Impromptu Trip Downtown

As I was getting up this morning I decided, on the spur of the moment, to head downtown.  I've been looking for a pair of chocolate brown pants, but all the stores I had checked out up here didn't have my size.  I was told that all those stores were also down in the Eaton's Centre, where I didn't want to go last Thursday when it was suggested to me (because it's so busy there, and I don't like the Eaton Centre, and I don't like shopping either).  But who would be at the Eaton's Centre on a Monday morning?  Perfect time for me to go down there!  And that's how my interesting day started.

On the subway on my way down I was thinking about the Occupy Toronto group camping in St. James Park at King & Church.  I've been curious to see what's happening down there, so I decided to go have a peek. Very interesting!  There are about 500 people camping out there, peacefully protesting captialism, corporate greed, economic inequality, etc.   I walked into the park to get a closer look. 

Two young men greeted me and we struck up a conversation.  I heard words like "peace, love, community, making the world a better place", This is the 60's and 70's all over again!  - challenging the status quo and the establishment.

They've organized themselves into a little cooperative community.  There's even a library tent; a medical assistance tent;  a logistics centre that coordinates clean-ups, offers socks, hats, gloves, information, assistance, etc. - run by a few guys who are kind of looking after the campers to make sure everyone is OK; a food tent where people from the city can donate food for the campers and where campers can wash their dishes;  there's a long row of out houses, etc. All very clean, orderly and peaceful.  I was impressed.

  FreeSkool - offering various seminars   (double-click to enlarge)

the food tent

Here are some women bringing food that they prepared at home.  When I asked them why they were doing this, they said, "To show solidarity". 

One of the yurts donated by a union, to provide a warmer place for people to stay. 

I'm so glad I went to visit this site!  It was refreshing and interesting to talk with these young guys and hear their passion for a better world.  I guess somewhere deep down I have a bit of a rebel inside me.  I like to question and challenge the status quo too and this experience struck a chord with me.  It was fun and exciting and interesting.  A little change of scene from being home out in the suburbs all these months.

I love riding public transit!  I love being downtown!  There are always interesting surprises. like this morning -  I was cutting through the very fancy "The Bay" store at Yonge & Queen and saw an older Asian couple pushing a stroller.  Being interested in babies these days, I turned to look into the stroller to see what I thought would be their grandchild, and guess what I saw?!  a dog tucked into the blankets!! 

And then when I was looking for some gloves I ran across this...

texting gloves!

It was a great day!  Another great day!  For about a year now, every night before I go to bed I record all my unusual symptoms on a calendar (headaches, blurred vision, numbness in my little fingers, trouble walking, nausea, my weight, etc).  It's helpful for medical appointments, when the doctor always asks how I've been doing and what's been happening.  And each day's square has been crammed full of symptoms for many months.  However, for the last six days all I had to write was "Great Day!  Great Day!  Great Day!  Nothing else (except "itchy scalp" - which hopefully means my hair is coming back!) ! 

It feels so wonderful to be feeling so well!  Thank you, Lord!!  With my new energy and motivation I was cooking and baking up a storm last week and on Sunday the girls hosted a little "Welcome to Little Oscar" open house for the extended family, here at our place.  I was so preoccupied with everything and everyone, that I didn't take any pictures so I'll update you on that event as soon as I manage to get some pictures from someone.  

In the meantime, Happy Hallowe'en!

The Joys of Walking

Today has been a great day so far! Right after breakfast we went for a walk to our local farmer's market because it was their last day there for this season. One of the produce stands had this beautiful display.

I feel so blessed to be able to walk!  We've been doing a lot of walking this past week and the signals seem to be getting from my brain to my feet with no problems now.  No scrambled messages.  My feet do exactly what I would expect them to do when I'm walking.  It just comes naturally.  I don't have to be intentional about my walking anymore. Something I always just took for granted before.

One of the great things about walking is that it slows down the pace of life and I notice so many more interesting things than when we drive.  Today we saw these fall displays on people's front steps.

