Happy news for the 200th post!!

It's a good thing that Kristen had her baby shower on Saturday, because yesterday she went into labor -- about three weeks early. At 5:58 p.m., Isabella Rose entered the world, and mom and baby are doing fine. Congratulations to Jon, Kristen and the entire family, and welcome Isabella!

Where did that long weekend go??

My treatments last week went well. I had my Zometa infusion on Thursday and Gemzar on Friday. My blood counts were still good, although my hemoglobin stood at 10.2 on Thursday -- only 0.2 above the "you need a shot" point. I was feeling very fatigued on Sunday and Monday, so I'm keeping my fingers tightly crossed that the count holds at 10 or above for Friday's treatment.

Saturday afternoon I went to a baby shower for Lydia G's daughter-in-law (DIL for those who prefer abbreviations). It was wonderful to see some of the women I usually only get to see at Lydia's house. We had a lovely time chatting, but I was exhausted by the time the shower was over at 5. I don't know how Kristen had the energy at 8 months along to open gifts for two hours, but I know I was tired just watching her!

Starting on Thursday (and pacing myself), I got all my flowers planted into pots and got the herbs and tomato plants in the ground. I did a little weeding and moved a few small plants from the backyard to the front, but I just ran out of energy Sunday and it didn't really come back. I still need to pick up basil, oregano and cucumbers, which I might do Friday morning before chemo. Then I'll have the weekend to get them planted.

There is still so much to do outdoors, and I just don't know how we are going to get it done before summer is over. At least the pool is open and the water is clear. I added chemicals over the weekend, but the pool guys added so much chlorine (to a pool with clear water!!!) that the level is three times the safe level. Duh! The sun will probably burn most of it off in the coming week if it hasn't already, since we didn't get the rain we were supposed to and instead enjoyed sunshine all weekend long. Our automatic pool cleaner is acting up -- shutting off after running for 20 minutes -- so that's another thing Ed has to try to repair. It's always something, isn't it??

Ed had taped "Farrah's Story" for me to watch after he had seen the original broadcast and found it much better than he anticipated. I don't know how many of you saw it, but I would recommend it if you see it in reruns (it was rebroadcast on Bravo last week). I don't anticipate that she will be alive much longer since her doctors were not able to stem the tide of liver mets (or prevent two local recurrences of her primary tumor). I feel sorry for her, but I wonder if she made the right choices early on in not being more aggressive in her chemo treatments at UCLA (she didn't want to lose that famous hair) and then waiting again to use more aggressive chemo when she developed the liver mets. She was able to fly to Germany for treatments there that were not approved here, which gave her about an extra 18 months of life, but even those treatments couldn't save her. Obviously money can't solve every problem, as some people believe.

Just wanted to say hello to Laura (hope I'm spelling it right), one of my chemo nurses in New Jersey. I gave her this blog URL, and she might make it here one of these days. Hope I didn't write anything critical about her before this. She IS the one who sticks me with the needle. :)

I still haven't gotten the Paris photos up on Webshots. I promise to work on that next weekend. Really...

Recovered!

We finally beat jet lag by the end of the weekend. I did some gardening on Saturday, which was difficult due to the sciatica problems. I can kneel for a while, but I can't sit unless I can stretch my leg straight out -- not always a possibility in a garden. I also discovered that I can get a shovel into the dirt and move it, but I can't lift the shovel with dirt on it. Luckily I have a strong gardener's helper for that! I bought some vegetable and herb plants and some flowers on Sunday, so I need to get them in pots and in the ground as soon as possible. I'm hoping to start that task tomorrow before Zometa and finish up most of it before chemo on Friday. Over the weekend I need to enlist Ed's help to continue to move a bunch of plants from the backyard and the side of the garage to the front garden. I've been wanting to get to that for more than a year, and I hope this weekend to finish off the chore.

The pool is now open, and the new solid pool cover did an excellent job of keeping the water clear. There is some debris on the bottom that blew in under the cover, but we usually open our pool to green, yucky water since the previous cover was porous. After a good vacuuming and some chemical additions, we should be ready for summer weather. Unfortunately, we found out that our pump needs to be replaced and we have a crack in one of our return lines. The pump can be taken care of for less than $400 but the crack is going to be an issue and one that the pool guy suggested be taken care of when we replace the liner -- which I was hoping not to do for a few more years since there are no holes in it. I don't even want to think about that bill, but hopefully we can put it off until next year. Maybe the market will be better by then???

