morrowlife

Here’s yet another one of the beautiful roses found here at the City of Hope.  I don’t seem to ever get tired of these things.  I’m not sure I can say the same for my Loyal Readers.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken at the City of Hope’s rose garden, and part of my famous Garden series.

We had a pretty good weekend.  We did very little, other than going in for chemo, working, eating, and sleeping.  That’s not a bad thing.  Our brother-in-law John came over again on Sunday evening, which was nice, as always.  He and LRN29 have been absolutely wonderful to us.  Very grateful.

Day 10 of chemo is over!  Other than the twice-daily dose of the hyper-expensive other chemo drug LRN4 is taking, she’s done with chemo until the end of this month.  Doesn’t sound like a really long time, does it?

We saw the doctor today and got some great news, some good news, and some less great news.  Fortunately, no terrible news.  So first the less great news: as mentioned in the previous paragraph, LRN4’s next round of chemo should start during the last couple of days of this month.  She’ll have her next bone marrow biopsy on about the 28th, followed by the start of chemo round two whether she’s in remission or not.

Now the good news.  There have been no blasts in LRN4’s blood for the last five or six days.  They were at 6% two days before we started chemo and 8% on the first day, but they dropped quickly and are gone for now.  That doesn’t mean there’s nothing bad in her bone marrow, of course, but it’s certainly not a bad sign, is it?

Other good news: we have a plan.  At least a preliminary one, anyway.  After round two of chemo, we get the next biopsy at the end of September.  Assuming she’s in remission, we start the DLI transplants at the beginning of October and have them once a month for about five months.  They’re all outpatient treatments, but we think we’ll have to be in the Village for a week or two after the first one at least.  If she tolerates them well, we may be able to spend most of the time at home.

Which leads us to the great news: if things continue to go well, we think we’ll be going home a week from today!  There will be numerous trips back to Duarte, of course, including one or two a week for quite a while, but that’s okay.  I’ll make those trips if it means we can live at home.

Everything is very preliminary and subject to massive change, of course, but we’re pretty excited right now.

We also had a frank talk with the doctor about LRN4’s prognosis.  We realize and accept that the odds changed pretty significantly when LRN4’s relapse happened.  The numbers aren’t overly encouraging, but they’re way better than a lot of cancer patients are facing and they’re even better than we were guessing.  So we’re working with what we have and moving forward.  Press on regardless!

Made some excellent progress on the iOS app.  As discussed in Friday’s post, I got the basic functionality working on the iPad on Saturday and got a good start on the iPhone version.  I think I finished the iPhone side today and I have a functioning, fairly solid app.  Of course, it only contains about 50% of the functionality it’s ultimately supposed to have, but things are actually going well.  Will I have it ready for market by the time we leave the Village?  Doubtful, assuming the above predictions are true.  But I still think I have a good chance of making it by the end of the month.  Much hard work will be required, though.  I don’t think I like hard work.

We watched a fun movie tonight – [amazon asin=B002ZG9864&text=Knight and Day], starring the truly bizarre Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, whose bizarreness quotient I am unacquainted with.  In spite of Mr. Cruise’s oddness, it was a fun, mindless action movie.  Recommended.

And it’s time to get ready for bed.  We need to be up early to greet LRN29 and we need our beauty rest.  So I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: ostrich-like cow!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a customized manhole cover.  I’m displaying this in honor of LRN2’s birthday!  He’s a fan of Steam-powered games, you know.  This Great Art is humbly submitted as my entry for their new logo design.  Not that they’re looking for one, of course.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken here at the City of Hope, and part of my famous Machinery series.

Happy birthday to LRN2!  He’s no longer a teenager.  In fact, there are no more teenagers left in our little family and there will never be another.  That’s kind of a bittersweet thing, actually.  It was wonderful watching the kids grow and mature.  There’s more growth to watch in the future, of course, but a milestone has been passed.

However, there are grandchildren – not only LRN12, but also whatever others may come along.  And I certainly hope there will eventually be more.  Although LRN12 is pretty great on her own.

Wonders of WordPress today, by the way.  It’s actually Saturday evening as I write this.  I got busy and forgot.  What was I busy with?  Why, celebrating LRN2’s birthday, of course!  Well, no, not really.  We talked with him today and swapped some congratulatory texts and emails.  But that was about it.  He and LRN1 did some celebrating themselves – they tell me they went to see the recent [amazon asin=B00AZMFK3K&text=Star Trek Movie] at their local dollar theater.  They both said it was good.  I’ll have to check it out when it comes around for free.

LRN2 also reported an enjoyable birthday dinner with his maternal grandparents.  Thanks, maternal grandparents!

Otherwise, it’s been a good day.  LRN4 continues to do well.  As of Saturday night, she’s completed 8 of 10 chemo treatments.  Her stomach is doing well.  She continues to lose a kilogram or so of weight pretty much every day.  We don’t consider this to be a good thing.  Significant muscle loss happened during previous rounds of chemo and had been finally noticeably improving just before her relapse.  So we’re pretty sure it’s happening again.  The encouraging thing is that we know it will come back, eventually.

