Summer Solstice Greetings

 Summer Solstice is here, and with it, another high heat warning for central Oklahoma.

All of the rain predicted recently has split up and gone past us, but there is more in the forecast, so we are hoping some of it actually falls on OKC....just not enough to cause flooding, please.

We are currently in an extreme drought, so some rain is much needed.  What we got last weekend was negligeable. 

My garden boxes continue to not thrive at all..... I am thinking we got a bad batch of organic raised bed soil.  It has been very frustrating.

My PET scan has been approved, and is scheduled for next Tuesday.  REALLY hoping the news is good... that the increased reflectivity is just the chemo doing its job.

Otherwise, we will be changing medications, and starting over with a new set of side effects, which I do not relish the thought of.

Yesterday, I attended a gathering of local people taking the same courses that I am taking. We celebrated the Summer Solstice.  It was lovely, and I felt at ease, though it took a substantial amount of will power to make myself go ... alone, and to meet with strangers, some of whom I had "met" on line.

Now I have gone to one of the gatherings, and know what to expect, and hopefully will be able to go to the next one!

Some of them are held here in OKC, some are much further away, so we shall see.

We are off to a special "bacon brunch" at the local Irish Pub this morning.  I think it was scheduled for today in honor of Father's day.

Dave is looking forward to it, and I hope I can muster up a good appetite by the time we get there for our 11 o'clock reservation.

Have a good week! Happy Solstice, and Happy Father's Day to anyone reading this who celebrates those things.

"Rainy day, dream away..."

 After some brutally hot, windy days, we got the weather front they'd been promising.  It's to be a HIGH of 75 today, and it rained on and off through last night.

AHHHHHH!  The windows are open, and the fresh air smells so good!

It might rain a bit more today, too. Fingers crossed.

My oncologist said that there are some areas of "increased reflectivity" on the nuclear bone scan results, so she is working on getting a PET scan authorized by my insurance.  

To be clear, there were no NEW spots, but some of the previous spots looked different.

She is relieved that I have no new, or increased pain (mostly, I have NO pain in those areas), and just wants to be sure this is not progression of the cancer, but merely the chemo doing its job.

Unfortunately, I have to undergo another scan to make this determination, and it's the kind of scan my insurance likes to deny.

SO, we shall see.  It could take weeks to find out.

Dave had his echocardiogram on Friday, and looked at the report on MyChart on Friday evening.  All is well!  

He still has substantial swelling in his feet and ankles by the end of every day, but they usually look normal in the morning, which they were not before he started on the Lasix.  

Hopefully, the solution is that he just needs to get out of that damned chair, and be more active.

He's also decreasing his alcohol intake, which I have asked him to do for over a decade... so that's a positive change, too!

Our kitties seem to be adapting to Annabel's absence.  Frank has become MARKEDLY more affectionate, and it's a wonderful thing!

After a few days of quiet, the boys are romping and playing together again, and getting back to their normal routine.

I need to get my usual every-3-weeks blood draw on Monday, which is a walk in (no appointment needed), but other than that, neither of us has any appointments this coming week....which is lovely.  

That is, unless they get me in for the PET, which is highly doubtful.

It's supposed to be cooler for a few days, so maybe Dave can finally force himself to get out and remove the saplings and choking vines from the flower bed out front.

The new mower works really well, and he got the back yard mowed one day last week, and has effectively fired our lawn crew.

Today, I am going to do my usual Sunday things.... a little laundry, and the next lesson in my spiritual course, and maybe watch the Cubs game.  

The game is supposed to be on regular broadcast tv, and sometimes our local network affiliate channel won't show games that are with teams that aren't of local interest.  If there's a different line up for a more popular regional team, they will show that instead.

It's not fair, but then, neither are the MLB tv black outs.  Sigh.

Anyway, have a good week! 

Goodbye, Annabel

Back in April, our Annabel started having coughing fits, wasn't eating as much, and wasn't being her usual active self, so we took her to the vet.

