Where have all the flowers gone?

.........some of them are in my dining room..

..they thrive amidst the pounding weather just inches away.. (on the other side of the glass)..

these last two weeks, I found myself on the right side of the glass too...

platelets fixed, pulmonary embolism(s) on the mend, blood thinner injections twice a day..

..I feel good (knock wood)..

I am noticeably missing some stamina, but I am also noticeably feeling like a whole person..

..can't gauge the heights if you haven't experienced the valleys..

..that said; I am fully experiencing the heights for the past two weeks..

..tomorrow is my 10th infusion..

I want this....

..if the way I feel is indicative of how well my body is fighting this war, then just maybe, I have a shot..

"not everybody dies from this" plays a constant counterpoint in my head against: "everybody dies eventually"..

I am a fan of Joseph Campbell and his life's work..

..he helps me make sense of life, death and everything in-between...

I continue to battle for  more of that "in-between" ...

Changes~changing~changed

okay..tell me that isn't the strangest word group to look at..

..could be any language..

if you stare at those three words long enough, they begin to lose any coherency of meaning..

tuesday was indeed my infusion day..I can most sincerely say: "yippee!"..

Why would anyone want to go through that?

..simply put: "It's my ammunition."

..Without the infusions, transfusions, and the myriad of needles stuck into my body; I couldn't fight this disease..... "put a gallon in me Allen"......

...you see; I'm playing for keeps here. There isn't any place for "I don't feel like it"..

David gives me an injection in my tummy every morning when I wake up and every night before bed..

..blood thinner..

It's not that I enjoy the needles , I don't (understatement alert).. I just know that my lungs were overpopulated with blood clots on Christmas eve, and this is the way to eliminate what is there, and to prevent future occurrences....

.."shoot the juice to me, Bruce"...

gotta be a bit more careful these days 'cause I can bruise with a so much as a hard glance..

..they had to cut back (by 15%) the amount of Oxalyplatin that goes into my infusion....

.still takes 8 hours or so, but hopefully my platelets won't be so offended by the onrush of chemicals coursing through....

BTW: made over 160 on my Tuesday platelet count..... back in the saddle in all respects....

yesterday was a good day....

sunshine....birds at my feeders, constantly glancing over their little bird-shoulders ...

...i could watch them for hours..

.....oh yeah; I do.........

...never give up..

......never give in

life is good....

the kinks

so tired...(you know the song......)

infusion tomorrow..yay..

....here's a brilliantly glittering gem that shines through the morass of 2010 for David and me:

..as you probably know, my "twelve days of Christmas" were mostly spent in MGH either as a frequent visitor, or, from christmas Eve until the following Tuesday night, as a patient in residence...

on December 26th and 27th, Boston was hit with a massive snow storm..

since David was staying with me at MGH, our house was buried.. When David went home on the 27th to feed the dogs and shower, he was exhausted from lack of sleep and concern over my problems..

never-the-less, he was resolved to shovel the driveway, walkway and steps in hopes of my (as of that time, unscheduled) homecoming..

the snowfall was in the neighborhood of 18" but when David arrived home that day, the driveway, walkway and steps to our house had been shoveled  shoveled and cleared..

my husband literally wept with gratitude and surprise as he pulled the car into the driveway..

.... our emotions are pretty tweaked these days..

over the next few days, we discovered that our neighbors had jointly participated in this task..

David and I may have missed Christmas at home, but this gift is very likely the best Christmas present we could have ever hoped to receive..

Thank you to all our good neighbor friends..you are so much appreciated in this time of stress and confusion..

We don't really know each other very well, but the goodness of your deed shines like a beacon in the night....

thank you

New Year Happy

Made it to 2011!!

This has got to be a better year for David and I...

..that's what we tell ourselves to enhance the forward motion and not allow ourselves to dwell on the negative aspects of the last twelve months...

"always keep your eyes on the road and never look back"........

..here's a short list of the things I am grateful for this morning:

1~ I am in my own home to experience the first day of the New Year..

2~ I am not in a hospital bed..

3~ I love and I am loved...

4~ (this may seem trivial, but...) the sun is out and it is NOT snowing..



..I came home from MGH late on Tuesday night (almost Wednesday morning....)

..platelet count is increasing at a steady rate and my DVT is now being controlled with twice daily injections of LMW Heparin...

....The pulmonary embolism will (hopefully) dissolve over the next six weeks.....then I can cut back the injections to once a day for the next six months...