Another thing about walking is that it makes me feel better physically and it also makes me feel happier. And when we came home from our morning walk the mail had arrived and I got this amazing card from my sister!

and inside the card it says...

That's right!  Can't wait! 

A few signs that the winter weather is coming... the garden hose has been drained and is hanging from the playhouse in the back yard,  the tomato plants and the flower barrels on the back porch are covered with old bed sheets to protect them from the frost that is forecast for tonight, and the car is parked in the garage - its winter home.

Did you hear what happened in Denver, Colorado, this week?  One day it was 80 degrees Farenheit and two days later they had six inches of snow!   Gerard has heard that some light snow flurries are expected here too one of these days.

That's the wonderful thing about having distinctly different seasons.  You appreciate them because of the changes.  One of my college housemates moved from Michigan to Texas and the thing she said she missed about Michigan the most was the change of seasons.  So... I hope you get a chance to go for a walk soon to enjoy the rain, sun, snow, cold... whatever it is that's coming later this week.

The Cancer Look - Still No Hair

It was exactly five weeks ago, today, that I started loosing my hair because of the radiation.  Two days later we shaved off what was left.  And ever since,  I've been rubbing my head and checking in the mirror to see whether it's growing back yet.  Nothing yet.  Seems kind of ironic that now when I don't feel like a cancer patient any more (or hardly), I look the most like a cancer patient.  They say my hair should grow back in about three months.  I'm assuming that means it will start to grow in about three months. So by Christmas I should have about as much peach fuzz as little Oscar has now. 

Hopefully it will start growing soon.  That would feel a little warmer.  I always wear a head scarf or a wig with sometimes a hat or hood over that when I go out.  But because my scalp has been sooooo itchy lately (does that mean the hair is starting to grow?) I sometimes don't wear anything on my head in the house.  I've been told that my hair will grow better if it isn't covered all the time.  I'm hoping....

Here's a little fall display we have in the kitchen.  Someone gave us the orange Chinese lanterns.  I really like them and am thinking of trying to grow some in our garden next summer.  Even though I haven't done much gardening this year, I am already starting to get inspirations for next year.  Some items on my list of ideas for next year: sunflowers, sweet williams, these little chinese lanterns,  and a load of mushroom compost. 

I went for a walk yesterday afternoon.  It was so beautiful out!

Today for lunch I enjoyed some green peppers, cherry tomatoes, and parsley from our garden.  We're really way behind with our garden - still picking these things on October 25th!  There has been some frost on the rooftops the last few nights, but it hasn't touched our plants yet. We'll enjoy the flowers and produce as long as we can.



One Day at a Time

This week I picked the first tomato (other than cherry tomatoes) from the garden this year.  And it was worth waiting for.  It was so big that one slice of tomato completely covered a slice of bread!  Those are regular sized pears and apples behind the tomato. 

I can't believe that it's October the 22nd and we still have impatients and tomatoes growing outside. No frost yet. These kinds of inflated figures are starting to appear in our neighbourhood.  The cat's head moves back and forth from side to side.
 

Yesterday we went to our first post-treatment follow-up appointment with the oncologist.  My bloodwork was all fine and for the rest it was just for him to hear from us how I'm doing.  Basically, I'm fine physically, (I've been walking, hiking, swimming, doing yoga), my nervous system still feels rather fragile, my emotions are much more stable since quitting the sleeping pills, and my energy level is still up and down.  He said it's going to take some time for my system to settle down after all the treatments.

In January I'll have an MRI followed by an appointment with the radiologist to ensure that the cancer is still all gone.  I guess from there on in it's a follow-up appointment every six months.  I'm not really sure.  In November I also go to a neurologist to test my memory and other responses to see how my brain is doing and to assess whether I need any kind of rehabilitation or therapy for anything.  

