A Few Garden Pics

OK, so I found a couple of things to take pictures of. I have a fairly large pepper harvest coming up. This pepper is called "Sweet Chocolate" and was free seed that was sent to me when I placed an order with Baker Creek. This is the first ripe one that I've pulled off the plant and I haven't tasted it yet.


Here's what the other side of it looks like. I have a LOT of these peppers on my plants so if anyone local would like some let me know. Right now most of them are still green (and I'm sure they are great green) but eventually will ripen to this beautiful brown color.


This next photo is of the jalapeno plants. There are so many peppers on these plants. It's time to start making poppers and have a party!

Let me know if you need some fresh peppers.

Just Truckin' Along

There's been nothing going on here... I planted some stuff in the garden but it's too early to take pics. Then it got hot for a few days (the garden is a fall/cool weather garden) so time will tell if I ever have anything to take pictures of.

My wonderful cousin Nadine came for a short visit last weekend. To me she's like another sister. She and I met when I was 17 and she was 16 and we instantly hit it off. I wish she lived closer so that we could see each other more often than every 5 years or so. My husband thinks she and I should get away together each year to hang out. I'd like to see about doing The Amazing Race with her. We get along so great and when I'm not recovering from something I have a ton of energy, and I know that she does too. When she stayed with me for a few days in New York City a few years back we were unstoppable.

That's all the randomness I can pull out of my head for now.

I'll try to live a more exciting life. Oh, who am I kidding.

Starting the 2010 Fall Garden

I am lucky to live in an area where something can be growing year round. Well, maybe I'm unlucky because I don't have any good excuse to take a break. But, let's assume that I wouldn't want to take a break and that I'm lucky to be able to plant year round. :-D

Dave and I filled the newest bed with soil yesterday, and now we (or I) just have to prepare the other beds to receive plants. Right now the soil has settled and luckily we still have a small pile of new soil to put into them. The planting will start very, very soon.

Here are a few vegetable starts that I bought yesterday:

Those are (6) red cabbage, (6) green cabbage, (6) sugar snap peas, and (6) lettuce. Also yesterday I started seeds indoors for (2) celery plants, (2) collard green plants, (2) mustard green plants, two additional kinds of leaf lettuce (2 each), and three kinds of spinach (2 each). I will also direct seed some carrots, beets, another 2 kinds of peas. Finally, a few days ago I also direct seeded Brussels sprouts, 3 plants. That's what the next photo is of. Hopefully in a few weeks I"ll be able to show you some nice, healthy plants.

Below is basically an overview of the garden today. There are some parsley and basil in the near foreground. Then a row of 2 different kinds of eggplants. In the background are the tired tomato plants. They certainly gave me a bounty this year.


The eggplant plants look great but there aren't any eggplants on them. The temperatures have been cool and I didn't do a great job of shaking the plants to help them pollinate. Since I had them under a tunnel all summer long (for bug protection) that's what I was supposed to do since there was no wind or insects to do the job. I went ahead and uncovered them so that they can get some wind and full sun. These guys need heat to do their thing and I think the season will run out on them before anything great happens.


Soon (this week hopefully) I will harvest all of the basil for a big batch of pesto which I will portion and freeze. This will carry us through until next summer, easily.

This is an interesting tomato. Now, why would part of it still be so green?


Near future plans: Next month I will plant a bunch of garlic and it will be harvested next July. Also, we will put in an asparagus bed this coming spring. I already ordered all of the crowns.

Is it OK to let our dog chew on a stick?

Canning Tomatoes

Not much has been going on lately. I've just been busy everyday doing random things. Like picking tomatoes. I even tried canning them for the first time.

(Question: Why is it called "canning" when we use jars? Shouldn't it be called "jarring"?)

The first time canning went OK but I learned a few things. First: go ahead and really squish the tomatoes in the jar. They can handle it, and more air will be removed. Second: I should have hot-packed them. Raw-packing them allowed them to retain a lot of their air. (Do you see a theme here?) Third: I processed jars of different sizes and took out the pint jars at the allotted times while the quart jars were left in the hot water bath for a few more minutes. There's a reason you are supposed to hang the jar rack on the edge of the pot for 5 minutes. When you remove the jar directly from the water to the counter-top, the sudden pressure change causes the liquid to push out of the jars, leaving a large air space in the top of the jar when things cool down. This causes no problem as long as the lid seals properly but any tomatoes that are above the liquid level could change colors. However, this is not going to be a problem for me since I made the first two mistakes. There is plenty of extra room in the jars for the tomatoes to float in.

