We had a wonderful vacation with my dad, my siblings, and our spouses! I have two older sisters and a younger brother. My brother and his wife were able to come for the first half of the week, and the rest of us stayed for the week. We all traveled to Normalville, PA to stay in a VRBO house there that had plenty of room for all of us. It's a small town with lots of hills and a nice rail trail, and a few small businesses. I got walking in every day except one rainy day, with lots of my family coming along for each walk.
We all went on two walks from the two ends of the rail trail with my dad on his scooter. We were able to go for 3 miles, which is the length we were sure his scooter battery would last. Dad really enjoyed going out on his scooter! The trail goes through the Max B. Nobel Mine Reclamation Project, which helps to neutralize a lot of the toxic drain off from an abandoned coal mine. The water has lots of iron and aluminum, and some is highly acidic and some is highly alkaline. It all used to flow straight into the river system, and now it goes into settling ponds, is aerated by windmills that allow the iron to settle out, and the sources with different pHs are mixed to balance each other. They are still working on getting the aluminum out. Interesting place, and a visible demonstration of some of the harm that mining causes.
Another day, Dad stayed back to read, and the rest of us hiked a hilly trail to a waterfall in a state park. We had one bug stinging mishap, but otherwise a lovely afternoon. And the other days, some of us walked down the steep 1/4 mile driveway and out along a nearby road. Even on our travel days, Frank and I walked at the charging stations.
We played MANY games, which I love! We played my favorite game several times: Racing Solitaire. I can rarely get people other than my family to play, so that was a double bonus of being together! We played oldies like Racko, Tripoli, Password, Dominos, and Yahtzee. We also played Speed Scrabble, Oh Heck, Phase 10, Sequence, and a new one to me that I really enjoyed: Mueller's Marbles, plus many others. Oh and we powered through a fun jigsaw in one afternoon. My family members are great sports and great players!
We also took turns asking dad questions about his life to put in a book that he and Janet are working on. It was fun to hear some of the stories (some for the first time) he recollected, and I look forward to seeing the book.
And we cooked, ate, talked, laughed, enjoyed a fire pit, and enjoyed the simple joy of being together, especially poignant after being apart since 2019 due to the pandemic. It's always so much fun and joy to be together, but it was very hard to leave!
After we got back, I took quite a while to write this blog entry, and I realized I was delaying because I'm anxious about starting up chemo again. Maybe my subconscious thought if I didn't write about it, it wouldn't happen? It's been so wonderful to get my health and strength back that it is hard to think about taking medicine designed to harm some of my cells again.
The reason this chemo is recommended is just that the tumor didn't shrink to nothing from the chemo I had before my surgery. They got the whole tumor out with clear margins and no lymph node involvement, so this is just "mopping up" in case some cancer cells are still there. This chemo is needed because the tumor was triple negative, and none of the hormonal pills that many people take after their surgery would affect it.
So, tomorrow I will start taking oral chemo pills called Xeloda. I will take 3 in the morning with breakfast, and 3 twelve hours later with dinner. I will have to get up and eat earlier than usual to make this work, but if today is any indication, that won't be a problem, as I was up at 6 today. The schedule is to take the pills for 14 days, then take a week off, then repeat, for 9 cycles. So if all goes according to plan, I'll finish in mid-April.
I've been reading up about all the possible side effects, which can be quite a lot, but my oncologist says most people get through it fairly well for a chemotherapy, and they will adjust the dosage or timing if I have bad side effects. Hopefully I will breeze through it, or at least be able to handle what happens!
Me and my two sisters
Enjoying the waterfall
And the sisters' spouses
All of us on the rail trail. Not a great selfie, but at least we're all in it!
Our hike
Another day on the rail trail
Playing a game
Doing a jigsaw. It went SO fast when so many worked on it!
Fire pit time!
Frank and I went with Suzi and Alex to see the Obama Presidential Portraits on display at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. They are bigger than life-sized, and were quite impressive. Michelle's portrait was painted by artist Amy Sherald, and Barack's is by Kehinde Wiley. It was really nice to learn about their stories, why they were chosen to create the portraits, and how they each went about it.
Kathy, so wonderful to see pictures of your family. I hope that this next round of chemotherapy goes OK for you.
ReplyDeleteHi Kathy....So great to see you in those photos with your family. What a visit! I think I remember playing racing solitaire as a kid! I really wish you didn't have to do the pills for so many weeks. I hope it goes as easily as possible for you.
ReplyDeleteIt was such a fantastic week of being together. Love our family vacations! Sounds like you are doing such a great job of keeping up with this new schedule though I know reducing your activity isn't the easiest thing to do. You exhaust me with your ambition to being active but also inspire me! Thanks to you I now have a walking regime as well - just not as extensive as yours. Love you!
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