I have just returned from a week in Carbondale, Illinois, where I was serving as pit crew for my fabulous glassblowing sister’s MFA thesis show, which was spectacular. While I was away Val met with the doctor and called me with this uplifting news: The CT scan last week shows Continue Reading
PET scan
preliminary results
Fantastic: The PET scan showed no new hot spots. Cancer is NOT rekindling. Disappointing: The two remaining, shrunken tumors are not yet dead. In a preliminary report, the PET scan technician (or whoever phones over the preliminary info) says the scan shows “residual disease” in two already-known spots, which we Continue Reading
Tuesday
Tulips are blooming. Sunshine is forecast. Neighbors are emerging from their winter burrows. Val had treatment Wednesday, and all her blood numbers continue to be very good. (She’s a wee bit low on sodium, but we think it’s the gallons of water she drinks. I am going to get her Continue Reading
Now it’s April
Hello tenacious fans, We are still here. It’s April now. Things are riotously blooming all over Portland: trees, shrubs, flowers, mosses. Right now our front yard has four kinds of daffodil still in bloom (the early spring climate here works as refrigeration and the daffodils bloom for months), hyacinths, euphorbia, Continue Reading
Magic 8 Ball
About a week ahead of time, the CT scan makes itself felt on my horizon. It’s a small white noise in the back of my brain, Val’s too I think, more buzzy the closer it gets. Nowadays, in between doctor moments, sometimes we can just have a day. Sometimes several. Continue Reading
small mercies
Salut, mes amis. Guess what? I have some news that is not horrible! Normally I like to make a proper anecdote, with suspense and story arc, but I won’t make you live through the whole day with us. I’ll give it to you straight up: Val’s PET scan, in the Continue Reading