Next time I'll know to hot-pack them, pack them in tight, and don't remove them from the heat too quickly. Actually next time I'll "jar" them using a pressure canner. The processing time will be 10 minutes rather than 40 and I won't have to use lemon juice in the jars. Yesterday my brand new super-cool pressure canner arrived (we got it for "free" using credit card reward points) and now I'll just have to wait a few days for more tomatoes to ripen.

8/16/2010 Stanford Oncologist Follow-up

Today David and I met with Dr. Fisher, the G.I. Oncologist at Stanford University Hospital. We expected to hear nothing new today. And for the most part, we didn't. Firstly, he summarized the working theory that has driven the Tumor Board's decisions thus far. They are banking on the possibility that the tumor cells that were growing in this recent lymph node were "left behind" cells from the original surgery 2 & 1/2 years ago. These cells may have escaped the same time the cells that traveled to my liver previously escaped, and have just been hanging around while unfortunately surviving 2 rounds of chemotherapy. If this is the case, then there's a possibility that they have removed the remaining stragglers and this *could* be the end of things. We are looking on the bright side of things here, which is the right thing to do.

He also repeated that he does not see any reason to resume chemotherapy at this time. He'd rather save those bullets for when and if they may have more benefit. If this surgery has, in fact, removed anything remaining then there's no reason to subject me to poison. And if there are any roaming cells, well, let's face it, 2 round of chemotherapy haven't eradicated them so why should a third. So, we are going to hold tight for now and keep an eye on things. It may be that in the future, chemotherapy may be used to shrink future tumors and so we'll save it for times like that.

So, for now, no chemo and no radiation.

He also then said he'd like to rescan me in January and then in June (if the January scan is clear.) I have to admit that rescanning in 5 months feels strange but I guess that also gives me through the holidays to take it easy. Also, my recurrences have not come back all that quickly after each surgery. The first one was 10 months after the first surgery. This past recurrence was 17 months after the second surgery. (Let's not muddle things with the fact that the first one came back 3 months after chemotherapy ended.)

I will be discussing these recommendations with our original oncologist to see if she's comfortable with this plan. She can always order interim scans if she feels that I can benefit from greater frequency.

8/9/2010 Surgeon Follow-up

Dave and I rushed to get to our 10:30 appointment on time. Then sat around for nearly 2 hours. But that's beside the point. The real news is that my CT scan looks good. There's nothing on it that shouldn't be there. Also he said that the Tumor Board is not recommending chemotherapy or radiation at this time since all indications are clear. This is just what I wanted him to say. :-)

I have to wait a couple of weeks before I can do any exercise without lifting or impact. So, in a couple of weeks aerobic type exercises should be OK like elliptical trainer or bicycle. A month after that it should be safe to do things with more impact, like jogging.

He told me that the oncologist on the Board (Dr. Fisher) wanted me to follow up with him at this time so I will go see him next week, on Monday. I'm not sure what he can tell me that I don't already know but I will find out next week. After that I will likely make an appointment with the local oncologist who will manage my follow up scans. I'll know more next week.

Mutant Pumpkins

Last year I grew an heirloom variety of pumpkin called Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkin. It's a very nice, small pumpkin that makes wonderful pumpkin pies. I thought I was being smart when I saved some seeds from one of the pumpkins for this year. What I didn't know is that squashes (pumpkin is a squash) and melons cross-pollinate very easily and create some crazy stuff. I realized this today when I posted a couple of pictures on a gardening forum that I frequent.

Here's what a young Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkin is supposed to look like (this photo is from last year):

Here are two of the weirdos that I have growing on what are supposed to be Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkin vines:



I posted that I'm confused because these two "pumpkins" are on two different plants and they don't look anything like Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkins, nor do they look like each other. I got a reply back that these look like they are crossed with other things. The yellow one perhaps got crossed with a yellow crookneck squash. I was growing that last year. As for the green one, I think it got crossed with something the neighbor grew. I remember last year he brought over a very large green squash - he told us the variety but I don't remember it now - and I bet the same bees visited his plants on the same day they visited my pumpkin plant.

Now, the question is this: How will they taste? And how will I know when they are ripe? I can probably tell by the stem that they are ripe. But as for taste: Will they be like a sweet squash?

Cooking for Two

I'd like to share one of my favorite recipe resources. A few months ago I purchased the Cook's Illustrated "Cooking for Two 2009" cookbook and I immediately fell in love with it.