..waiting to reschedule my infusion..really want it so I can continue to fight this disease..

..sleep comes in fits and starts these days (and nights)..

..I awake periodically with my mind buzzing, like a beehive with a bears paw inserted up to the elbow..

.."remember Gail, don't think..."


It's a beautiful 1st day of the year here in Boston..

..sun is bright and powerful..

..there must be a hundred birds at our feeders. their happy noise fills my house..fills my head..

...my kitties and wieners cling to me..

I am awake..

..I am strong..

...I am here...

Breakfast in Bed

Good morning sunshine...

beautiful, windy, cold day..

I'm watching the world from sixteen stories up...

yup...still in my MGH bed...still a gorgeous view...

still experiencing the meticulously professional and empathetic care of my MGH friends...(thanks again)

...still longing and hoping and praying to go home....

my doc (Jeff Clark) stopped by yesterday and promised my discharge for Wednesday or Thursday, depending on that pesky platelet count...

....it's increasing (btw) and I topped 41k on last night's draw...hoping for higher this morning..

heparin iv has been tooling along since yesterday..

next step: transition from iv to injection..

learning curve note:

 the heparin and (soon to come) daily injections are to prevent future clots from forming....the existing clot will be slowly removed by normal healthy blood function....

how cool is that?

all this fussing around with my body chemicals for the last six months has resulted in some sort of chemo-confusion for my blood-production mechanism and some tweaking on the management end is appropriate from here on in......

feeling good...

..feeling positive .....

......feeling homesick.......

Merry Christmas

..after a week of daily visits to my docs and nightly visits to the MGH ER...

.. Friday evening was yet another ER visit dictated by a call from my doc...

..blood clots in my lungs (sortof explains the shortness of breath)..

Combined with a low platelet count, this amounts to a medical catch 22..

Apparently, this (the blood clot part)is pretty common for pancreatic cancer patients in chemo..

Usually treated with daily injections of blood thinner for six months, except...

My blood is already too thin and I can't begin a remedy for my lungs until I resolve my plateletcount...

Christmas Eve I transitioned from the ER to a hospital bed and pincushion-time..

David takes up residence in chair by my bed and won't leave me alone here...

Christmas Day comes and goes...

David goes home for an hour to attend to anxious wieners and kitties and back by my side for another night together courtesy of MGH..

We're hoping to go home today...hoping...

I don't think they'll let me go until I grow some more platelets...

...trying; really, I'm working this platelet thing as best I can...

One good thing: the view here is of the Charles River from 16 floors up..

David jokes with my nurse that this a view that he wouldn't be able to afford under any other circumstances .... He pauses and smiles and adds: "I guess I wouldn't be able to afford this either, without insurance..."

We count our blessings and are thankful to all the MGH and Yawkie people who gave up their Christmas Eve and Christmas Day so that I could continue to inhabit this world...

Christmas is truly a time to be thankful....

...we are..

"platelets"; not just tiny plates...

Christmas Eve..

May the joy of this wondrous Season overwhelm you, who read this.....

Quite a week around here...

Took a spill Monday night, which triggered a trip to my doc on Tuesday morning..

Draw blood and check.....slow day in the lab, so the results came back after we had gone home..

phone: "Come back to MGH emergency room, your platelet count is so low we're afraid of cranial hemorrhage"....

Tuesday from 3 until 8:30 in the MGH ER having more blood drawn..having CAT scan of my head....waiting..waiting ...waiting


..how do people work in these places, day after day and still wear a smile.....

... and still care...?


CAT scan says okay....blood tests say "platelets are still low"...come back tomorrow for a recheck..

wednesday into MGH for another blood draw....another lab test...

..platelets are even lower; ......oops....

come back tomorrow for another test..


Thursday into MGH...blood draw (starting to get sore there)..

good news.. platelet count is marginally higher....

come back tomorrow for a recheck...


Here we are on Christmas Eve in the infusion center at Yawkie (MGH cancer Center).. port access...
blood draw and wait for results...an hour goes by and they return to take another blood draw because the count is so low that it is: "silly".....

..three hours later...platelet count is still really low, but appears to be increasing slowly...good enough to go home........

"See you on Monday for your infusion........"

Thank you everyone at MGH and the Yawkie for caring about me and my platelet count and for being there on Christmas Eve to pamper me as best you can...

Thank you, and Merry Christmas....