Last week someone was talking about a young father who had two inoperable brain tumors.  "Wow!" I thought.  "That sounds very serious!"  Then I thought, "Wait a minute, I myself had three inoperable brain tumours!"  For the first time it kind of registered how serious that was and what a big deal my healing is!  What an amazing and huge blessing! Now that I'm starting to feel so much better, it's hard to imagine that we actually went through this diagnosis and eight months of treatment.  I have memories of everything of course, but it's hard to imagine that it all actually happened to us.  It feels like another life in another world. 

Right now I feel kind of suspended in mid air.  We've just come through some very intense months.  I feel so much better, almost back to normal sometimes. At those moments my mind starts runnng ahead of me with big plans and ideas.  Then I try to do something very simple like bake some cookies or go shopping for something and feel totally overwhelmed, realizing that I need a lot more time to recuperate, also emotionally, from this whole experience.  I get  reminded that it's only been a few weeks since I finished treatments and that it takes time to heal physically and for both of us to recover emotionally.   

All these months we've been living from day to day and week to week, with small goals in mind each time, like surviving the treatment, getting to the next appointment or the next round of treatment.  Now all of a sudden there is an undetermined endless stretch of time ahead of us, but I don't have the energy, especially emotionally, to know what to do.  So I guess the best way to move ahead for now is to continue one day at a time.  

In preparation for our small group study this week I ran across this passage about the "Manna Principle" based on Exodus 16: 13-32.

Here is the manna principle:  one day at a time.  God will provide for you one day at a time.  Trust God for this day right now.  In the days of Moses, some people got anxious, others got greedy, and still others grew fearful.  Some people thought they'd beat the system by gathering tomorrow's manna.  God had something important to teach them -- and us as well.  It is the manna principle by which we are to live.  God says, "I want you to live your life trusting me one day at a time -- just this day.  Learn to trust me for this day.  If you start worrying about tomorrow, you are going to worry your whole life long."  

We don't need to ask for guarantees about tomorrow.  We don't need to ask for answers to questions we are not being asked yet.  We don't need to ask for the ability to cross a bridge that we haven't yet reached.  Each of us needs to learn to pray, "God, I'll trust you for this day, my daily bread, today.  And when I wake up tomorrow morning, like manna, your mercies will be new once again."  

- on p. 68 from "Creating  A New Community" by John Ortberg.   

Happy Citizenship Week!

Did you know that this week is Citizenship Week?  Well, on Tuesday I heard about it on the radio for the very first time.  And, ironically enough, I had just attended a citizenship ceremony on Monday, to cheer on a friend from work who became a Canadian citizen that day! 

I witnessed seventy-seven people, representing twenty-seven countries, pledging the oath of citizenship.  They were excited and emotional.  This was a big day for them.  It has taken many of them a lot of struggle, effort, money, time and sacrifice to come to this point.  And they consider it a great priviledge to receive full citizenship in this country. 

It's a good experience for me to attend a ceremony like this once in a while.  I went to a huge and festive ceremony at the CBC headquarters a few years ago too.  It helps me appreciate the blessing of citizenship in a free, democratic country like Canada.

What A Difference Medication Can Make!

Since last Wednesday I have been completely medication free and feel soooooooo much better!

First, my eye drops were so obviously related to the vertigo and nausea I was experiencing!  After five days of feeling miserable on them, I stopped taking them when the inflammation had cleared up and immediately felt way better.

With that positive experience, I started thinking about my sleeping pills. I had tried to quit them a number of times, but always had such sleepless nights that there never seemed to be a good time to quit; not while my immune system was low during chemo, not as I was going on radiation, not the day before a busy doctor-appointment-day.  There always seemed to be a reason for needing a really good night of sleep and so the sleeping pills were easy.  Just take one and fall asleep.

Well, now with all the treatments over and me feeling so well, there were no more excuses.  I googled, "Withdrawing from sleeping pills" and found out that sleeping pills are only meant to be taken for about two or three weeks - not long-term.  I had been on them since February! when I couldn't sleep because of the steroids. I'm surprised the doctors approved repeat prescriptions so often.  Time to get off these pills! 

