New Good News

Yesterday I had my 7th chemo treatment. Which means I have 5 more to go. It's good to be on the downhill slope. Anyway, the time before last my platelets were down to 117,000 (they skip a treatment if it drops below 90,000) so we were pleased to find out that this time they have gone up, to 130,000. My red counts and white counts were also good. Dr. Chen believes that I should likely stay on schedule which would be great for me.

About a month ago I had some blood drawn for karyotype testing (genetic testing) and I found out yesterday that the results have come back. They show that I have no mutations, which indicate that this is NOT genetic. Which is good news for my sister since she should not be impacted at all. Also since it's not genetic (and more of a spontaneous occurrence) that means it's less likely to recur in me. The doctor said that if I remain cancer free for 5 years then I am clear and fully cured. Good news! Actually she and my surgeon said that while the 5-year mark is the true, official milestone that of the patients that get it within 5 years virtually all of them (85%) actually recur after 2 years, so the 2-year mark is realistically the one to get through. If 2 years pass then it's unlikely to come back. Only 15% of recurrences happen in the 3-5 year range.

Also, someone passed on some info to me about a drug called Lyrica. It's a drug used for diabetic patients who have foot neuropathy. I asked my oncologist if it would help with the neuropathy that the chemo drug inflicts on me and she said yes, but with the side effect that it makes the patient tired. Well, I'm already tired, so I said I'd like to try it and determine for myself which is more troublesome: the neuropathy or the additional tiredness. So, I took one last night and the info I got indicated that it could take a week to be effective but I'm not experiencing much neuropathy today. Now that could also be helped along by the warmth these days, but I want to do anything that helps lessen the side effects.

The beet garden is coming along well, and we have 7 pumpkin plants growing in our patch. Hopefully we will have takers for sugar pumpkins come fall!

Beet And Pumpkin Garden Is In!

Last Sunday Dave and I worked all day putting on the new garden. First we went to Home Depot and bought a small electric tiller/cultivator. What a great idea that was! Dave was planning to use a pick to till up the soil but the dirt there was so dry and compacted that he would probably have injured himself, or else would have stopped and I wouldn't have a garden. So, he first removed a couple of dead grape vines and moved the support for the wires in to clear the space for the garden. Then, using his handy-dandy new toy he did the first tilling of the soil. I then spread three bags of compost (along with some organic vegetable garden fertilizer) and we realized that we needed more. So, off to the nursery for three more bags of compost. We tilled in the first three bags, spread out the other three bags, then tilled that in, so the garden got "worked" three times total which was probably ideal. Then, I planned the rows of beets, planted them (all the beet seeds fit perfectly - it was pure luck) and then set up the watering. We decided that trailing a soaker hose in between the rows would do the trick so that's what we have out there.

Adjacent to the beet garden I planted a pumpkin patch of small sugar pumpkins. Dave loves pumpkin pie and pumpkin soup so we should be all set come October, if all goes well.

So, now it's Saturday, and yesterday I saw the first sprouting of the beets, and today saw the first of the pumpkins. So far, so good!

To the right is a photo of the garden right after planting it and setting up the watering system. The beets are in the foreground while the pumpkin patch is in the circular area further back.

Now I just have to figure out how to get a bigger garden patch... okra, potatoes, squash, asparagus, hmmm...

Randomness Update

OK, so here's the progress I made. I did put the rose systemic down so they are good for another 6 weeks. I have not yet cleaned the furniture in the basement. I need to get that done in the next couple of weeks. I also still need to go privacy screen shopping. We did look at Bed Bath & Beyond but they do not carry them. We did pick up our clock pendulum.

We also added a few things to my list. I plan to plant some beets & sweet pie pumpkins so we are going to till up and prepare a portion of the vineyard for this. It's a corner where a few vines have died, probably due to lack of sun. There was (well I guess still is) a very large pine tree next door and the shade probably knocked out some of the sunlight in the vineyard. Unfortunately the pine tree is now dead and I guess the silver lining is that the vineyard now gets more sun, so a garden in that corner should grow well. That said, I don't envy the neighbors having to take the tree down - it's very large!

OK, on to the task list: We are going to modify the bubblers that the landscaper installed at our mature trees. They do not actually water the trees correctly, so we are going to cut up a soaker hose and convert the bubblers to soakers, and water the tree in the root zone, not the trunk where all the water is now going.

Lots of projects... so little time. Every two weeks I only have a few energetic days so I have to fit in all I can before the bad Monday rolls around.

Off to the nursery for some sand (weight for the cultivator) and a couple of plants...