Last week I got a reminder message on Facebook that it was a year ago that I had my first radiation treatment on the sarcoma in my thigh. I ended up having 15 treatments if I remember correctly over a course of 3 weeks. In some ways time has really flown by and in others it has been like going off like a herd of turtles.
Next week we will head back to Mayo for my 1 year check with the surgeon and the radiation doctor. I will have an MRI Monday morning, see the surgeon on Monday afternoon and the radiation team on Tuesday morning. Works out good because the hotel is connected to Mayo via their “subway” system which makes it that we don’t even need to leave the hotel until it is time to check out. We discovered that Ruth Chris Steakhouse is connected to the hotel when we were there the last time. Now this is a restaurant that no one can really afford on a regular basis, but we feel it is always a great treat to celebrate good news from Mayo. So I am sure we will go there one night. We even have a waiter that we will request from the last time we were there.
I am guessing that most people that have been diagnosed with something like sarcoma or lymphoma, the thought of it reoccurring is never far from your thought process. I even Googled the “percentage chance of sarcoma reoccurrence” last week. I know…I know…quit the Googling!! So I tell you until the surgeon comes in the room on Monday afternoon to say the MRI looked good, I slightly hold my breath waiting to hear those words. And then we will see when we need to return to Mayo again. I know he said they would continue to keep an eye on things, but not sure how often that will be required. And then week after next I go back to see Chen so she can check in on my low WBC. I did have lab a couple of weeks ago and it did look like it had come back up. At least I did not get the call from her nurse saying “we have never seen your count so low!!” So I studied hard the last few weeks to get the count up. 🙂 Chen will be the one doing the PET scans, and I am sure she will tell me when that time will be. Seems like she said every 3 months for the first year. She will do that scan and then share that with the Mayo team to make sure there is no sneaky sarcoma that have decided to take up home in my lungs.
Other than medical stuff — a couple of weeks ago Jason went to North Carolina to help with hurricane cleanup near Asheville which was really hit so hard. He said that you could not even imagine the level of destruction these people have experienced. He worked very hard over the few days he was there with his friend Stephen and the organization Samaritan’s Purse to help 4 home owners clean up their yards. One of the owners he talked to said the water went from above his shoes to water at the roof in around 50 minutes!! Can you even imagine that happening to you? He and his wife had to be evacuated from their roof and now they have to determine how they are going to rebuild. That is just one of very many stories he heard during these volunteer days. I couldn’t capture a lot of pictures from his posts because most were videos….but this is one picture that captures “a picture speaks a thousand words”!
As Jason indicated “This bible was swept out of the owner’s house as the waters rose to their roof. It found its place on this post opened to the book of Revelation.” Amazing!!!
Speaking of volunteer work. A couple weeks ago Darcee (our granddaughter-in-law_ volunteered at Habitat for Humanity and look who she got to rub elbows with…or I should say pound hammers with!! 🙂
We also did some fun things the last few weeks even with my hobbling around….LOL…Halloween…Corn Maze…Jackie and Jermar in NY, Cabin with some of the Andersons…
Well end of blog for today. I have to push myself to get on the computer…just lots of days feeling blah, but once I am done I am happy I accomplished something on this day. 🙂 Will update after the Mayo trip.
Take care….be happy…volunteer…push on! 🙂
Dandy Ventures 