While the pool guys were there, Ed discovered a sink hole (or some such thing) under our brick patio. One of the guys stepped on an area of bricks and a hole opened up. That hole is about 18" across and a foot deep, but the more concerning issue is the 8" wide hole about six inches under the bricks that runs...well, we don't know how far it goes yet. Ed has to pull the bricks as far as the hole goes, fill the hole with aggregate, replace the sand, and re-lay the bricks. It's always something, isn't it? I'm guessing ground hog, but we did have a tree stump somewhere under the patio, so it's possible that over the past 11 years, the stump and a large root rotted and the guy just stepped in the wrong spot. Unless we find an opening at the end of the tunnel, I guess we'll never know. One more job to add to Ed's to do list. He's not thrilled.

My cough continues unabated. I've been following Kate's doctor's "do not eat or drink list" fairly consistently since we returned (had ketchup and four slices of tomato one day) and the cough has not improved. At the urging of my husband and one of my dear friends (you know who you are), I made an appointment with a gastroenterologist for June 3. Maybe he can tell me if it's acid reflux or not. Maybe it's a combination of acid reflux and an allergy. I just need to know what it is and resolve it. I'm tired of coughing. And Ed's tired of hearing it, I'm sure. I'm now also trying a saline nasal spray whenever the cough gets going to see what happens. Will let you know.

Otherwise, things are good. As long as I'm not totally crashed from chemo, I'll be seeing some friends at a surprise event this weekend, so I'm very much looking forward to that. Also, it will be a very long weekend for me, so I'm looking forward to sleeping in. Any morning without an alarm is a good morning to me.

Hope this finds you all well and, for those in the U.S., planning fun things for your holiday weekend. I'll be back soon.

TGIF

Sunday continued... We did enjoy our sandwiches in the park, but it was too cool to sit on the benches under the trees, so we walked down to the Seine and by the time we got there, the sun was out again. We read and enjoyed the warmth for a while, and then headed back to the hotel before the showers arrived. We tried a new restaurant and I had my first chicken of the trip. It was warm enough to eat outdoors under a canopy, and the restaurant served some of the best baguette we tasted on the trip.

Monday was cool and rainy, so we decided to take our free pass for the Louvre and make a return visit (we spent a few hours there seeing the main sights -- the Mona Lisa, Venus deMilo and Winged Victory -- on last year's trip). It was the perfect way to spend the day, because once we reached the Metro (which is only a five minute walk from our hotel) we didn't have to go back outside if it was raining because there is an underground entrance to the museum. We spent many hours revisting the Mona Lisa (and getting up close this time) and looking at Greek and Roman antiquities. When the skies cleared, we decided to head over to the Notre Dame neighborhood to a cafe we had visited last year where Ed had his favorite ham and cheese sandwich. We then walked over to Ile St. Louis for another cup of gelato. Yummy! It started drizzling again, so we called it a day and headed back. We returned to La Petit Tonneau for our final dinner in Paris and Ed enjoyed his steak once again.

Tuesday morning we awoke to pouring rain. Charles de Gaulle airport has practically nothing to offer for breakfast, a fact I wish we had known before arriving there with 2-1/2 hours before our flight. Our trip home was uneventful and we arrived ahead of schedule despite departing 30 minutes late. At least they fed us two meals during the 7 hour and 42 minute flight.

Overall, we had a wonderful time despite the weather. We certainly ate better than we did on the first trip. We also rested more, which we both needed. We saw a lot of dogs, almost without exception very well behaved (even off leash), but the owners need more training in cleaning up after their dogs. I find Paris to be much cleaner and cozier than New York City, with its narrow winding streets, and hardly anyone blows their car horns (plus we didn't hear any car alarms). I'm sure that Paris suffers from the same problems as other cities, but I wouldn't mind living there -- although I'm sure I couldn't afford it. The people were as friendly and helpful as last time (except for one Metro ticket agent), and we both found that "bonjour," "s'il vous plait" and "merci" go a long way in encouraging people to help you. Others may claim that the French are rude, but I find a lot more rudeness at home than there.