All of the recipes are written for servings of two. Well, sort of. We have found that they will often feed three people so it's nice to have another serving leftover for lunch the next day.

And I just found out that they have a 2010 edition!

I've already ordered it and it's on its way.

By the way, if you are inclined to order it, I would advise you to look online for a discount coupon (I usually have luck with http://www.retailmenot.com/) and buy it from Borders or Barnes and Noble. If you buy it directly from Cook's Illustrated they automatically enroll you in their "preview" program where they will automatically send you the next book in the series for you to preview it, and if you don't like it you have to send it back. I don't want the hassle of that and you can't opt out of it when you order a book. And I assume that they send it to you and bill you full price, but I'd rather buy it on discount with a coupon. So, I never buy directly from them. I always buy the cookbooks from a bookstore. I do subscribe to their magazines (which I love) and to the website. Cook's Illustrated is my #1 resource for tested and reliable recipes.

No News is Boring News

Someone just asked me if there's nothing new in my blog does it mean good things or bad things. Generally anytime there's anything of note to post we will be sure to do so. If I'm unable then David is very good at doing it for me. If there's nothing here for a few days it's because I don't want to bore anyone with posting the same thing every day!! Right now I'm not doing much. I'm resting a lot every day, letting my incision heal. I pretty much eat, sleep, read, watch TV. I've also been practising my knitting, hoping to catch up so that I can attend the final class. I'm not sure I can accomplish that since the final class is 2 weeks away and I still need to make up the class I missed while I was in the hospital. But, it's possible still and we'll see.

Otherwise, that's how my days are going. I get up, eat, read, have lunch, nap, read, watch TV, walk around the garden, rest some more, help make dinner, eat, and then we watch TV each night before heading to bed. Then it starts over again. I have my next CT scan scheduled for August 6th and my follow-up with the surgeon is August 9th. At that time I'll learn what the board's recommendations are for follow up treatments. Perhaps more radiation. Probably not chemotherapy. I hope not. It hasn't shown to be very effective anyway and if I'm destined to have more surgeries to remove lesions I'd rather not make my life more miserable by adding months of chemotherapy in the mix.

I will have my stent removed from my left ureter on August 6th as well. It'll be nice to have that out. Sometimes I feel like something's poking me from inside. Which it probably is.

So, until August 9th I probably won't have anything of note (medically) to post. But soon I'll put up more pictures of the baby pumpkins! We have 5 or 6 growing right now.

A Couple of Garden Pics

The garden has been taking care of itself nicely. It's on an automatic drip watering system, complete with a timer, so the watering's all done by the time I get up in the morning. It's just plugged into the same timer that runs the rest of the landscape watering.

Here are the tomato plants today:

Here is the pumpkin/squash bed. I may live to regret putting them in the same bed. It's like this: [squash] / [pumpkin] / [squash] / [pumpkin] / [squash]. The squashes on the ends I'll be able to get to, but the one in the middle will be hard to reach past the pumpkin plants. Oh, well, better planning next time. When these had to go into the ground my choices were limited.

This is a pic of a very young pumpkin. I'll be keeping my eye on this one!

Back in the Saddle

Hello everybody. Today I finally feel clear-headed enough to take the blog over again. I'm not in much pain, thanks to careful use of Percoset. I take one when I go to bed to make my sleep more comfortable and restful. After breakfast I shower and take another one to make the morning more comfortable. If I'm uncomfortable in the afternoon then I may take one after lunch. That's about it - three per day. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with my upper back aching and I'll take some Tylenol - the Percoset shouldn't be taken on an empty stomach. But the last couple of nights I've learned that if I shift to sleeping on my side early I can escape most of the back ache.

Mostly during the day I rest while watching TV or reading. I take a lot of naps. I'm also up quite a bit. Like right now I'm sitting in the living room. I was reading and decided to post this using the handy iPad that Dave got us for my hospital stay. (Did I mention that I have a great husband?) When I get tired of sitting up then I may head upstairs to take a nap.

In the evenings I actually seem to have more energy. I come down for dinner and stay up for a few hours while we eat and watch some TV. Then I go to bed and read some before surrounding myself with pillows and drifting off to sleep.

Overall I'm comfortable and David does all that he can to make sure I have everything that I need. I'm just going to take it easy and let my healing body use all of the resources that it needs.

I'd like to thank everybody for all of the kind words of support and for following my progress on my blog. This really is the easiest way to keep everybody informed. Of course you are welcome to call - this is not meant to completely supplant human contact! But for a quick check-in on me this has proven to be the best and easiest way to keep everyone who is interested up to date.

