I’ve been feeling good today, and that’s convenient because it was a very busy day.  I started by realizing that I had some web documents to update (some that I hadn’t realized needed it).  (This is not for our production site; it’s for the beta site that’s waiting to go live, but I can’t take it live unless it’s at least as up to date as our production site.  Most of the changes were pretty trivial, but they needed doing.)

It’s also packing day.  We’re used to traveling four times a year, and we have it down to a find science.  Normally we leave at the crack of dawn on a Friday, so we pack on Thursday.  This time we aren’t leaving until Sunday (to give me time to recover some from the infusion), and we aren’t leaving at the crack of dawn, but we still figured on packing today because my infusion is relatively early tomorrow and I don’t know how much energy I’ll have after that.  We’d both made our lists long since.  (They don’t change a great deal, trip to trip.)  So it was just a matter of doing last-minute laundry and assembling the items.

I’m better at packing than my sweetie, so I generally pack both of us.  He was delaying his shopping trip because the weather was pretty bad, so I didn’t get started for a while.  (I like him to be out of the way while I do it.)  That was okay, though, because I was pretty busy online (see above).  And then I packed myself, and that didn’t take long.

Meanwhile, I was getting ready for a meeting this afternoon with people who are going to take over the administration of a volunteer project I’ve been handling, and that required a little bit of preparation, some of which turned out to be more complicated than I’d anticipated.  But I got that finished and had lunch, showered, dressed, and ran down to the subway station at the corner to put some money onto my metro card.

Then I came back, did a bit more work, and took myself off to my meeting.  That turned out to be a very congenial meeting, and the folks involved had some excellent ideas, and I hope all goes well.  I expect to be able to help for a while, at least, but I wanted to give them the access they’ll need to get started.

Then I came back, realized I hadn’t taken my keys, pulled my poor sweetie out of the shower to let me in, and got back to work.

As I say, a busy Thanksgiving day, but an extremely productive one.  Cycle III ends tomorrow.  I do feel better this week than last, so let’s see what the medical team has to say.

Another good day today.  This week has definitely been better than last.  I haven’t gone into the office, but that’s not because I’ve been incapacitated, only busy with other things.  I’m definitely doing better by postponing the oatmeal until midday.

I’d spent nearly the whole morning at the computer.  (I start just after 5:30, so that’s a significan amount of time.)  Eventually I needed to stretch, and as I did that I realized that my sweetie does a lot of exercising right in our apartment, and that there were things I could do here to.  Not that it’s hard to get to the basement to use the gym, but when I’m involved in something it’s easier to stop, do some moving around, stretch, use a theraband instead of weights, and then go back to work.  So I did that a few times, and tomorrow, if I don’t go downstairs, I’ll probably co-opt the yoga mat and do some crunches.

I did spend a little time trying to figure out whether I could conveniently migrate memos from my old T/X to my new iPhone.  One category of memos showed up on the computer when I looked at “recent items”, but only one.  Fortunately, it (books!) was the one I cared most about.  (Some are recommendations; others are lists by author of the books I’ve read.  Very useful in libraries and bookstores.)  (Yes, I do go into bookstores from time to time.)

After lunch I stayed mostly at the computer, but I took more breaks.  I also touched base with some family members, letting them know our travel plans, and made some changes to some of the things I’m handling that I’ll be passing along to others.

Tonight my sweetie has a meeting (of the mineralogical society), and I’ll spend a little time visiting with a neighbor– a dear friend whom I often used to see during workouts.  Both of us have changed our schedules, and we seldom see each other now.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This was another peppy day.  I worked through the morning, with a short break to attempt a  kludgy repair of one of the drawers in our refrigerator.  (I don’t expect it to hold for long, but it should hold for long enough for us to decide whether it’s worth replacing the fridge.)

My sweetie was at the beach.  I checked on a credit card bill that will come due while we’re away (not very big), and paid my phone bill (smaller this month; my family have been calling me).  I had my oatmeal for lunch.  I’m still not thrilled about eating it.  It’s not comfortable for me, and it doesn’t satisfy me.  I went out to do a couple of errands after lunch (haircut, bank), and when I got back I had a substantial snack of  leftover tuna salad.

My sweetie was home by then, sorting through the artifacts he found today and comparing them with ones he’s already collected.  I checked in online but didn’t spend too much additional time working.