So last Wednesday was the big night.  No more sleeping pills.  It took three very restless, almost sleepless nights, before I finally had a solid night of sleep without them.  Then I woke up refreshed and ready for a new day!  And I felt so much better!  No longer depressed, but hopeful for the day with lots of ideas for things to do.  It was wonderful!

Since then life has felt so much better.  We've been doing all kinds of things that have been on the back burner for many months.  The first thing we did was go for a drive and a walk along a forest trail in Hockley Valley to see the colours.  And they were beautiful!  All the pictures in this post were taken that day.  It was great to be out in the forest again.  The smell of the leaves, the sound of our feet shuffling through the fallen leaves and of the leaves raining down from the trees. Ah, food for the soul!

I also went for a dental check-up and cleaning. I've never been so excited about being in a dental chair! It felt so wonderfully "normal"! This medical appointment had nothing at all to do with cancer! It was just a "normal" appointment.

I guess sleeping pills must suppress something in your brain to help you sleep.  And I now think that once this medication gets into your system, it affects you both day and night.  Without the medication I feel so much more alert and positive.  My emotions feel more stable.  Amazing what a difference quitting these pills has made!

Going without sleeping pills has required a bit of a shift in my routine.  I've noticed that the best way for me to get a good sleep at night is to not sleep during the day, so now I only lie down for short times of relaxation during the day, and try to stay awake.  The other thing is to get exercise.  I do stretching and strengthening yoga every day and went back to the early morning lane swimming for the first time last Friday.  Wow, I got the royal welcome back from our fellow swimmers!  It's amazing how much of a community that has become - just from casual chats in the change room.  It felt great to be swimming again - another activity that has no relation to cancer at all!  And another routine that helps me get more sleep at night is no computer activity two hours before bedtime and an evening walk. 

Even though I've had a number of negative experiences with drugs during this cancer journey-  like when I over-reacted to the freezing for the spinal infusions, was confused from the anesthetics for the brain biopsy, got vertigo from the eye drops, and had my emotions all over the place from the steroids and the sleeping pills - we have also benefitted from them.  The steroids immediately brought down the swelling of the tumours, the anti-nausea medications kept me from feeling serious nausea, the chemo killed the cancer, the sleeping pills allowed me to get enough rest so that my body could heal...

So, even though I don't like taking medications and am so happy to be rid of them all, I'm still thankful that they were available when I needed them.  From now on, hopefully all things in moderation.  I shouldn't have been on those sleeping pills for so long.  It's easy to get psychologically dependent on these kinds of things. I'm so happy to be managing so well without any medications at all right now!

Happy Birthday, Opa!

Happy 64th birthday, Gerard!!!

Oscar and OPA!

Mark, Oscar & Opa

p.s.  Everything has been going very well here this past week!  I hope to be back with some updates tomorrow.  

Thanksgiving Day 2011

We celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving Day two days ago.  It was a day of worship, fellowship, food and family time.  Alida and Rosemary offered to plan and prepare dinner for all of us and to host it at our house.  All I had to do was let them use our house and our dishes.  Gerard did some of the grocery shopping and defrosted the turkey. The girls, with Mark's help, prepared everything.  This is a great way to host a special dinner!  I highly recommend it!

They put on quite a spread!  Turkey, two kinds of stuffing, cranberry sauce, four different vegetables, sweet and mashed potatoes, topped off with apple and pumpkin pie with whipped cream.  Such bounty! What a meal!

cleaning up after dinner



While all these people were cleaning up after dinner, Ken and Gerard were playing cribbage and Alida quickly rigged up a "photo studio" in the TV room, using a few brown pillows and a brown curtain over the couch.  I was just wandering around enjoying everything that was happening.

Melanie and Alida (and Oscar of course)



And guess who was the celebrity being photographed in the "studio"?  This was the first time little Oscar visited at our house.  Whenever he was awake he gots lots of loving attention.  And this was also Alida's first time "home" for Thanksgiving, since 2006, so we were all together on Monday.  Great day!

