Pie for breakfast sleep in your underwear.

After an painfully long journey of Alzheimer’s disease my Grandmother, Louise Hutchinson, passed away Friday.

She lived a remarkable life, and I'm proud of the legacy I've inherited (I attribute my dry quirky wit to this woman). When I think of her life I imagine it being far more exciting than it may have been. She lived all over the world, when that was unthinkable (I mean before planes were the primary means of international voyages). I envision her with bright and bold strokes. I’ve been reminiscing of how their house was what I now consider to be the combination of a museum and Pier One. Each visit to Colorado to see her was an adventure.

The pain of Alzheimer’s is that it robs a piece of a person slowly over time. She hasn't been herself for years, and by the time I was old enough to realize who she was, that piece was no longer accessible.

This week has been a return to normalcy to a degree. I'm wading in the waters of mid - semester with tides of work to be completed. Matt's youth program is in full swing. For the first time in a while we've returned to some familiar roles of being ships in the night.


If you want to spend sometime thinking about our friends in the South, listen to Randy Newman's song 'Louisiana 1927.' The chorus is simply 'They're trying to wash us away.'


In the face of uncertainty there is nothing wrong with hope.

No News is Good News

My white blood cells were up again on Friday (ya! no more yucky mask for now). So I started my second round of chemo. The second round is infamous for making hair fall out.

For the occasion I decided to go for a new style. I'm now sporting a super short cut. I can easily say that my hair may have only been this short at birth (seeing as I was born bald). Fortunately there are no signs of weird birth marks or other odd deformities on my head.
Chemo was uneventful, except that I kicked Matt's butt at Scrabble. Luckily the game ended before the sedative kicked in, other wise my substantial lead could have been lost to inability to spell (and on a good day my spelling is only so so). It wasn't quite Candy Land, but it passed the time.

We've come a long way baby-- I've heard horror story after horror story of chemo patients five to ten years ago. They were tossing their cookies for days at a time and feeling horrible just up until the next treatment. That certainly is not my experience, as a testament to all those wonderful drugs they've developed, I really only feel crappy for a couple days (my energy may be sapped, but this certainly is not like a hangover at all). In fact after chemo this week, and a good long nap, Matt and I saw one of our favorite folk artist Peter Mulvey in concert. Now I slept most of Saturday, but I've nailed out about half a paper today (Sunday). While cancer does have it's fair share of bad days, there are just as many 'normal' ones too.

No White Blood Cells & No Chemo

My weeks are no longer built around a weekend or a day off, rather around doctors appointments, hospital visits, and the news I receive from them. This last weeks doctor's appointments have led to various tests, and slowly became day long procedures. Every other Friday I go in for chemo, last Friday was supposed to be the day scheduled to start round two of chemo (two of six rounds). Yet my blood test determined that I did not have enough white blood cells for chemo. So Matt and I got a 'day off' from chemo.

There are all kinds of good and bad things about not receiving treatment. Good things would include; finally having the time and ability to make a trip to Milwaukee (Matt‘s mom got us a beautiful china cabinet! That we were finally able to pick up.), keeping my hair for another week (there is a consensus among doctors and patients that it's typically the second round of chemo that makes one's hair fall out), and feeling okay for another week. The bad thing about having a critical amount of white blood cells is that I'm venerable to catching infections. This means I am to avoid crowds and if in a crowd wear a mask (no movies, restaurants, church, public transit, or 'germ magnets' --kids) and no fresh food for me. I have the okay to go to class, PHEW!
If my white blood cells recover this week, and there is no reason why they shouldn't, this next Friday will be Chemo.

In other news, our mail box has been flooded with cards from all over the Mid-West. It's been great to hear from everyone in Des Plaines and elsewhere- Thank you.

Red Line Adventures

As I've been told various time by cancer survivors, one certainly does have their share of good days and bad days. After last week's chemo round I've been doing really well. I've ran with Matt, done yoga, and completed most of my reading for the second week of classes. All of that to say- even when you're doing well, something can rain on your parade. (Warning: the rest of this will be me whining).

I really just thought my allergies were acting up, I'm nearly obsessive about washing my hands, and I'm trying to avoid infections. Yet I got a sore throat this week, which led to a cough, which then led to a stuffy nose. So in order to breathe while sleeping I spent the night on the couch. As dawn approaches and I awake, I still feel like crap. Hoping it's just the remnant's of spending the night on the couch I plow on getting ready for the day. Slowly I make it to the morning train. About five or six stops after boarding the Red Line I realize that it's not just allergies, and that I need to abandon ship. I crawl out of my sardine can, sit on the platform and call my knight in shining armor who rescues me. Matt delivers me promptly to the UIC Medical Center.

At 'the center' I amaze medical experts with my alarmingly low blood pressure. Matt and I spend the morning and early afternoon baffling doctors. No cause was ever determined but I did receive some drugs for a sinus infection, and told firmly to 'TAKE IT EASY.'

Back at the ranch our defunct DVD unit is still being repaired in the Bronx, and our long weekend plans have been thrown out. Needless to say- Cancer sucks.

Have a happy and safe holiday weekend.

I am going to kick cancers ASS!