I have the names of three doctors to contact about a second opinion:  two from my hematologist friend and one (at Sloan Kettering) from my sister, who says there’s no reason not to try speaking to the doctor directly.  (She spoke to someone who’d been referred to this doctor directly, and who had no waiting time.)  The other doctors are at Columbia Presbyterian and Weill Cornell.  I’ll try to find the energy to speak to all of them, but I make no promises.  (My sweetie is likely to be able to help with this.  It’s the sort of thing I hate doing, and he doesn’t mind it.)

But I was really happy at the amount of energy I had today.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, it certainly seems to work better for me if I have the oatmeal for lunch.  I started with my usual egg this morning.  I can’t say I felt like swimming the English Channel, but neither did I feel like hiding under my pillow.  I did the hand laundry, gave myself a brief (and not very intense) workout, prepared cookies, but didn’t bake them. They need to chill before they’re baked, and the recipe makes a huge quantity, so I divided up the dough and refrigerated it; I’ll freeze at least one of the portions, and probably back only part of the other one.  I can always freeze it later.

I did have the oatmeal for lunch, and it went down a lot more easily than it had at breakfast.  So I still don’t know whether it’s breakfast in general or simply after an infusion, but I think I won’t take chances.  The egg (actually, one egg and on portion of pasteurized egg white, raising the protein without adding a lot of additional bulk) goes down so much more easily.

My back is very achy today, and that’s slowed me down some.  (It’s an arthritic condition that I’ve been feeling on and off for years, but didn’t identify until it showed up in the CAT scan that pinpointed my cancer.) I relaxed over Tinker, Tailor.  There’s something about LeCarre’s prose that I find extremely satisfying.  It reads very smoothly.  (I like it so much that I once tried reading a novel of his that wasn’t a spy story.  The style did nothing for it and the plot turned me off to the point that I think I didn’t even finish it.  I’m not sure I’d react the same way to it now; that was years ago.  I can’t even recall the title.)  Anyhow, I’m savoring it.

A quiet day today, but a productive one.  Back to work tomorrow.

This morning I had oatmeal for breakfast (with skim milk and fruit).  I felt awful afterward.  Tomorrow I’ll have egg for breakfast (as I’ve been doing) and save the oatmeal for lunch.  It’s not clear to me whether the problem was oatmeal in the mornning or oatmeal in the morning after an infusion.  I’ve been feeling a little sickish– nothing bad, just not good– all day until about half an hour ago, when it seems to have passed off, so perhaps it’s just the infusion.

The schedule for my family calls was off today because my brother, who usually calls early, had errands that called him out of the house at that time, so I spoke to my sister first.  These calls, like the daily calls from my parents, keep me connected and involved in projects with people I love.

For the rest of the day, I did a fair amount of reading and treated myself to a lavender soak.  I finished my book (which turns out to be the first half of a story, and ends on a cliffhanger).  Fortunately, the sequel is already available in paper, so I’ll get it when I’m back from Florida.

I have another gift book–  _The Shadow of Reichenbach Falls_– waiting in the wings, but I think I’ll go back to _Tinker, Tailor,…_ first, so as to have something new to read when I’m on the plane.

And that’s been my day.  I would like to do some more baking; if I have the energy tomorrow, perhaps I will.

And now I’m actually beginning to think I might enjoy having supper.  That’s the first meal I’ve been enthusiastic about today.  Happy Thanksgiving.

Well, the exam was a good one.  Dr. S probed and prodded and thumped and kneaded, very thoroughly.  I described what I was feeling, and he seemed to be looking for evidence of something that would explain it, and he didn’t feel anything.  So I still have the stiffness and the pressure, but there’s nothing obviously scary to cause it.

We also took care of the details of the scan.  It’s a PET-CT scan, and it’s no food after midnight and nothing to drink after 5am.  The scan is at nine, so that shouldn’t be too bad.  I didn’t think to ask how long it would take, but some web research suggests that the scan itself will take less than an hour, but there’s some prep beforehand.

We also scheduled the followup discussion for the Monday following, with the idea that I’ll resume infusions Friday.  (I like the Friday infusions because it leaves me the weekend to recover.)  So that will happen at the end of January.

The whole process was a little longer than last week, but it wasn’t bad, even with the post-infusion stop to get the scan details.  We got home soon after one and I immediately stretched out on the bed.  I didn’t go back to the computer until nearly three, and I didn’t spend much time there when I checked in.

A bit before dinner my parents called, apologizing for calling so early.  (They usuall call just after dinner.)  They’re going out with a neighbor of whom they (and we) are very fond, who was widowed last year, and who just sold her unit.  Naturally they didn’t want to miss a call on infusion day, especially when I’d been worried about what would happen.  They are amazing, wonderful, loving people.