LRN4 also reports that her fingertips are getting more red and painful.  Not good.  We’ll talk to our doctor about it on Monday – I think she can make it until then.  If not, we have options.

We sent away to our insurance company’s mail-order pharmacy for some of LRN4 prescriptions today.  Our insurance gives very good coverage for prescriptions from local pharmacies for the first three months.  After that, the prices go way up if you don’t start using their mail-order service.  Now’s our time for that.  The one little complication is that we keep having changes made and I wouldn’t like to waste too much money on expensive prescriptions that we end up only needing for a few days.  Fortunately, the total price of the four 90-day prescriptions I ordered today is less than $6.50.  So we’ll be okay on those no matter what, I think.

My work progress has actually picked up quite a bit, I’m delighted to report.  I gave the project some additional thought and realized I had added a level of complication that simply wasn’t necessary.  So I took that out, had a bit of a consultation session with LRN1 to figure out how to unbreak a thing or two I had broken, and I’m back in business.  There are still lots of functionality issues to address, but the iPad version is working well enough for LRN31 to do some beta testing, just to see if it does what she had hoped.  I might be able to rope in a few other beta testers soon as well – principally LRN8, if she’s interested.  I’ll contact LRN31 on Sunday to start going through the work needed to sign her up.

Oh, I also have the iPhone version of the app about 60% functional!  That implementation is much easier to do, being less complex visually, so I expect to have it fully functional by Monday – or at least equally functional to the iPad version, anyway.  I’m taking Sunday off and will work on my cryptography class instead.

Did I mention that LRN1 has a new job?  Well, he does.  He’s joining a small iOS and Android development firm in Denver.  He starts in a little bit more than a week.  I’m really excited for him – I’m sure he’ll love Denver and I’m also pretty sure he’ll love the job.  It’s a very small company, so he’ll get a lot of visibility.  I’m sure he’ll thrive there.

The response to my video mentioned a couple days ago has been fairly large.  Unfortunately, I took my blank DVDs home when we overnighted in Las Vegas last weekend, but I can get more.  So for those Loyal Readers who are coming here soon, I’ll get something burned before you get here.  For others, I’ll probably do it when we get home.  Don’t expect much – it’s just a whole bunch of photos including LRN4 – great ones, good ones, bad ones, sharp ones, fuzzy ones, etc. – and some music.  I didn’t even do the Ken Burns effect.  Although I guess I could modify it to try that.  Might work on that.  Might not.  I kind of like what I have now.

Anyway.  We ran out today for a tiny bit of shopping.  I got a couple pairs of jeans, LRN4 got some shoes, and I got my very own [amazon asin=B007X5RERW&text=power squid]!  I’ve wanted one of those things for years.  They’re way better than a power strip (of which I seemingly have dozens) because you can use every outlet, no matter how big your wall warts are.  LRN4 noticed it on one of the junk tables at Ross for only about ten bucks.  Its packaging was a bit torn in one spot, which possibly explains the low, low price, but the squid itself is cosmetically perfect and presumably functionally perfect as well.  I’ll plug it in soon and make sure.  In any case, I’m inordinately excited to have it.

We’ve been so frustrated with the terrible, horrible, unreliable Wifi service here at the hospital that we decided to go to the local public library for a couple hours today, just for their free Wifi.  As a bonus, they have actual tables that both of us can sit at and use our computers and even have a reference book or two open at the same time.  Their Wifi is kind of slow, but it didn’t constantly disconnect us for 5-20 minutes at a time, so the experiment was a great success.  We’ll be going back.  Besides, it’s also kind of good to get out of the house to work every once in a while.  At home, we have an office we can use for working and a living room, bedroom, exercise room, kitchen, dining room, garage, and yard we can use for everything else.  Here, not so much.  So it’s nice to have someplace else to go.

And that’s it for today.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: fugitive kangaroo!

See you on Monday.

Here’s a gnarly old tree here on the City of Hope campus.  Not a very attractive background on this Great Art, but I think the beautiful tree makes up for that.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken at the City of Hope, and part of my famous Garden and Architecture series.

Yeah, it’s lame, but that is technically architecture there in the background.  Even if it does look a bit like a trailer.  Trailers have architecture too, right?

Pretty good day today.  LRN4 had her sixth chemo infusion this evening.  This one took about two and a half hours, as opposed to yesterday’s treatment  that got done in a little more than an hour.  We just can’t predict these things, can we?  So we had a bit of a late dinner – chicken fricassee.  It was delicious!  I’m not sure it really agreed with LRN4, though – she’s feeling a bit under the weather tonight.  Not that I’m worried, but I don’t like it one bit.  She’s also starting to get a rash on her fingertips that’s similar to the one she got last time she was taking Nexavar.  That was a bit of a nasty side effect that we don’t want to repeat.  If she needs the drug at the current dose, so be it.  Her recovery is more important than some discomfort now.  But we’re going to talk to the doctor tomorrow and see if there’s something extra or different we should be doing, as there frequently is.