Stanford Round 2 Day 7.5

[ David for Laurie ]

I have to type quietly so I don't disturb Laurie. You see, she's upstairs resting and sleeping. She came home last night to a flurry of fur and excitement. We let the dogs greet her at the car so she would be protected from their excitement. After that we got her upstairs and in bed to relax.

She's eating, albeit not a lot, and getting lots of rest. We watched some TV together and she got to sleep around 10. The biggest challenge she has now is that her back is sore from laying in bed for so long. That is probably the source of most of her discomfort.

Tomorrow she'll be able to take a real shower and that will make a big difference. I know that she'll start to perk up after that and feel so much better.


BTW, we've had a great house/dog sitter over the last week. She's stayed at our place and ensured that the "kids" were well cared for. This week would have been absolutely insane if it wasn't for her. Thanks for the referral Barb.

Stanford Round 2 Day 6

[ David for Laurie ]

The news for today is that the doctor would like to discharge her tomorrow. We're keeping our fingers crossed, but we don't know for sure what will happen. We need to make sure she's comfortable and they are going to try and see if her system will work right without the catheter. If the system doesn't work right they'll put one back in and she'll probably come home with something. Let's hope we don't have to worry about that.

We had 4 different nurses through the course of the day. This is what happens when patients go home and the staffing ratio stays the same.

Laurie was up for a walk 4 times and has transitioned to all oral pain pills. They did add some potassium to her via IV this evening, but the IV was to be removed after that is complete.
She's eating fairly well at this point. Not a lot, but she ate a good amount of her dinner and that's a very good sign.

That's it for now. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be writing this for her while she's upstairs resting.


Other than that, all is good.

Stanford Round 2 Day 5

[ David for Laurie still ]

Well, we kind of moved sideways today. I think it is probably progress overall though.

Late last night they put the catheter back in. The reason was an explanation for why she constantly felt she needed to pee. It turns out the systems weren't really working right yet. Your bladder starts telling you it's time to go when you have around 600 cc's of urine in there. Laurie was retaining over 500 cc's when she'd pee instead of completely voiding/emptying her bladder. So she'd quickly hit the point where she needed to go. So the system wasn't working right. She'll have to deal with the catheter at least until tomorrow.

On the positive side today she's eating real food. Not much, but she hasn't been eating for 6 days, so what would one really expect? The doctor came in today and said she could eat anything she wanted to eat. He said to treat it like she'd just had a really bad flu for the past 3 days. My parents were coming down to take me to lunch and do a very quick visit, so I asked them to drop by Whole Foods and get some of their refrigerated chicken noodle soup. Laurie ate a 1/2+ cup at lunch and another 1/2+ cup at dinner. The doctors also realized they had the wrong diet going for her. She should have been on a "Post Op 1" meal instead of liquids. That means things like soup and a little bread instead of this jello and broth bit. We think that one of the problems with her appetite is that they gave her beef broth a couple times and it didn't work at all.... Now she's eating a little. That seems to be slowly waking up her system. Tomorrow I'll bring in some instant Cream of Wheat for her breakfast. The other very important thing is that eating means she can start getting off the IV pain meds. The pain medication requires food to take, so this is the first step to getting her off the IV and moving towards home.

One other thing is that they have moved from the standard IV to using her mediport. This was the 4th day on the IV's and they'd have to change them anyway. Yesterday she was beginning to feel discomfort from the IV's and they removed the remaining one early this morning. She woke up with a wet hand, so the IV had stopped working (the valve there was letting out the forced fluid). They usually don't like to use the mediport for some reason during surgery. I think they just don't want to take the risk of something going wrong with it.

When I left this evening she was fairly chipper and in reasonably good spirits.

Stanford Round 2 Day 4

[ David for Laurie still ]


Today was pretty much like yesterday. Laurie managed to get the chicken broth consumed before I got there this morning. That was pretty much the only food she took in though. Her appetite just isn't there. It may be the beef broth though. She also seems to have something going on that they are saying is just acid reflux. She feels like she has a lump in her throat. They prescribed something for it and now we need to see if it really works. This is just something that happens apparently when the system isn't really restarted yet. Her surgeon was by again today and said to take her time and only eat/drink if she's hungry, let her body drive things.

Not much else to report. She did pass gas, but just a couple of small toots. This is progress, but we really want her system to settle soon. They removed her catheter today, which is good.... but it means she has to get up and pee all the time and that's at least once an hour with the fluids they are/have been putting into her.

