3/25/21

Thursday. Jessica typing, Patty mostly conscious next to her.

Once upon a time (when she heard about the cancer), a good friend gave Mom this great "Save the Hooters" shirt and she's been wearing it constantly. I think she deliberately spreads out her laundry so she can wash it every couple of days. Here she is on the day of surgery:

Save the Hooters shirt image

So on Saturday, we were hanging out by the firepit in the back yard, having an appetizer and chatting. Dad wanted to take a picture of Mom, but then, "what is that dark spot on your shirt, honey?" Mom looks down and she is ON FIRE. I mean, she's always on fire, but for real this time. A large ember had landed on her shirt, burned through it, burned through her bra, burned through the padding underneath, and finally gone out just before burning her. She was in tears. She called her friend the next day and found out it had been custom made by her daughter for her. Oh lordy. "What did you spill on it?" came the accusatory but joking tone. "Nothing..." replied Mom, then spilled the beans. They had a good laugh thankfully, but if you see Mom wearing a Save the Hooters shirt with a burn hole in it, give her a hard time, please.


Tuesday was an unusually icky evening for the day of chemo, apparently. They usually aren't too bad and Mom & Dad sometimes go out to dinner, but Mom got woozy and felt crappy that evening. At bedtime she even broke down and took *gasp* a pain pill.

Wednesday was surprisingly nice by comparison. I've been cooking omelets each morning for everybody, but I had to work remotely so Dad attempted it this morning. The first one ended up just scrambled eggs with cheese and veggies, but by the third one he was looking like a pro and they were all delicious. Mom & I researched some new compression garments online, looking for a glove to wear with the sleeve she bought at the local store. We looked at lots of online stores, researching compression pressure, finger length, reviews, return policies, you name it.

Wouldn't you know it; in the end we piled into the car and went back to the local store to get a glove and another straightjacket bra. We didn't end up leaving until almost 2pm and unfortunately, her day-after injection started when we were just about to check out. We'd already picked out a glove, though, so she just sat there and drank some water while we finished up. She didn't take the glove off for the rest of the day. She says it's going to help keep her left thumbnail on (gross, Mom).

Today is pretty awful. She had a poor night, stayed in bed late, and hasn't moved from the couch since she got up. She's been willing to drink juice and eat a little, though.

Last time they went out, Mom asked Dad to take her to one of those places where they cook in front of you. He took her to Subway.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

  6/16/25 I’m back. By a show of hands, everyone that loves my charts, and patient portals, etc. raise those hands high! Hmmmm, I see none going up. I have sent messages on my patient portal on several occasions and heard nothing back. So, I call the office and leave a message, because you never get a real person the first time. No one calls me back. I think I might drive to the office tomorrow. ….. sigh. On a good note, my ctDNA test came back negative. Hooray! And I go back to MD Anderson in Houston in two months. I have an endoscopy in three weeks. I see my rheumatologist in two days. I need to get my dermatologist to take a look at my head. It’s been five weeks since she cut that open and it still has not healed. It’s still scabby and bloody. So, I still cannot get in the pool. And I have to stay out of the sun. It looks pretty icky on the top of my head, I’m sorry to say.  David and I celebrated my good news by going to Shreveport this past weekend. We had a good time. Th...
Read more
  5/12/2025 It’s been five months since I’ve written in my blog. Several people are upset with me for taking such a long break. However, my life just hasn’t been very exciting these past few months. I will appease the masses and update my blog today. David and I went on a seven day cruise in January and I continued with physical therapy twice a week for my back. David and I took a road trip in February and March. We drove thousands of miles and stopped in to see a lot of old friends along the way. We made it to Vegas and we got to see Garth Brooks in concert. That was a lot of fun. We kept going through Utah and Colorado and finally made our way back home. I cut almost 10 inches off of my hair in March. It was my first real haircut in years. I had another sleep study done and saw the pulmonologist several times. He wanted a special kind of sleep study so I went back for a third one. He ordered me another CPAP machine, but this one has a different mouthpiece and I sleep pretty well ...
Read more
12/10/25 Thursday First of all, good news. My latest cancer test came back negative.  I am currently in Las Vegas, supposedly having a grand time, but I am not. I got food poisoning and spent all day yesterday in bed. At least when I wasn’t vomiting or had diarrhea. All dang day. By evening, I was so weak I could barely walk. The hotel called paramedics and they took me to the ER. I was there until 11:30 PM last night. Poor David. I felt so sorry for him. It was a horrible evening and I’m still weak this morning. I haven’t eaten anything since Tuesday evening . We’re supposed to fly home tomorrow. I sure hope I’m better than this by then. I got show tickets for last night with spectacular seats and David had to take them back and get our money back. At least we got to go to the national finals rodeo Tuesday night. That was so much fun! Today doesn’t look like much fun, though. I feel horrible. They did a lot of scans at the hospital. Showed a lot of scarring in my right lung, which...
Read more