Scattered Thoughts . . .

The following morning after we sat down with the doctor to discuss the results of Sheila's mammogram and ultrasound imaging, we were headed back to the hospital for a biopsy. Sheila has been down this road before. Her first biopsy was 11 years ago, then surgery, radiation, chemo and the years of follow-up testing, imaging and exams. But, this morning, we were back at square one again. I have to say that it was not a pleasant feeling to be back at square one again. We both were so anxious that we thought we couldn't eat. We sat down to eat but we both commented that we had no desire for food whatsoever. The funny thing is... once we started eating, we pretty much finished our meals. I think the food absorbed some of the stomach acid being pumped into our empty stomachs due to our nerves. We felt a bit better after eating. On the drive to the hospital this morning our conversation changed from a pep talk type of thing giving positive reinforcement to someone who has already

I've said this countless times before, with my voice and on this blog, but I'll remind everyone anyway... Just because a cancer patient may appear to be cancer-free at any given moment, this in no way means the patient "beat cancer" or, an even sillier notion, "kicked cancer's ass".   The fact is... and, yes, this is a fact and not just my opinion... that cancer patients have a significantly higher incidence of a recurrence of cancer compared to the incidence of a person who has never had cancer getting cancer for the first time. Until there is a true cure for cancer, the statistics show that the cancer patient is only buying time in getting beyond the first occurrence of cancer.  Unfortunately, the time that Sheila bought (or perhaps "earned") by getting beyond her first occurrence of cancer is suddenly up.  This all started last week, Sheila and I traveled up to Burlington last week for a mammogram. This is a standard, typical, repet

Not much has been getting accomplished on the house lately. My health and the weather are not cooperating with each other in the least. I've been feeling absolutely miserable on some rare beautiful weather days and I've been feeling halfway decent on some rainy days... and, even if I were healthy, we've had a lot of rainy days this summer so getting much accomplished on the house would be difficult anyway. Regardless, I'm not too pleased with how little I've accomplished and how much it affects my health. At some point, I need to feel very well on a few very nice days! In the meantime, I'm trying to keep busy in the house. Most of my down time has been spent sketching plans for various projects around the house, researching building products, and even sitting at the piano whenever I'm feeling up to it. This evening, however, I decided to sift through some of my latest photos to see if I could find anything interesting. The first photo that captured my at

Lukey really seems to enjoy sailing and I definitely enjoy our time out on the boat together. We went sailing a few times this summer, as always, but this summer I managed to capture some video of one of our outings with the intention of sharing it here. Well... okay... the real intention was to add this video to my large collection of videos of the grandkids. I did, however, want to also share it here. I shot about 30 minutes of video on this particular outing but I miraculously edited the video down to about 12 minutes so it is a bit more bearable to watch... especially for those of you who aren't Lukey or me! It is still a bit long but I wanted to keep all the minutes of footage that showed some interaction between the two of us. There was plenty of time when we just enjoyed the sailing in silence but, as Lukey gets older, there is more and more talk between the two of us when we are on any of the boats. We both had a great time... Lukey was a pleasure on the boat and it

Slowly, and in between health issues and medical appointments, we are making some headway on our summer home renovation plans.   Our latest project is to paint the house. Well... to at least paint the part of the house that is mostly finished!  We plan to finish another part of the exterior this summer but we wanted to get the design and colors right first. I think we are moving in the right direction but this little exercise has pointed out the need for some minor adjustments that weren't in the original plan. This current project is going well and it involves designing, building and installing some new architectural details for the exterior which match our new renovations on the interior. Between a drastic color change and adding these architectural details, the house is beginning to show some character! In this photo, below, we can see the new lighting at our front door... The weather has been rather wet this summer so I had to set up a little workshop outdoors under

Every year we always look forward to a few different annual events. The annual Lake Champlain Antique Boat Show has always been one of these annual events and it has always been a great time in the past.  The show was yesterday and, since it has been raining almost everyday here in Vermont, we were very fortunate to have a beautiful sunny day! I was feeling "fair" (which is better than I've felt in the past week) so I packed up a camera, a couple of lenses and a bag full of medications and we headed to Burlington in anticipation of viewing a fleet of antique boats on beautiful Lake Champlain with the rugged Adirondack Mountains looming in the background.  It was a beautiful day for walking around Burlington. The sky was clear. The sun was shining but it was still quite comfortable with temperatures in the 70s. Since I don't do well in hot climates, this was my kind of weather!  Our walk toward the waterfront was very nice and a much needed break from recove

I've had a few good days recently and managed to get a few things accomplished around the house but that never lasts long.  My health is often in a constant see-saw motion... sometimes a roller coaster motion... and lately, I've been struggling with a few days on the low end of these fun rides. During those few good days, I built a few new planters for our front deck and two new window boxes for the front of the house. I was on a roll and I was optimistic that some good health would continue so I could get more accomplished on the house. It was a nice thought but what the hell was I thinking?  My health was rather poor yesterday with weakness, dizziness, lightheadedness, and simply feeling rather poor. I even spent some time in the bathroom sick as a dog. It wasn't until later in the day that I realized that what was really bothering me the most was bone pain.  This bone pain is brutal. It is pain all through my body. Everything hurts but especially my long bones. The