Saturday January 10 2009

Snow King Ski Runs from the elk refuge.

Jackson is at the base of the hill.

Antique something at the ski area.

Saturday the 10th: Another day in low gear so not much to write about. Joe is watching football. Started doing laundry. Went to the clinic for the flushing before they closed at noon. The nurse took me in the emergency room to do it this time – not sure why. Guess I’d been there when they life flighted me to Idaho Falls but don’t remember a thing about it. There was a sick boy and all his family being taken care of. Glad we have such a place. Made spaghetti for dinner - the sauce was frozen earlier so it was easy. Slept good again, although as usual watched a movie or two in the night. Gradually feeling better. About 9 p.m. or so a lot of the discomfort lifted away. That's the way the chemo works - after most of a week goes by I will feel pretty good - I hope.

Friday January 9 2009

See all those tiny little dots or distant dark lines?

They are elk on the

National Elk Refuge north of Jackson.

There were LOTS of them out there.

I might have gotten better pictures of them

if I'd gotten the new camera! huh?

Anyway gives an idea of the scenery there.

Friday the 9th: Joe went to coffee and bought another snow shovel - with a different configuration of the handle. The first one is a big scooper type. He got the mail. The gas bill for the month is almost $300. – not used to that in the budget! Guess we never appreciated the wood stove as much as we should have. Still sleeping a lot off and on. But got a shower and washed my hair, and went down to the clinic about 3:30 to get the chemo pump removed and the picc line flushed. Then to Ridley’s for groceries. Tried the Hormel pot roast Judi recommended that’s ready cooked and some Idahoan red instant mashed potatoes (both good) with some frozen corn on the cob and bag salad. I didn’t hear any complaints and I liked the meat and potatoes pretty well. I might be doing more of that at times, and need to find something easy to fix that Joe will eat – he’s so against prepared stuff. I’m going to see what the Hormel turkey is like next. He was asking for hot turkey sandwich a few days ago. The recycling center was still open, so I dumped the cardboard boxes that had been in the car for days off there. Sheral called sometime in this time area and I enjoyed the visit with her.

Thursday January 8 2009

Sculptures

There are a lot of large sculptures

around Jackson. These were at the

Wilcox Gallery.

Thursday the 8th: Was very sick during the night. All the bad stuff – throwing up and later diarrhea, and a very terrible headache for about 12 hours that the pain medicine wouldn’t even touch – don’t know what it would have been without a pain pill. It finally went away in the morning. Spent the day in bed, except to get us some simple meals. Joe helped out too. Just did a lot of sleeping. Joan called me from Arizona and it was really good to hear from her.

Feeling pretty sick all day, but actually know I’m already feeling better. In fact have not had to take any night pain pills and so far this morning have not had any day pain pills either. And have not missed a pain pill pretty much since I started on them. But perhaps am going through some withdrawals by not taking them – mainly my stomach stays upset. And had to pay a big pill bill for some stronger pain med that I probably don’t need right now after all. I had been telling them that I had to have something stronger to get through the pain of the port – they gave me morphine sulfate. Now that the port is gone, the pain is better. I’ll probably need them anyway at some point in the future so will just save them. My drug plan insurance doesn’t want to give me the oxycontin any more, but it is the best at night. They want me to have the morphine sulfate and I don’t think it’s any of their business to be saying which prescriptions I should have. Anyway if I have the oxycontin any more I’ll probably have to pay for it all and it’s expensive. Still have two more Lovenox shots to give myself and then will be done with that.

Wednesday January 7th 2009

Snow King Ski Runs from Downtown

Hardly anyone was skiing there.

Bank (I think)

Traffic

That's my leftover apple turnover from

The Bunnery on the dashboasrd.

I saved it so I could enjoy the

rest at home, but Joe ate it, before I even

got out of bed. Frown.

Across from Eddie Bauer

Going to KMart

On Broadway - The Square is on the Right

and turn right to go to Teton Park

and Yellowstone

Wednesday the 7th: Up early and Bonnie drove me over to Oncology for my chemo treatment. And that went very much as usual so won't write about it. Bonnie went back to the motel, and had some breakfast later. It must have been a pretty boring day for her just mostly hanging around. I was oncology until they took me about 2 p.m. to have the port removed. I layed in a bed for quite a while until they were ready to take me into the operating room. The procedure didn’t take long and went well. I think by the time I woke up from the anesthetic it was about 4 p.m. They brought me a grilled cheese sandwich and some tomato soup which was welcome. We started home and still had some daylight for a lot of the way. The highway was icy, but Bonnie just drove right along. We passed a lot of snow plows - it had stormed during the day but was fairly warm. Got to our house at maybe 6:30 and unloaded all the stuff I had. And Bonnie headed home.

THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH BONNIE, FOR DRIVING ME AND BEING SO PATIENT FOR THREE DAYS. I SURELY DID ENJOY THE TIME SPENT WITH YOU.

Tuesday January 6 2009

Virginian

Bonnie connecting the DVD
to watch Mama Mia

Bunnery Pastry Counter

Yum

Breakfast at the Bunnery

Tuesday the 6th: We had breakfast Tuesday morning at the Bunnery – coffee and one of their wonderful pastries. On Tuesday we went to Eddie Bauer and they had a big sale on – got a couple of shirts there. Then drove around searching for some of the hardware stores to find the breaker Craig and Joe need to finish our breaker box (the new outlet in the basement needs a breaker which will also prevent the well pump motor from burning up). I found some of the reflector posts I wanted for our driveway which has ditches with big rocks on either side at the street – afraid I am going to run into them when the snow covers it all up. We found a large electrical supply place and got the breaker there. Ate lunch at the Virginian.

We got to the dr. appt. at 3 p.m. and as usual had to wait for a while. The appointment went good, got prescriptions. Then we went to Nora’s Fish Creek Restaurant for dinner and had prime rib. It wasn’t the best ever, but good. I couldn’t eat all of mine. Then stopped in at Smith’s again to get my prescriptions filled. We bought a snack because I couldn’t eat or drink anything from midnight until my surgery Wed. afternoon. Watched Mama Mia on Bonnie’s DVD player, and had our snack and milk about 11:30. The wind was really blowing the snow around, but got only another inch or so of snow.

Monday January 5 2009

Snow King Ski Run

Snow King for Lunch

K Mart

Monday the 5th: Bonnie came to get me about 9 a.m. and we started off for Jackson. It had been stormy but the road was cleared well enough, part of it even dry, and we did fine getting there. The scenery was beautiful as usual. We stopped first at Smith’s to see if there were any prescriptions that had been called in there, so I would know what to ask for or not when I saw the doctor. There were no prescriptions even though I had called in for some to be filled. That was o.k. because I could straighten it out later. Next we went to Kmart and did some shopping. I looked for the new camera that I’ve been wanting but they didn’t have the right model so didn’t get one. I was able to find a few things that were on the big list, although not as much as I would have liked. I finally found an outdoor thermometer and bought a small wall clock for the kitchen. The thermometer only goes to twenty below, I noticed after I got it home. Might take the clock back, not sure I like it well enough. Then we went to check in at the Hitching Post. UH OHH! The woman there said we were a day early for our reservation.

Alex had made the reservation for Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Befuddled for a while, I said I’d go over to Oncology and see what had gone wrong. So over to the hospital . My appt. card said 6th and 7th – and turns out I had assumed my chemo day would be Tuesday morning as it usually is, with the surgery to get the port out in the afternoon. That would have made my doctor appointment with Dr. Meno on Monday afternoon at 3. Well it wasn’t – and it was my fault because I never looked at the calendar, just blanked it out, and figured Monday was the 6th. NOT. And believe me, this lapse is difficult to write in the blog for all to see!

I told Bonnie just to go home if she wanted to and maybe come back and get me in a couple days. But we decided rather than drive back home we’d just stay Monday night and have a mini vacation doing things around Jackson. Then we wouldn’t have to drive home and back again on Tuesday. We shopped- Coldwater Creek and more at Kmart where I got a couple of front opening sweatshirts, went to a couple of the better galleries. Ate lunch at Snow King and went to Pizza Hut for dinner.

A lot of Jackson's Holiday lights are still up, and the park in the square is especially pretty with ice blue lights on the elk antler arches and all the trees. I never got a picture of it, though should have. There is quite a bit of snow in Jackson and more in Wilson where the doctor’s office is.

Friday January 9 2008

Hi Everyone,

I've been back home since Wednesday night, but not feeling much like blogging - with five days to catch up on now - I'll get back to it as soon as I have the ambition for it. Everything went fine, but I had a bad night Wednesday after the procedure (vomiting and humongous headache), and stayed in bed all day Thursday. My Dr. appt. also went well with Dr. Menolascino saying he was very happy with the way the chemo was going. He was pleased that the tumors have shrunk and that I'm tolerating the treatments as well as I have been.

Have to get a shower and hair washed - might feel a lot better after that. Today I go to the clinic to get the pump off and flush the picc line. I think I'm going to feel a whole lot better soon with that chest port gone. Even though I'm still a little puny and feeling tired, I feel that is better already.

Thanks so much for the phone calls and supportive emails. They are very much appreciated.

Love to you all, Lynn