The app continues to frustrate me.  I would say I made no progress at all today, but I did find two or three things that won’t work.  So I feel a bit more like Thomas Edison but I don’t feel like a developer who has an app that will be ready for sale in another couple of weeks.  Very frustrating.  Tomorrow’s another day, though.

And I’m way later getting to bed than I should be, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: vandalizing goat!

See you tomorrow.

Here are some floating trees, all decorated for Christmas.  Extremely grainy Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken well after dark at Longwood Gardens on a snowy Christmas Eve 2012, and part of my famous Garden series.

I think those three Christmas trees there on the left might not be real trees after all, now that I look a little more closely.  As I recall, there are no pine trees normally growing on boards floating out in the middle of that pond.  But oh how beautiful that place is at Christmas.  We went there for our annual Christmas Eve outing last year.  It was cool and brisk when we got there shortly before dark.  We walked around the grounds for a while, watched the model trains running, walked through the lovely old bell tower, and bought a cup of delicious hot chocolate before going inside the conservatory for the amazing Christmas displays there.  When we got back outside, the sun had gone down and it was snowing fairly hard.  We walked around the grounds a bit and enjoyed the numerous illuminated trees and other decorations as they were gradually covered with a light coating of snow.  It was – to overuse a phrase – magical.  The perfect Christmas Eve.  The snow didn’t affect our drive home, ending the night just perfectly.  To top it off, we had LRN1 and LRN2 with us for the holidays.  Perfect.

LRN3 and LRN15 came a little bit later in the week, as we recall, making it an even more perfect week.  All we were missing was LRN5 and her family.  We got with them a few weeks later, though, so we were okay.

Had a very good day today.  LRN4 had her fifth chemo infusion this afternoon and we otherwise pretty much relaxed all day.  She’s still feeling very well and doing very well.  Also looking very well.  Things are clicking right along.

Instead of working on my job, I spent a bunch of time today making a video.  I found a bunch of pictures of LRN4 – all the pictures in my iPhoto library that include her, in fact – and generated a slideshow with some music.  It was very cathartic.  It’s about 800 MB in size, so I’m not posting it online right now, but if any Loyal Readers are interested in seeing a lot of pictures of LRN4 in various places with various family members, let me know and I’ll burn you a DVD.  There are lots of cute pictures of our kids too.

Sadly, I only have digital photos from the time we lived in Virginia and after.  We have lots of photos and slides from before then.  After we get home, I need to digitize them all.  That will be a real treasure.  Then maybe I can make an even longer slideshow!

How I love my family.  How I love my children.  How I love my wife.  This video will be a treasure to me forever.  Much more importantly, the memories represented by this video are the real treasure.  That treasure I’ll carry with me forever.

Had a nice long chat this evening with LRN23.  He’s been calling me on a very regular basis since this whole mess started nearly six months ago, for which I will always be deeply grateful.  I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that and the many other phone calls, emails, texts, blog comments, and visits we’ve received.  They truly make us feel loved.  Thank you, Loyal Readers!

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: balcony-dwelling performing donkey!

See you tomorrow.

Here are some little flowers we found somewhere around here.  I don’t think they’re in the rose garden, though.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken at an undisclosed location on the City of Hope campus, and part of my famous Garden series.

In this context, “undisclosed” also means “unremembered.”

LRN4 had a very good day again today.  We got chemo infusion number four this afternoon.  It seemed to go well.  It was great being home together all day, although she and LRN29 went out shopping this morning without me.  That was okay, though.  They made the Walmart and Target run and brought back food, a new frying pan, shower soap, and gum and candy for me!  I especially like the gum and candy part.  Thanks for coming again today, LRN29!  We enjoy your visits.

We watched one of LRN29’s movies tonight – an interesting old Cary Grant show called [amazon asin=B00000JRW5&text=Only Angels Have Wings].  It’s one of the few Cary Grant flicks neither of us had seen.  Kind of a hard plot to follow.  Or even really care much about, for that matter.  It’s a drama about a bunch of people running some kind of cargo airline in the Andes during the 1930s.  Bad things happen, pilots fight with each other, some planes crash, things look very bad for the good guys, and they prevail right at the very end.  Completely unexpected!  But it was fun to watch.

Zero progress on the app today.  I’m really stuck on one bug fix.  I’ve tried several things without success.  Will come out swinging again tomorrow morning.  I’ll get it.

LRN4 and I have been chatting about our current situation.  We really have no idea what our future will bring, but we’re both feeling much more calm now.  We don’t know whether we’re in denial or acceptance or what.  But we do feel better.  I think that’s a good thing for us to the extent that it makes it possible for us to fully enjoy every day together.  The only problem is that I just want to spend all my time with her.  I don’t want to work, eat, sleep, or do anything else but be with LRN4.  Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow.  It’s all I want to do.

And that’s about it for today.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: hot dog spill!

See you tomorrow.