. He was so sharing, and answered everything so clearly. I took along four pages of questions, but he answered every one of them in his discussion and I never even needed the list.

Basically there's not a lot of new information. I'll just tell you the important and interesting stuff. Gina went in with me and we both took notes. You can ask more questions if you want.

My tumor marker test reading is way down; 137 is normal and mine is now 23 (started at 330+ before surgery). Dr. Ward doesn't know why the tumor marker reading is so good. Because.... although the CT scans are not detecting the tumor on the head of the pancreas, it is showing the size and number of 'spots" on and throughout the liver have increased quite markedly. Despite that the liver function is quite good now. Swelling in the feet/legs/ankles that I've had off and on for some time is related to liver function.

Pancreatic cancer is very hard to detect and that is why it was so advanced before they found mine and it is considered incurable. We asked if we could see the pictures of the spots on the liver. Here is one of the most interesting things. He pulled the CT scan pictures up on the computer screen and scrolled with the mouse from the bottom of my lungs all the way down through my abdomen, showing all cross sections of the the liver and other organs. That was very amazing to see, The carcinomous spots and large tumors are throughout the liver. He just scrolled down through all my organs and we could see them very clearly.

Because I'm still strong and feeling pretty well, Dr. Ward said they need to change the treatment and recommends his Plan B - to do a stronger chemo now, 4 weeks on and 2 off. He even has a Plan C. There is a one in three chance to shrink the cancer. It may give me more time, but at this time he said I have "some months" left. The average would be 6 months, but that means some people go longer, some less. He also said "months turn into years".

Joan had asked me to check about radio ablation they are doing at UCLA. Dr. Ward said they are doing the same thing at University of Utah Huntsman Clinic, and I'm not a candidate for any of it. The tumors I have are far too advanced. You can not use those procedures when tumors are inside the liver. I appreciated all he told me, and the time spent with me - an hour. I know a lot more now than I did.

Although it is sooner or later "always" terminal it sounded like it is quite a gentle death. When you become jaundiced, then it is a matter of weeks. You just become weaker, become sleepy and eventually just don't wake up.

I said again that I'd like to stay at home, and have the Community Home Care come when it would be necessary, or even go to the nursing wing of the Senior Center if necessary because of our remoteness. Dr. Ward and Judy thought that was fine.

Dr. Ward will speak again with Dr. Kim Jones, the oncologist I saw in Utah who was so forthright and involved with all of the family, and they will call Monday with an appointment for me to begin the next stage of chemo in Jackson. He said Dr. Jones had still been working on my case all these months and had spent a lot of time trying to figure out the reason there are some many unknowns. I told him to thank her very much. How special to know someone is doing that.

When we came out of the appointment Roberta and Barbara, Pinedale friends, were there. Roberta was also to see Dr. Ward for her breast cancer checkup. Thankfully she is doing well. Judy served us all some of her birthday cake. The four of us went to lunch together at The Bunnery and had the nicest visit. Gina and I peeked in at the new Trailside Gallery location, went to Staples where I had copies made and she shopped. We went to Corral West, a western clothes store. I got two cute tops, Gina got new Wranglers. Then we stopped by that saddle shop where I bought the saddle stand and I was interested to look at the over 200 saddles they have there - many old with lots of history along with their new stock. We took Kay's paintings out to the Gallery at Wilson and then came on home. It had been snowing all the time were in Jackson and after we got out of town a ways, it quit and we had a good drive back.

Let Gina off at her house and went to get gas and groceries. Again it was blizzarding when I got out of the store and it quit soon down the road, but started up again just after I got home. Nasty tiresome stuff. I stopped for a few pictures of the new calves near the creek. The dogs ran out to meet me, and wanted to run back through the field instead of ride. I think they've been pretty bored lately laying around the house. The Cabelas order of new clothes came yesterday, the UPS truck pulled up behind me at the gate. The two blouses I bought at Corral West just match a couple of the bottoms. Will probably try everything on later to see what fits or not.

I made some shrimp with snow peas stir fry and rice last night so it only took about 10 minutes after getting the groceries put away. Actually I thought it was good that I felt like cooking something after the long day - so that is the difference of not having chemo for the last 10 days, After chemo I wouldn't have really not felt like it at all.

Joe and I talked about all the details last night. He still was concerned about how sick I would be, and I told him it just sounded mostly like it would cause diarrhea. It probably won't be much worse than what I've been through already. And that both Judy and Dr. Ward reminded me I could quit any time I wanted to. Interestingly Joe remembered that he had seen Dr. Ward as a cancer specialist in Jackson sometime after his stroke and/or prostate cancer, when they were looking for some serious problems, and then I remembered that too, having taken copious notes for him that day. And (just a note) Dr. Ward has been very ill with a serious staph infection in his leg after surgery I believe (?) and was in the hospital for six months! So we didn't see him in Utah.

Beverly called today and we had a talk about all the new information as well as what they are up to. Helena sent a draft of her interview of me and I found some corrections and sent it back to her this morning. Worked on the emails that have come in. Got a set of the copies into envelopes and addressed to go to Deb and Bev. Each thing I get done makes "having the affairs in order" closer to being done. I finished up the small pastel painting of the old store at Boulder. Believe me its nothing special, but that's as good as this one is going to get.

Friday April

Elk Migration

I've done something a little different with this photo. It is a panorama made from four photos put together but instead of making it as small as possible I left it quite big, and if you click on it you should be able to see the elk better in your browser. I'm looking for comments as to whether you like this, or if three or four similar but different photos posted separately would be better to see this. Sorry not to have better pictures to share of such a stunning experience. This doesn't show them going further, high up and over the mountain. If you'll notice there are several probably ancient game trails that you can pick out.

