I Have Heard The Big Music

 Entry 1     10:18 a.m. Inter

A week from the MRI, and my knees aren't quite so bad. Albeit, my walk remains more Charlie Chaplin than Long John Silver like.  Still, I can move a bit better, but pay for it with aching knees.  It could be worse. I could have terminal cancer.

I installed a motion sensor, a glass break detector a camera with alarm and motion sensors, and a motion sensor light around the outside of the downstairs yesterday. I


also affixed stickers to the windows. I have two more lights and one more camera to install.  The camera and light I installed during the deluge; a real old-fashioned PNW experience. 

I slept in my bed last night for the first time in two weeks.  I woke repeatedly. I don' think I will be able to do that peacefully until I have the downstairs sliding glass door replaced with security doors and bars placed on the 2 huge windows.

My love hate relationship with Seattle does have a lot to do with the years I spent delivering newspapers in the rain, wind, hail, cold, snow and dark. That and the fact that laying out next to the pool, and soaking in my spillover hot tub showed me the errors of my ways as a rain-soaked refugee from Seattle.  I would, if I can have air-conditioning, a pool and a hot tub, choose the sun and heat over this grey Seattle weather any and every day.

Jenny is losing energy, but unable to stop herself from moving, from seeing everyone she can as often as possible and going everywhere. She is also vacillating between "I am going to beat this" and "I am failing" or "I don't want to die." These emotions, these feelings are roiling her. I am, frankly, scared. She has lost so much energy.  She does seem to have less stamina, and seem weaker.  AND, the substitute oncologist labeled her as ECOG 0 (which is an excellent rating) and described her disease as "stable."  She reports feeling out-of-sorts all the time now. The neuropathy makes it impossible to touch or drink or eat anything hot or cold, without suffering terrible pain.  She forgets about it, as one is wont to do after 50 years of not having this issue, and then suffers the consequences when grabbing a cold water from the fridge.  It is painful.  She has body temperature fluctuations that are unlike the chemo-driven menopause she went through this last year.  She has strange pains in her hip, funny knots in her stomach. She has balance issues, dizziness right now, but I fear it may get worse.  Tinnitus, at times so bad she can't hear me talk unless I am a couple feet away.

Jenny is leaving today to go to Seabrook for a couple of days with her friend "Mary." She is squeezing in as much time as possible to enjoy her life. There is something funny about their relationship in the last few weeks. I suspect Mary likely was having an affair or is having an affair, and the two of them have drawn closer as they share their escapades.  But, who knows. 


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