New year, new hope

Our New Year celebration was quiet, as usual.

We had previously thought about having a party on NYE to celebrate my five years of survival, but the resurgence of the cancer canceled those plans.

We weren't sure how I would be feeling, having had a treatment on NYE afternoon, only a week after the big event of the year.  It was okay to let that dream go.

My doc said it was okay to have some champagne, though, so, with his permission, I had some, and we rang in the new year at midnight, after our annual viewing of "Harvey," with James Stewart.

We also celebrated my five years survival, just us, and our champagne.  It's still a VERY big deal that I am still here, so we marked it.

We also did a letting go ritual to metaphysically cleanse out "stuff" that no longer serves us, so that we could step into the new year with clear hearts.

As it turned out, Doc reduced one of the chemo drugs for that treatment, and I felt pretty good after treatment on NYE.

My blood work has been out of balance, and the alarming part is a couple liver enzymes have been pretty high.

This can be caused by one of the chemo drugs, so he reduced it by almost half.

I am sure the medication will still be effective, but my body won't react as strongly to it.

I will be having to go to get blood drawn before every infusion for a while, to keep tabs on this.

My potassium and platelets recovered well during the week off from chemo, so that was good news.
I had leg and foot cramps last night, though, so the potassium may be back down.

I will do my nutritional remedies more carefully, and try to get that back in balance.

My hair is thinning, but, so far, does not draw any external attention to that fact.  I can tell when I run my hands through it, and we see it in the shower drain catch.

In other news, both Dave and I have had a cold, but Dave's has gotten worse, like it usually does, and he has developed his usual annoying cough.  It happens EVERY time.

Fortunately, he still had some prescription cough syrup left from the last time, and it has been helping.

He also went and talked to a pharmacist, and got some over the counter medicine safe for high blood pressure patients.

We have been mostly taking it easy this weekend, so he can recover.

I am feeling mostly over mine.  The pharmacist mentioned that it could be allergies, too, since we aren't having a winter this year, and the cedar pollen is very high.

Franklin, Pete, and Annabel all seem to be doing better with integrating.

Yesterday, Frankie and Pete actually curled up together on the bed, and Pete let Frankie groom him and cuddle him!!

Frankie is up to five pounds, and is growing so fast that we can see the changes on an almost daily basis.

This coming Wednesday is Frankie's neutering, and our official adoption of him!

Next weekend, after his surgery, and after we are fully recovered from our colds, we will try leaving him out at night.

This will be another step toward leaving him out all the time.

So far, we have only left him out when we have left the house for short periods of time.

We have a house guest coming in mid-February, and will need to have him fully integrated by then, so that she can have the guest room.

Other than this, I have nothing much else to report this week.  If anyone is reading this, I appreciate your interest.

Have a good Sunday!