Chapter One: Catching Up

Today was clinic/chemo day, and I will get to that in a moment, but first, let's rewind a bit to see how the past few days have gone.

I have been feeling very fatigued (from the Topetecan, the current chemo) and this weekend, my friend Nancy Frank (or as we call her, "Rosie's Mom") stopped by in Durham after business trip to Philadelphia. Sofie was on a sleepover Friday night, and I got Nancy at the airport not too much after the scheduled flight arrival time. Blessedly it was pouring, a soaking rain we have needed for weeks or months here. Probably not enough to save all my neglected, dried plants and trees, but a distinct improvement over drought.

Nancy and I picked up food on the way home, then ate and chatted before I crashed about 10 or so.

On Saturday AM, Sofie returned after attending a brunch with her sleepover hosts at ERUUF and we heard about CenterFest, an arts festival in downtown Durham. OK, I don't get out much these days, but I had not heard of that at all, but I had not even known it was happening. Sofie strongly declined going to ice skating lessons for now, so we got it together and got ready to go to the festival. For Sofie, this involved a shower, she had PE on Friday and she, well, reeked! So she went to take her shower and suddenly I heard a bloodcurdling shriek/scream from the bathroom. I got in there in a flash, thinking the hot water had scalded her, and then there was another scream. It turned out to be a rather impressively sized daddy longlegs. I tried to do a catch (and release) but Sofie was screaming "kill it, kill it". This from the little girl who loves snakes and has no trouble putting one around her neck. This plain old little spider was smooshed and flushed away. Sofie wanted out of the shower, but was still stinky, so I washed her quickly (under protest) and got her out of there. She was clearly very upset and it wasn't over yet.

After everyone taking a short afternoon nap, we headed to a fundraising reception for Equality NC, our activist group. They have been doing great things in the past year, and the party was at Sharon Thompson's home, a house I love and would move into in a NY minute. It is perfectly and wonderfully designed for parties, open space, and has a great master bedroom/bath set-up. Sharon is not moving however, so I just go periodically to her home to visit, and wish I could be there!

Nancy knew someone in Durham who lived in LA for years and knew her sister well, so was like a family friend. We invited Sharon to attend the benefit with us. We all lasted just about an hour, which was pretty good, considering Sofie came with us. We headed to Brightleaf Square for dinner at El Rodeo. We were finally able to eat outside there, in the summer it is too hot to really enjoy al fresco dining.

OK, back to the spider tale.....

The rest of the day and evening, Sofie needed someone to go into the bathroom with her, even if she just had to pee. That night I finally settled her to that near sleep place and quietly left the room. I had given her a positive message about how her snakes would protect her from all spiders. No dice. Five minutes later, she was in the living room, telling us she could not get the spider out of her head. I suggested sleeping in my bed (which usually works well). She agreed but insisted I get in there with her. So I went to sleep, kind of early. It was good, however, to get more sleep, as I never seem to have enough these days.

Sunday, we got up, made pancakes and I took Sofie to the first RE (religious education) class for the fall at ERUUF. She protested vigorously, but she went anyway. Then Nancy and I got back in my car and I did a round trip airport drop off and returned to ERUUF two minutes before the class was over!!! How is that for timing?

All weekend, I was in pain, from the hip (yep, that is back) and some in the belly. No fun. I was also anxious...for several reasons. Jamie and I have been house hunting with a realtor on and off, and had actually found a house we thought could work (everything on one level for me, since stairs are sometimes hard when fatigued). We thought we might put in an offer, but I was getting anxious about selling my house (it is a buyers, not a sellers market these days) and I was anxious in general about my upcoming clinic visit and the labs on Monday, when they would be doing another CA-125 cancer marker test. My body has been telling me the numbers would not be going down and I kept obsessing about this, the higher cost of the potential house and pretty much everything. Obsessing is not a good thing, and wasn't making my life any easier!!!

OK, more in Chapter Two, coming soon.