Melanie, Alida, and Henry

The star of the show, totally oblivious to all the fuss being made over him. 

Love the little round toes!

What I've Been Up To...

Three days ago I started taking some eye drops for an eye inflammation and have been a little "off" ever since.  So not much energy for anythng, but here are a few pictures to show you some of what I've been up to the last few days.

Evening walks

Sorting more choir music



Bringing plants in for the winter

Taking eye drops and dealing with the resulting vertigo

Going to church

flowers at church

A Change of Pace and Plans

It feels as if almost this whole week was focussed on arranging, attending and recovering from medical appointments. And I thought that with the tumours gone and treatments completed, I'd be free and getting back to "normal" life. Some days last week it felt that way, but this week, I don't know what happened.

First there were routine appointments, like dental, that were postponed because of chemo and radiation, so now had to be re-scheduled. Also, by Tuesday I realized that I had been a bit overly ambitious in my plans for the week. so I cancelled out of the "Healthy Cooking after Treatment" class at Wellspring, and didn't go to choir practice.

Between Sunday and Wednesday my right eye started bothering me and on Thursday it was diagnosed as Uveitis- an inflammation. I sat in the living room with the blinds closed and wearing sunglasses. Add to that no hair - I must have been quite a sight!

Anyways, I now have eye drops and ointment with instructions: drops from blue bottle in right eye every hour and in left eye every four hours, drops from red bottle in right eye every four hours, ointment over night, etc.... So complicated for my brain to figure out! Thankfully Gerard made a chart of what happens when, and I just check off each line as I do it.

But then this morning I started getting vertigo - feels like my body is moving when it isn't (different from feeling dizzy) and I kept swaying over to the right. So scary! Am I having a stroke? A reaction to the medication? Side effects of the radiation? More phone calls to the pharmacist, our primary care nurse, the oncologist, the opthamologist...

The pharmacist introduced me to the possibility of it being vertigo and our primary nurse suggested we record what was happening and to call back on Tuesday morning (after long weekend). We finally made our own medical decision - to cut out the drops for a few hours and then try them again, but reducing the dose to almost 1/4 of what was prescribed and see what happens. That was almost 12 hours ago, and no more vertigo episodes so far!

In the meantime we've gone for a walk around the block and that went fine. My eye feels and looks a lot better, but I'm feeling so vulnerable. I hardly dare to take the eye drops, or to walk around, especially carrying anything, just in case I start swaying again.

Because of all this eye business we didn't go on a colour drive/hike yesterday (or on Monday because it rained) and I had to cancel out of going to visit and bake cookies with Rosemary:( Yep, it's been one of those days... sitting and lying around feeling sorry for myself and worrying too much about what will happen with my eyes in the future.

OK, time to switch gears. I'm actually relieved that I cancelled out of some commitments this week. The change of pace feels more manageable. I need to remember that I'm just barely over eight months of cancer treatments and that the radiation will still be affecting my system for probably another month or so.

I also noticed that we were pretty good with "going with the flow" this week, coping much better with all the unexpected changes in plans than we would have a year ago. I'm still learning. The journey continues.

Hopefully the next post will be a little more cheerful and I'll have pictures to add again. Good night!

It's a Family Affair

This year has been such a treat for us in terms of family time together.  It's too bad that it takes something like a cancer diagnosis to remind us how precious our family relationships are. But I'm thankful for the way it has brought us that much closer together. 

And now we also have the shared joy of the new baby drawing us together.  We are taking turns visiting the tiny new addition to our family.  And we're all so excited!  It's amazing how you just instantly fall in love with a baby you've never seen before.  There's just some special bond there.  It's awesome to see Henry and Melanie with their little boy, and it's amazing to see our son be a daddy! 

Aunt Alida

Uncle Mark

Aunt Rosemary

Opa!

too awesome for words