In my last blog, I promised a demonstration of my puzzle box from Guatemala, so here it is! The video is only 3:33 minutes long, and you’ll get to see the treasures inside.
This week I have been finalizing all my personal appointments along with a few trips to the Airstream to get ready for our big road trip. One more sleep! 🤩🤩🤩
Scans (CT and Bone) were completed on Monday (my body is still stable, PTL ❤️❤️). Filled up my pill box. Got my hair done. Cleaned the house. Got my treatment (well, getting treatment while blogging). My nurse thought I was working, as many people do that during treatment. I told her I did that for many years, and I decided it was just too much. I’m so glad those days are behind me. Now I can do what I enjoy doing without the stress of the job.
Today is chemo day, and after that we should be ready! Aside, my doctor decided I don’t need bloodwork before my treatment anymore, so that was one less thing to do. It’s a beautiful day outside!
I admit I’m a little tired. Time for a nap! 😴 I’ve been so keyed up at night thinking and planning for the trip, I have had some trouble falling asleep. Last night I put all our stops and parks in the calendar so we can ensure we remember where we are going, and which days we are scheduled to work (er, when Tim has to work haha). It’s a very big trip and I look forward to sharing it with you as we go.
Living life to the fullest in spite of MBC!
À la prochaine…hasta la próxima vez…until next time!
I started this book about a month before my book club meeting, picked it up, put it down, then got into it about two weeks later. Once I got into it, I had a hard time putting it back down. I finished it at midnight the night before the meeting.
I’ve discovered some things about me and my style of reading. This is just a start. I’m sure I’ll learn a lot more as I continue to read more novels and fewer academic books.
First of all, I love historic fiction. I don’t know that I ever knew that for a fact, but I love reading all the human interest stories surrounded by true historic events. Second, it takes me a while to get into a book. Call it procrastination, or feeling tired, or dread, I don’t know. But, if it’s a good book, I do get into it and then I have a hard time letting it go until I finish. I do enjoy true stories, so perhaps the truth of the history is what draws me in.
This month’s book was All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr. He won a Pulitzer Prize (2015 Fiction Prize) the year after it was published. I was curious to find out why, and I was not disappointed.
Sitting on the back patio, enjoying my book (and the baby birds that just left the nest).
I tried to explain the plot to Tim, but this book is so full of intricate details, defining it is a massive challenge. What can I say? Read it!
Basically it’s a story of a boy and a girl who experience the atrocities of war, and the intersection of their stories. The book tells us about a blind Marie-Laure’s experience from the French side, as well as Werner’s front line witness on the German side. Werner was a child prodigy, fixing broken radios from a young age, then he is called to enter the war with others who would share in participating as students and military personnel in Heitler’s Reich. Marie-Laure learned to make use of her other senses at a young age, opening puzzle boxes within minutes, smelling her way around town, and recalling her steps by counting drains. Their family members are also followed, and the chapters rotate between various people and locations. This kept me on my toes.
There is much history told within the pages of this book. I feel like I understand more about the war, the important role played by the radio and trigonometry (math comes in handy in real life at times), German’s propaganda, the attack on Paris, the sad demise of the city of Saint-Malo, and how war impacts everyone to some degree or another (to name a few). I felt attached to the blind girl with freckles, whose father created small replicas of her town so she could find her way around when she ventured outdoors. I loved reading some French phrases, and actually understanding them!
The father’s puzzle boxes reminded me of the puzzle box my mother brought home to me from Guatemala, when I was a little girl. She was there on an extended mission trip after a major earthquake shook their world. I meant to take it to the meeting to show my fellow book clubbers, but I forgot to pick it up as I was walking out the door. Perhaps I can create a video to show you what it looks like, as well as the treasures found inside. It’s an antique now!
I liked the relatively short chapters, which helped the pages flip a bit faster. It’s quite a story. I enjoyed seeing the resilience and perseverance of those who experienced trauma and war crimes. The storyteller drew me in with his beautifully written phrases, exquisite attention to detail, and storyline. As I carried the book with me to doctor’s appointments and other errands, I heard more than once, “That’s a great book!”
