Archive for September, 2013

Big Sur surf

Tuesday, September 10th, 2013

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Here’s a wave breaking near the beach at Big Sur, California. Great Art courtesy of my late, lamented Olympus camera, taken in March 2008 at Big Sur, and part of my famous Camping series.

No posts for a few days. I was working like a dog on the iOS app. Of course, most dogs work by eating, sleeping, and doing various extremely rude things all day. Other dogs pull sleds, bring brandy to stranded skiers, sniff out drugs at the airport, guide the blind, or chase down bad guys. I’ll leave it to my Loyal Readers to decide which kind of dog I work like.

In any case, my dog-like efforts seem to have paid off. I submitted the iOS app last night! Finally! For the most part, I’m really proud of it. As with pretty much anything of this type, I can think of several things I should have done differently. Maybe I’ll fix some of them in a later release, maybe it won’t seem necessary. But I certainly hope enough teachers find it useful enough that they’re willing to part with three dollars to have it. And I hope they use it and show it to their friends. Who also buy it. And I become filthy rich while helping teachers comply with the Common Core State Standards.

Don’t worry, Loyal Readers. When I become filthy rich, I’ll remember you. I probably won’t share any of the money, but I’ll definitely remember you.

Anyway. Now I’m on to my next project – the medical forensics PC program. Much more about that one later.

And now for the thing all my Loyal Readers are really here for – LRN4’s condition. She’s doing very well indeed today. She had a lot more energy today than in recent days. I don’t really know why, but I’m certainly happy about it. She even felt good enough today to go to Costco with me and to bake a couple loaves of very delicious bread. She took a little nap this afternoon and she’s at the quarterly homeowners association meeting as I write this. She was elected to the board a few months ago, but this is her first meeting, since we were at the City of Hope for the previous one. I’m really pleased she has enough energy for all those things today.

She had her last day of IV-administered chemo yesterday, so we’re hoping her energy level picks up again soon. Although that’s a little less likely because she’s still taking the oral chemo medication. Actually, our doctor informed us yesterday that the two drugs she’s been receiving aren’t technically chemotherapy, in the sense that they don’t attack and kill fast-growing cells in general – they’re both targeted drugs that are hopefully getting the bad cells and leaving at least some of the good cells alone.

Which may explain why LRN4’s blood counts are so good.  Both her platelets and red cells are doing very well indeed – she hasn’t needed a transfusion in several days, and the counts have actually been going up. Her white cell count is very low, of course, but even it isn’t as low as it has been. While pretty much everything makes us nervous these days, our doctor seemed to think her counts were very good news. Her weight loss may have at least stabilized over the last few days and other Nexavar-related side effects seem to be fairly minimal. She’d love to quit taking the Nexavar, which is supposed to continue for the rest of this month, I believe, but our doctor talked her into continuing it for as long as she can tough it out, as he really believes it has a pretty good chance of making a difference for her. So she’s gritting her teeth and staying on it for now. We can re-evaluate every week or so if things get significantly worse than they are right now.

And that’s about all the LRN4 news for today. She’s having good days and bad days, but she’s staying tough. Her ability to handle this disease is awe-inspiring.

Happy birthday to my brother-in-law Ken! What a great guy he is.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: exploding rhubarb chutney!

See you tomorrow.

Dresser kids

Thursday, September 5th, 2013

dresserkids

Here’s the top of LRN4’s dresser, featuring pictures of the kids when they were a bit younger. Some younger than others. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken on August 1st, and part of my famous Las Vegas series.

No post yesterday. I stayed up late working on the app again. I am so close to releasing it. I have about seven more open bugs that I have to fix before it goes to Apple. Then I get the screenshots done, write some advertising text, put in whatever graphics are missing, and submit it.  Then a few days go by, it gets released, and the big bucks start rolling in.

At least I assume that’s how it will end up. Probably.