Today Gina and I drove to Jackson for my appointment with Dr. Ward from the Huntsman Clinic. We had such a great day going together. I started off here about 6:45, just before the sun came up. There was enough breeze to make the 14 degrees feel pretty chilly. Doc was feeding his cows, and they were all aligned along their feed ground with their little calves close by when I drove out.

As I turned through the cattle guard and headed toward the mailbox I looked back toward the ranch just as the sun washed the front of the house with a warm glow against the still dark background of the hills and fields. It was so beautiful and I sure had a feeling of "homesickness" tugging at my heart knowing the days for seeing that scene are dwindling. I've always hated to leave home on a trip, regardless of how I love to travel and see new country, and this was similar to that except more so. Such a strong feeling of that being our special home for so many years, now the place that has always enfolded us and kept us safe and warm. I've lived at this house longer than any other place in my life, and surely loved it more than any other.

It was just about then that I had - I won't say a voice speaking - but certainly close to that in a strong thought that we were going to have a very special experience today. And I thought back, I would enjoy that so much.

Lots of deer, birds and hawks along the way, some antelope, the multitude of herons on their bulky stick nests in the aspens and cottonwoods on Boulder Creek. I got to Gina's within the hour. We picked up Kay's artwork at her house to take to the Gallery, and on past Rookies.

A ways up the road where that big gravel pit is there was a herd of all buck antelope trailing across the sagebrush. They usually get kicked out this time of year when its time for the does to have their kids. I guess somewhere over 50 of them, but the long line of them traveling along was so beautiful. We should have stopped for pictures and I regret not doing that but we were past them almost before realizing what a gorgeous sight it truly was. Well, if that had been the special experience it would have been wonderful, but it wasn't.

The snow through the valley and over the Rim was a whole lot less than 10 days ago when I last went. Many areas are becoming bare. Still deep snow in Bondurant but a noticeably diminished there too. We got to about where we often see the mountain sheep and didn't see any. Gina was having to watch because I was driving. In a few minutes she said there are some elk. I thought, "oh, a little bunch of elk", I said "oh that's nice" or something to that effect. She said again, "There are a bunch of elk". "How many?" She said, "A lot. It's a big bunch". Thinking we were already way past them, I said, "shall we stop?" and then I got the idea that YES she wanted to stop. We pulled off the road and she said, "I think its the whole feed ground". Even then we still didn't know how many there actually were.

As we got out of the SUV we could hear the yearlings chirping and whistling. We climbed up the small hill at the side of the road that was obscuring the view and OMG(osh), there were 6oo or 700 - or more - (?) elk strung out in lines from about a quarter of a mile above us for two or three miles, as far as we could see. They were trailing behind one another and had split along several trails, one up the gulch and another along the side hill under some of the cliffs. The ones in back were bunched together not far from us. Gina said the light buckskin colored ones in the back were the bulls. The three files came together again further up the mountain, and they just kept going on up and up climbing into the distant peaks where the sun was glowing off the snow at the ridge top. It was as if they were traveling into the light and disappearing into the glow and the distance.

We took pictures but I knew my little camera zoom would not do this justice. And usually I take more pictures, but only got seven this time. I also didn't get any higher up the mountain where they were going over the top - not sure why not except that it was so far away I knew it wouldn't show much. Wish I had now. Gina had a better zoom on hers and got great photos of some of the closest elk. I bet you can go to her blog http://www.horseback41.blogspot.com/ and she will have some better photos than mine.

Well, That had to have been the special experience, and as we turned back to the car I told Gina about the thought that had come to me this morning. I was certainly grateful to have seen such a sight, and good for Gina for spotting them.

Since its getting late and its been a long day, I will put a couple of the elk photos and continue the rest of today on tomorrows blog. I'll let you know then what the doctor said. He spent an hour with us. I had taken 4 typed pages of questions and he answered all of them.

Thursday April 24 2008

Plastered Windows

Front Porch with 5" New Snow

Raking on Hold

Backyard Blizzard

Yippee - It's Snowing!

This morning woke up to a raging blizzard and about 5 inches or so of new snow. It's warm enough that it's melting though. It hadn't done anything at 4 a.m. when I was up. It was mild and calm then so was expecting a nice day and maybe a walk. Anyway now the sun is shining and the snow is melting pretty fast. I felt sorry for the little calves and other baby animals out in the weather, but it will make them strong.

Here's some good news --- Clayton is being advanced to Life Scout and earned one of his Citizenship and the Communications badges. He just has 5 required badges left and he will be ready to work on his Eagle project. He may be done by this summer. That means he could be an Eagle Scout by age 14!!! He has to plan a Family Project for his Family Life badge, so Beverly told him that he could be in charge of the Mother's Day/Family Night Activity. He says he's going to plan something really special for all us mothers and he is calling his cousins. Hmmmm, wonder what it is? She was going to have everyone bring Mexican potluck, so now Clayton says he is making the tacos. That will be a real treat. Clayton has been doing his first school research paper. He's even typed it.

Had a nice visit with Ruth on the phone yesterday afternoon. All the artists are getting ready to go to the Wyoming Artists Association State Convention this weekend. Everyone always has a great time, with events, art shows and workshops. I won't be going since I have to go to the doctor appointment.

No news to speak of here. Tomorrow Gina and I will drive to Jackson for my appointment. I'll keep you posted on what happens.