I rated it a 9.0, with one point deducted primarily due to the ending. Club members also rated it strong, with some ratings increasing from 8.0 to 9.0 after our discussion.
Spoiler Alert! Skip this paragraph if you plan to read the book. I was a bit disappointed by the ending. I was hoping for a Hallmark ending, and that didn’t happen. A few people’s ending were left unclear, as the characters in the book were unable to find family members and friends. Werner and Marie-Laure do meet, and he saves her life more than once, but they only meet in person for less than a day. He seems to have fallen in love with her before they met, but when they leave the country in separate ways, he becomes ill and wanders into a mine field. I was really hoping they could stay together until the end of the book. It’s fiction after all. Why didn’t the author end it that way? I guess war is like that. Not a lot of happy endings.
À la prochaine…hasta la próxima vez…until next time!
Nearly three weeks ago I lay on the MRI table, once again checking my brain. The reason? I had an eye exam and my double vision has gotten much worse since the last time i was in the eye doctor’s chair. So much that my optometrist won’t put that much prism in my glasses. The double vision results in some dizziness, a few headaches, and, of course, two of everything. Some things are good to double; others…one is enough. My last MRI was in February, and usually I go annually. But my oncologist wanted to double check it.
I don’t get super concerned, anxious, or panicky when I see something show up on the test results. I respond like the line from Bridges of Spies, “would it help?” Worrying doesn’t help, but I do think about it at times.
I get my test results within a few days, before I see the doctor, so I tend to Google everything I don’t understand (which is most of it 🙄). However, I know if there is a cause for concern, my oncologist will call me at some ungodly hour of the morning or night. The dude never sleeps, but he is on top of it. I knew I had an appointment with him today, so even though something new popped up on this one, I just decided to wait and see what he thought about the result.
After three years of reading, “No evidence for intracranial metastasis,” this is the first time I’ve seen “lesions” show up in my brain scan since the gamma knife zapped those little suckers, so naturally I had a few questions brewing. They were described as “punctate,” which means smaller than a millimeter. More specifically, “there are 2 punctate enhancing lesions in the right-sided cerebellum and cerebellar vermis,” with “suspicious for metastasis” and “further follow up” written into the impression and recommendation. They are in the same spots where I was treated for lesions with gamma knife in 2019.
Dr. K. is not overly-concerned. He’s going to do the right thing, and watch them closely, but we aren’t getting too worked up about it and over scanning my brain either. He’s going to send over the images to the radiation oncologist just to be sure, but he doesn’t think I will need to be scanned for a few months or so.
He explained it this way. The MRI takes slices of your brain, and those slices are about 3mm apart. The chances of them catching something as small as these are very slim. They could have been there all along. Regardless, it’s most likely they are showing the healing in my brain from the gamma knife. Or, they could be some residual metastasis. Apparently the gamma knife decreases the size, but doesn’t typically eliminate them entirely (that was news to me 😳). It’s possible the MRI just happened to slice the brain on them this time, and the radiologist decided to write about it.
He did order my regular bone and CT scans, so I can get those out of the way before our big summer road trip. Which is NINE DAYS away 🤩🤩. He didn’t seem bothered by us Airstreaming, going out of town, or missing a treatment. In fact, they are all very happy for us to travel and enjoy life. We can continue with our adventure as planned.
We will be back at the end of July, and I can get another MRI done then if needed. If they want it sooner, I will be home in June for my grandson’s first birthday. Of course I won’t miss that!
Tim went with me to this appointment. Typically I go by myself. Whenever he goes with me, Dr. K. is very chatty. Not so much about cancer, although that’s part of it, but we talk about world politics, society, how it is changing, the extremes and the middle-ground, and how we all have to learn to just live with it. But we are also looking forward to the day when we no longer have to live with it. *Sigh* 😔
I’m reminded of the song, “This world is not my home!” Aside, Dr. K. is a Christian, too. 🥰
We talked about the visit on the way home, rain pouring over our sunroof. I told Tim I was glad to hear what Dr. K. had to say about the MRI results, and the lesions (or whatever they are) in my brain. While I don’t get overly anxious about it, I said, it has been on my mind.
“Literally.” He replied.
We both had a good laugh.
À la prochaine…hasta la próxima vez…until next time!