(I posted about it here, but I can't remember the date, and don't feel like scrolling back.)

The vet did a thorough physical exam, and said her heart and lungs sounded fine, and that her trachea felt fine, so he speculated that maybe it was allergies, like we were all having at the time.  He gave her a steroid injection, like the ones Pete had been getting previously, that would last a month.

He said to get back in touch if she wasn't better at the end of the month, and he would do more extensive testing.  

She did really well at first, though she still wasn't eating as much.  The coughing stopped, but she still wasn't her old self, running and playing, and having her "corner yodeling" sessions.

(when she was having her "zoomies," she would go into various corners, and YOWL.... then RUN through the house)

We would be out of town when the steroid wore off, but we let her be, as she seemed to be feeling better with the steroid still working.

Then, we were gone for 8 days, during which time the steroid wore off.  

Our cat sitter said Annabel seemed like her normal self, and she said that the food was always all gone when she'd come back the next day, but when we got home from our trip, Annabel seemed even skinnier than she was before we left.

She wasn't coughing, that we knew of, but she was hiding more, so we kept an eye on her during our first week back in town, and determined that we would call the vet on June 1st and take her back for more testing.

Well, sadly, we didn't make it to Monday June 1st.   

Last Sunday morning, Dave heard her having an extended coughing fit that I didn't know about until later in the day.

She hid all day, until around 5 pm, when I was getting ready to make dinner.  At that point, she came out of her hiding place, flopped down on the dining room floor, and was in OBVIOUS respiratory distress.

Dave pulled up local emergency vets (we never want to go back to the place we took Sammie), selected one, and off we went.

After checking us in, they put her in an oxygen chamber that had little doors so we could reach in and comfort her.  

The oxygen didn't seem to be helping, so they gave her an injection to relax her, and slow her breathing, so they could do an ultrasound.  The injection worked, and she was able to breathe more normally.

The ultrasound revealed our greatest fears.  Apparently, that coughing fit in the morning had ruptured something, and her lungs and pericardium were filled with fluid.  There was also a mass in one of her lungs.

The vet said we could go through the ordeal (and expense) of draining off the fluid, but that we might end up back in the e/r at 2 am, or the next day.... He said there wasn't much that could be done, so we decided to let her go.

Annabel Lee was 13 years old, and had been the first female cat I have ever loved.  May her little spirit rest peacefully.  I hope her beloved Jack was there at the rainbow bridge to meet her.

I held her as she went to sleep, and her ashes are now ready to be picked up.  I will be cleaning our little "shrine to the lost ones," so that her ashes can be placed there with respect and love when we bring them home.

It seemed so very sudden.  SO, it's been a long week, with lots and lots of random tears.   I burst into tears when I opened a can of tuna, and Annabel didn't come running, meowing as she ran, to beg for the "juice."  Sigh.

There will be no new adoption here, either.  Two cats are plenty to keep up with, especially when one has a chronic health issue.

Speaking of Pete, he is doing better after his increased steroid dosage for a while.  He is now off of that, and we will (hopefully) go back to "as needed."

In other news, I had my scans on Monday, and all went smoothly.  No long delays like that last time.  No phone calls this week from the oncologist, so I feel relatively confident that the results were favorable.

I see her on Tuesday to find out for sure.

Dave has been getting good results from the lasix his PCP ordered to address his swollen ankles, and he has been trying to not sit as much, though it doesn't seem to happen every day.

He has an echocardiogram this coming Friday, to be sure we are not dealing with anything more serious than him being sedentary.

We got a new lawn mower on Friday, and gave the old one to a friend with a smaller lawn.

Once the lawn dries out from the rain we have had this weekend (some but not enough), Dave has said he will start mowing regularly as part of his effort to be more active.  If the weather is really hot, he will mow early in the morning.

No more paying someone to mow.

Today, I will do a few chores, and the next lesson in my course.  Have a good week.