LRN4 is doing pretty well today. She got her third chemo treatment of five this morning. Her strength is reasonably good and her energy level is reasonably high. She tried a bottle of [amazon asin=B00BKNWGQ2&text=chocolate Ensure] this morning and actually found it palatable. Her doctors have been recommending it for quite some time to pump up her calories and protein and she’s been resisting it because of very negative experiences with the stuff and her terminally ill grandfather many years ago. I don’t know whether the Ensure has changed or LRN4 is having a Green Eggs and Ham moment, but I do know that she needs the stuff and she’s getting it.  I’d really like her weight to stabilize and start going back up to a healthy level. Yes, I know ending the chemo will also probably do that naturally, but I don’t think we can wait for that anymore.

I’ve started giving her micafungin every day.  A home healthcare nurse came over yesterday with an [amazon asin=B009UFR9XM&text=IV pole], some IV tubing, a bunch of flushes and other supplies, and several bags of micafungin.  She showed me how to infuse it and now I’m on my own. I don’t know whether LRN4 should be nervous or not, of course, but I’m now both a certified PICC line flusher and a highly-trained IV giver. Not to mention a prolific pill hander-outer. Three times a day since the end of May!

And that’s about it for today. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: butter tart battle!

See you tomorrow.

Breakfast scene

Tuesday, September 3rd, 2013

breakfastscene

Here’s LRN4’s partially-eaten Labor Day 2013 breakfast. I think that was the best waffle recipe I’ve ever tried. They were light, fluffy, and delicious. On the downside, they were made with yeast and required an hour to rise. But it was worth it. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken on Monday morning, and part of my famous Food and Las Vegas series.

Oh, and check out that nice little pile of pills there hiding behind the [amazon asin=B00CHUK8IA&text=Cool Whip]. She’s taking them by the handful these days.

No posts for a few days. I hope my Loyal Readers haven’t been too worried about us. I’ve just been working on my app. LRN4 is doing fairly well. She appears to have stopped losing weight since she stopped taking all the chemo drugs. For a few days, anyway.

Let’s see, the last post was on Wednesday. On Thursday, we went to the City of Hope for LRN4’s bone marrow biopsy and to see our doctor there. The visit went well and the biopsy was less painful than the last couple have been. We got the news on Friday that while the leukemic cells have been greatly reduced, they’re not completely gone yet, so we’re moving forward with another round of chemo this week. LRN4 had the first dose this morning. She went off the Nexavar on Thursday as well, but is back on it today, albeit at half the previous dosage. It’s kind of doing brutal things to her, but it just might save her life, so we’re sticking with it. Don’t know when she can quit that one again. The good news about this week’s chemo is that the leukemia is sufficiently weakened that the California doc decided to shorten the course from ten down to five days. We’ll take any break we can get.

The extreme weight loss has made LRN4 pretty weak, a bit unsteady on her feet, and kind of shaky. We’re exploring opportunities to help her gain the weight back, including the dreaded Ensure and/or Boost products. She’s been very reluctant to take those because she hates how they taste, but we’re kind of running out of options. She really needs to get as much strength back as she can. So we got three different samples today and she’ll start trying them out tomorrow.

Otherwise, all systems are go, our spirits are relatively high, and we’re pressing forward regardless.

LRN2 is home! He hitched a ride with LRN4’s brother and his wife, who came to visit us on Friday. They stayed until Sunday morning, along with LRN29 and her husband. So all four siblings were here. It was a fun visit.

But my favorite part of all that is that LRN2 is here. He’s looking really good and sounding really good. We’re working on some medical care for him and hoping to improve his employment prospects again. There’s something out there for him – I’m sure of that. Welcome home, LRN2!

I’m really making progress on the app. There are still several bugs and a couple of features I need to add before it ships, but it’s getting really close. I’d say it’s definitely beta quality now and rapidly approaching releasability. LRN31 has provided extremely helpful feedback and is evangelizing the app among her teaching friends. Thanks, LRN31! You’re definitely getting a free copy when it’s released.

And it’s quite late yet again, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: lock-picking cockatoo!

See you tomorrow.