Here it is, real summer at last, according to the calendar. A happy belated Solstice to you all.
All is approximately well. A few side effects are starting to kick in for Val. Friday afternoon she started to feel a metallic taste in her mouth, as predicted by the oncology nurses. She reports that it lasted through Saturday morning and now comes and goes a bit. Saturday the predicted joint and muscle aches started. They are supposed to last 2-4 days and then recede. Val’s tried one of the pain drugs, with another drug to manage the nausea it caused, but isn’t too fond of the sleepiness they induce. Today sweet Mae paid a house call to give Val an acupuncture treatment, which seems to have helped a lot. Apparently the pains chase each other around her body like a wayward electric current, now darting through her ankles, now shooting up her legs, now shocking her gizzard. It’s useful that the oncology nurses emphasized that these pains are normal and should go away in a few days, something we look forward to.
In other news, Tuley (our terrier mix puppy) was shanghaied into a trip to the groomer this weekend, and emerged shorn, stylin’ and able to see out again. When she gets overgrown she tends to resemble Animal from The Muppet Movie. (Come to think of it, I bet she’d really rock a drum set.)
Our excellent friend Dara returned to New York last night after spending a week with us playing music, running errands, giving us acupuncture, cracking us up and devising a well-researched, elaborate plan of supportive nutrition for Val. She also left us trunks full of herbs and supplements, usefully and painstakingly labeled with lime green sticker instructions. (We are running all supplement suggestions through the Western-style pharmacy, as well.)
My super sister Abby left today, after a whirlwind tour during which we laughed, cried, ate Thai food, hobnobbed with international glass artists, got licked by the dog, dressed to the nines, compared the shape of our noses, and cleaned up at Goodwill.
We continue to bask in the kindness of friends, graced regularly with soup, visits, gifts and notes, all steeped in Like Water for Chocolate–style healing juju. Tomorrow Val is scheduled for a bone scan and I for a dentist appointment. We anticipate clean bills of health from both.
Deborah