On October 23rd my grandmother turned 101 years old. I called her, as I’ve always done on her birthdays, and she was as surprised as she always was when I’ve called from California. “Happy birthday grandma!” I said. She was quiet. “It’s Stine” I added. “Is it Stine? Are you calling from America!?” For her it was always very grand to get a phone call from America. After I confirmed that I was calling from America she immediately asked me…
The sound of moving water has always been very soothing to me. Every night when I go to bed and every morning when I wake up I hear the splashing of circulating water in our koi pond. At 9 am our pool pump starts and the sound of the pool fountain and waterfall takes over. It’s fascinating that such a simple thing as water hitting water can be so calming. My favorite sound when I’m in a forest is the…
I’m in my bed trying to wake up. James just came in and put a cup of tea and some cookies on my bed stand. He opened the window blinds to let the light in and headed downstairs. Chess jumped up on the bed and he is lying at the foot of the bed watching the open door looking out for any potential danger – in addition to taking his fourth and fifth morning nap. It’s 8 am and James…
I’m sitting in the infusion room. It’s the eighth time I’m in an infusion chair getting an infusion, and the third time in this room. It feels oddly familiar, but still different every time. I don’t want to get used to it. I don’t want this to be part of my life. I have two more infusions and then I’m done – at least for now. I have a nagging feeling that I will have to get more chemotherapy sometime…
Yesterday after breakfast I took the last three pills of chemo in this cycle. It feels really good to have reached this milestone. I’m getting closer to the end of this journey. Three cycles to go. As I wrote in the last update it has been going surprisingly well and much better than expected (so typical me to worry too much). This week went also pretty well. I did not get more nauseous or had much more stomach problems and…