Hopefully tomorrow she'll be feeling more normal and be able to eat and get around more comfortably. Right now she's still on the PCA and probably will be until she can eat. Only then will she be able to take the oral pain killers as they need to be taken with food.

That's it for now....

Stanford Round 2 Day 3

[ David for Laurie ]

Well it's been another eventful day at Stanford. Laurie went on 4 walks around the corridors and everything appears to be going as expected. She's beginning to feel some general discomfort as her body start working normally again. Hopefully that means we'll have an important event occur overnight. We'll see though as last time it was day 4 or 5 before that happened.

I want to thank everyone who's passed along their thoughts and wishes. Laurie asked in particular that I post this picture she took today. Thank you Sandi for the Texas Roses for my Texas Rose.

Stanford Round 2 Day 2

[ David reporting in for Laurie ]

There's not a lot to report today. Laurie is immensely better than she was after her liver surgery. They've got the right mixture of non-narcotic and narcotic meds working for her. She was up 3 times while I was there and had 2 fairly long walks out of those (the first time out of bed wasn't for long or far). There were plans to get her out later in the evening again, but I left around 7:30 or so.

Everything is going along fine. No real food yet and not much of the liquids yet. I suspect she'll start becoming hungry tomorrow. The next major milestone is for her GI system to demonstrate it is functioning (i.e. she needs to fart).

That's all for today....

Stanford Round two Day One

[David writing for Laurie...]

We arrived at Stanford right on time for our 10:15 check in. Half an hour later they took Laurie away. Roughly 10 minutes later they came to reunite us. At 11:30 I was told it was time to head to the waiting room. The surgery started at 12:25 right between the original time and the revised time. My parents came down and met me for lunch. I tried to relax and eat the fairly decent cafeteria food.

At 2:45pm Dr. Welton came out to give us a mid point status. Dr. Gonzolvo was working on the uritor, but things were pretty much just what was expected. The mass was as expected and he had to remove some of the small intestine and some of the colon because the blood supply for those areas went through the mass. He also had to peel the mass off of the main artery. All had clear margins except for the artery, which was clean, but not with enough margin to avoid needing inter operative radiation. Dr. Gonzolvo was going to need to resect part of the uritor and the radiation would be done shortly after that. It's going to be another 2 or 3 hours of surgery, but she's doing great and not losing any blood.

Dr. Gonzalvo came out to check in at 4:30. All went well and the plumbing is reconnected. Now I'm just waiting for Dr. Welton to tie the rest of the plumbing together and close up. Dr. Gonzolvo figured that would be no more than an hour. Then it's just a matter of going through recovery.

The volunteer came to me at 5:45 to let me know that Laurie was in the closing stage. Now just to wait for the doctor to return with any last minute information. Dr. Welton was out 5 minutes later to say that nothing changed (which is good news). Now to wait for the recovery to complete and for her to be released to her room.

It's now 8:45 and we are now in Laurie's private room. It appears she got the best room on the floor. It is what she deserves!!

That's all for today. Tomorrow I'll tell you how she's doing and about her first walk. Everything is looking good and it looks like they are going to ensure her pain is well managed. Everyone has been super nice today. It's been a great experience as these things go...

My New/Old Weight Loss Program

I don't know when I'll be allowed solid food again. And I love food. Today I cannot eat anything more solid than Jello. I can drink "clear" liquids, which do include Coca Cola. Basically I can eat or drink anything that you can pour out of a glass and it leaves nothing behind, coating the glass.

Tomorrow I get no food or drink whatsoever. And I know from experience that I'll not be allowed anything more solid that Jello or a popsicle during my week in the hospital. Maybe towards the end I'll be allowed cream of wheat or some brothy or creamy soup.

Anyway, it's true that you should be careful about what you wish for. If you wish to lose a few pounds it may happen.

Surgery is Scheduled

I think the nurse up at Stanford has been working in a whirlwind today. She managed to get all of the players to be available for my surgery on next Tuesday, July 6th. The urologist, radiation oncologist, and the surgeon will all come together to play around with my insides for about 5 hours starting at 10:30. So now I am clearing my calendar and wrapping my head around this. I'm glad for the suddenness of this because July 6th will be the last day of life for the growing tumor in my abdomen.

[Edit: As of now (7/1 at 1:54), the surgery will be at 12:30 instead of 10:30. I am not sure of this is set in stone yet, but that's the latest.]

[2nd edit: The surgery is actually going to be at 12:10. Not that 20 minutes matters!]