So, that's my travelogue. I hope you enjoyed it. Our next vacation is not until late August, and then we will be attending a wedding in Michigan in mid-September. That will be the end of our vacations for 2009. If you're looking for us, you'll find us at home. :)

Next up: Zometa on Thursday the 21st and chemo on Friday the 22nd.

Trying to stay awake

I'm back in the office and I was going along swimmingly until about 11:30, when I started to fade. Only 45 more minutes and then I'm out of here, and I hope to get a good nap in on the bus. We'll see if my sciata cooperates.

So, Paris was lovely even though the weather wasn't the best. We arrived on Tuesday morning very early and after getting to the hotel, we went to the local cafe for some hot drinks and a croissant. It was very chilly and overcast, and it's a good thing we brought fleece pullovers, because we needed them. We waited at the hotel for our room to be ready and then laid down for a nap. Ed slept, I didn't. We hit the cafe again for lunch/dinner, and then hung out until it was time to try the sleeping thing again. It finally worked for me!

Originally on Wednesday we were planning to go to Versailles, but we decided we didn't want to be on a schedule the first full day. Once we got up and had breakfast in our hotel (included in the room rate), we headed to the Metro, bought our tickets and returned to Notre Dame. As you may recall from last year, the cathedral was mostly closed when we visited because of a service taking place so we couldn't walk around. This time we wandered through the entire church and saw all of the stained glass windows and carvings. We headed outside to see the flying buttresses, and then headed over to Ile St. Louis for some delicious gelato. Too bad it was only about 55 degrees, overcast and windy. The gelato certainly didn't warm us up. We then headed to the Luxembourg Gardens, which were at about the same blooming stage as at home (daffodils and tulips finished, peonies blooming or about to, rhodendrons in full bloom). The park was full of people despite the cool weather. We then walked to Cafe de Flore, one of the oldest cafes in Paris, and had lunch. Then we took the Metro back to the hotel. We wandered around our neighborhood for a while since we were having dinner in one of the Eiffel Tower restaurants that night at 9 p.m. Dinner was decent but way overpriced and the service was terrible. No more tourist traps for us.

Thursday was a beautiful day, the best of the trip. It was sunny and warm, probably in the low 70s, and it turned out to be the perfect day for our visit to the Rodin Museum. Outside of the museum is a lovely garden containing about 20 of his sculptures, so we enjoyed wandering around, looking at the flowers, and soaking in the sun. After that we headed past the Invalides and stopped at a local travel agency to purchase the train tickets for our trip to Chartres on Friday. I was amazed that we were able to manage that transaction! We had dinner reservations at a small restaurant about 10 minutes from our hotel, but first we had pizza at a local cafe and watched in amazement as a woman sat at a table with her tiny dog sitting in the opposite chair. We relaxed and stretched out lunch as long as possible. Dinner was delicious (I had lamb, Ed had steak) and we made plans to go back to the same restaurant for dinner on Monday night.

Friday we had a wake up call for 7 a.m. as we wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to negotiate our way to the train station for our 9:34 train. We managed to find our way there in plenty of time and spent an hour people watching. When they finally announced our train, we managed to find seats (the train was packed because it was a three-day weekend) and weren't thrown off the train despite the fact that we didn't know you had to validate your ticket before boarding (why is so much in French???). When we arrived in Chartres it was overcast, windy and downright cold -- I would guess it was barely 50. We toured the cathedral and then did the trip around the outside to see the carvings and flying buttresses, but after lunch we headed back to Paris. It was simply too cold to spend more than a few hours there -- and no more warm inside the church than outside. We had pizza again at the local cafe since we were booked at "real" restaurants for the remainder of the trip. It was a chilly but interesting day.

On Saturday we went shopping. We walked about an hour to find a recommended shop for Ed's fruit candies that he enjoys. If I had known exactly where it was, I would have figured out how to get there via Metro, but it was relatively comfortable (perhaps in the mid 60s) so the walk was pleasant. On the way back, we stopped in a little garden and checked out the flowers while resting our weary feet and backs. We didn't do anything else that day other than window shop and eat. We found a cafe near the Eiffel Tower park and had a delicious meal there, and our dinner was fabulous. We ate in a little restaurant about three minutes from our hotel with room for about 30 people, and the food was excellent. I had lamb and Ed had veal and every bite was wonderful. The wine was good too. Once I get my pictures off the cameras, I'll have to post the photo of my dessert. It was huge -- and delicious.