I’m feeling a little less post-infusion now.  We’ll see what tomorrow brings.  And, in the meantime, today is again a day of thanksgiving.  Yes, it’s day by day by day, and treasuring each one.

Some days are easier than others.  I’m not feeling much better today than I have all week, and I don’t know whether it’s just my gut trying to set itself straight (and whether that’s even possible) or whether it’s more serious than that.  I’m glad that I’ll have an exam and an infusion tomorrow, but I’m nervous about it.

I was nervous last week, too, and everything looked good to the medical staff, but when I went to see my family doctor in September, things looked good to him, too, so I find that less reassuring than I might.

I still accomplished a fair amount today.  I worked this morning, and I went through some old files, discovering treasure as well as trash.  I found an essay I wrote about twenty years ago, a memorial tribute to an aunt of whom I was very fond.  I found a family picture taken in the mid-1950s.  I found my ticket stub from the Broadway production of The Producers, which I promptly turned into a bookmark by laminating it.  I might have baked cookies, but I realized I hadn’t taken the butter out, so I didn’t have time.

I did go into the office, where I put the sensitive files into a drawer that locks and looks unlikely to fall apart.  I did a couple of other chores, but didn’t stay too long.  I came back, answered a phone message from our next-door neighbor, checking to see if I was okay, had a look around online, and took a nap.  That felt a little better.

My sweetie had been at the beach.  When he came in he asked how I was, and I told him, which led to a fairly emotional exchange.  Each of us is generally pretty careful not to inflict too much on the other, but every now and then we just need to let it out, and that’s hard and painful.

Anyhow, let’s see what happens tomorrow.  I don’t feel really bad, just not as terrific as I was feeling a couple of weeks ago.  I could go on like this for a long time, and I hope I do– like this or better.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Today was the coldest day of the season, and more than cold enough for me.  I was grateful not to have to go out, and I didn’t (until dinner time, when the temperature had warmed to the 20s F).

I did my usual work chores, managed (after a few unsuccessful attempts to reach the person in charge) to schedule my scan (January 27), and went through some banking stuff.  My sweetie and I have a joint account, and we need to make sure it’s set up with rights of survivorship, so that he has access to those funds without interruption.  He spoke to someone at the bank who entirely failed to comprehend the nature of his question.  I’m not sure how we’ll end up dealing with this.  I might try telephoning, to see whether I have better luck.  I’ll go down there if I have to (and certainly I can go if we need to sign papers or whatever), but just to find out what the setup is on that account should not require that I do so.

This afternoon I worked for a bit and then rested.  My sweetie was doing his volunteer work, and I had just decided to nap when he got home, so I would be awake enough not to collapse over dinner, which I nearly did anyhow.  This was a dinner that we’ve been trying to arrange for over six months, with our next-door neighbor, so we could see pictures of her grandsons (ten and eight months old now).  Not only is she excellent company, she decided to treat us; I was having a lovely time, but my gut was beginning to be stirred up, so I excused myself and left the two of them at the table so I didn’t end up perfuming the restaurant.

Except for being very gassy and a bit tired, I’m feeling pretty good.  And this is late for me, so being tired isn’t unusual.

Much better today.  Not perfect, but less gassy and less achy in the abs.  It’s not all gone; I wish it were, but I’m considerably less uncomfortable today than yesterday, and I’m a lot more interested in doing things.  Even before reading comments, I had the idea of taking a probiotic to see whether that will calm things down for me, and reading Kathryn’s comment I figured I might as well try it.  I had some left from the attempt to calm my gut this autumn, so I didn’t even have to go shopping for them.  So we’ll see.

I started the process of scheduling my scan; I hope to complete that tomorrow morning, after which we can schedule the evaluation at Memorial Sloan Kettering.  I also spoke to our lawyer, who reassured me that the durable PA we set up about twenty years ago (when we were living at a different address) is still valid and covers all likely contingencies (and some unlikely ones).

I did some work online, and went into the office where I locked my desk properly.  I’m not sure how strong it is, but I can deal with that later– or bequeath it to other staffers to deal with.  The files that need to be locked don’t take up all that much room, and someone who’s less compulsive than I am about having historical archives available might happily shred a bunch of it.  Not I.  I was using it just today to update an information sheet for staff (a list of all past employees with dates of employment and what they did; nothing sensitive and no comments).

I left even earlier than usual because I might not have gone in at all had it not been for the desk issue.  I came home, did another brief check-in, and then decided to call it a day and relax.