Sunday started out beautifully. We walked across town to an open air market where they sold bread, cheese, flowers, vegetables, fruit, fish, meat -- everything you would need for your weekly meals. We decided afterward to grab something to read and a sandwich and sit in the Eiffel Tower park to enjoy the sunshine. Well, by the time we got back to the park, it was windy and cool again.

to be continued...

For Melinda...

We're back. I'm going to take a nap...

Our last day in Paris

Today is our last day and it is rainy and cool. Many of the museums are closed today (except the Louvre, which we visited last time), so we are deciding how to spend our day.

The wine and coffee has really been setting off my coughing the past few days, so I am cutting back today in anticipation of our 6-1/2 hour flight home tomorrow. I don't want to be sucking on lemon drops the entire time to stave off the cough. I guess coffee is not in my future and wine is in only limited amounts. Sometimes life is just not fun.

We have had a very enjoyable stay here. We have had many wonderful meals, enjoyed many delicious glasses of wine, eaten fabulous pastries, and walked until our calves ached. It's a shame the weather wasn't better, but you can never count on good weather in Paris. We just make the best of it.

I hope you are all well. I will be back in touch once we recover from jet lag!

Bonjour from Paris!

We arrived Tuesday morning early and have been enjoying our stay. The weather, other than yesterday, has not been great -- cool, breezy, and downright chilly today. Yesterday the sun was shining, the skies were blue, the temperature was probably in the low 70s and the outdoor cafes were packed all day and night. I hope we have another one of those days before we leave on Tuesday.

We have been eating and drinking our way around Paris, and today we took a train out to Chartres, the site of a famous cathedral. Unfortunately, today was not the day to be wandering around outside (or inside an unheated church) because it was so cold. We were proud to have made it there and back and glad we went to visit Chartres, but we didn't stay as long as we had planned. In a few hours we are off to a local pizza/pasta place, as we will be dining on French food for dinner for the duration of our stay.

Yesterday I had a bit too much coffee and wine and after dinner it caught up with me. I had a terrible coughing fit both on the way back from dinner (which was delicious by the way) and after we got to our room. Nothing helped except laying down to go to sleep, so that's what I did. So far no one has pointed at me and yelled "H1N1" (which is how they refer to it here), and I'm hoping that my break from restricted food and beverages today will reduce the coughing. I was doing quite well until last night.

Have a great weekend!

Counting down...

Only five hours before we leave for the airport and we have lots of things left to do. At least the laundry and ironing are done, the clothes and extra stuff are all laid out on the bed, and most of the checklist items are completed. Now I just have to get Ed to get out the suitcases and I can pack everything away.

Early Happy Mother's Day greetings to all the moms out there. You do an outstanding job every day simply loving your kid(s) -- whether they are still kids or adults now -- and we appreciate it. Enjoy your day!

I'll be in touch when we get back. Au revior!

Getting ready...

I called the ENT's office yesterday for a note regarding my treatment for the acid reflux-related cough. Ed has visions of me being pulled out of line for our flight because the over-anxious officials might think I have swine flu -- oh, sorry, it's now called H1N1. He apparently has dictated a note, which I hope to have faxed to me so I don't have to go to Shrewsbury on Monday to pick it up. Won't I be busy helping Ed choose his clothes on Monday?!!

After my bout with nausea on Wednesday, I'm feeling better although the sciatica is still a problem. I'm not supposed to take too much ibuprofen while I'm on chemo, but it's the only thing that relieves the pain, which is sometimes shooting and burning and makes for an especially difficult bus ride. I can just imagine what seven hours on a plane without any medication would be like. Yikes! I'm trying to keep it at one dose or less a day. Hopefully, the walking in Paris will loosen everything up and I'll be a new woman when I return to the states.

I can't believe it's May already. Where did the first four months of the year go?? When I received my follow up appointment date for August 26 with Dr. Yamada, I realized the summer would be practically over by then -- and it hasn't even started yet. It's funny how time drags when you're a kid and when you become an adult and really need more time (for chores, for seeing friends, for relaxing, sleeping, working, etc.), time just rushes by and there's never enough of it. Too bad we don't learn to appreciate all those "boring" days when we're kids. What I would give for a day to lay around on the front lawn, watching the clouds and complaining to my friends (and my mom) that there was nothing to do. LOL

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. I'll try to be in touch before we leave.