A little thing

As I pulled into our driveway after work last night, what do I see but Mary through the kitchen window buzzing around. When I came in, she had set our places, had the potato baking, was prepping the carrots and was that a great scene or what? At that point I asked, "Are you ok or are you pushing it?" She said she was pushing it so I sent her to sit and I finished the dinner preparations.

How can I explain how great if felt to see that little thing--Mary in the kitchen window at night buzzing and prepping dinner like it was one year ago before this all started! Once we get this back pain under control, maybe, just maybe, we can be hopeful that her energy returns, stamina rebuilds and she becomes that wonderfully active person we all know and love.

We did get to the jeweler today to see the platinum formed into Mary's YAHT neck piece. This week he'll solder the individual pieces together and select a chain. Mary and Ken, the jeweler, decided that fewer diamonds were better than many diamonds...I could hear my father's voice again, "Diamonds, diamonds, isn't platinum expensive enough. And, what is wrong with silver?'' Again, I managed to keep my mouth shut.

Mary's son Daniel called today and he sort of set up a conference call with his girlfriend, Kamie. He added fuel to the fire saying the YAHT item needed more and bigger diamonds. Fortunately, Mary isn't a big bling kinda gal so she is toning it down nicely. Daniel, on the other hand, simply wanted to impact my wallet! I'll be communicating separately with Kamie about her expectations from his pocket!

Thursday morning and Friday morning, Mary's pain got bad again so she had two doses of the liquid morphine each morning--one dose long before my alarm clock sounded, the other about an hour after her regular MSContin dose. A bit disappointing after not having breakthrough pain on Tues and Wed. We called the Pain Medicine Ace we met last Friday and she was glad to hear she made it Tues and Wed with no liquid morphine and not terribly happy about Thurs and Fri. Anyway, she authorized upping her MSContin dose by 50% for the two daytime doses and by 100% for the late night dose. That started yesterday afternoon and definitely worked well. We also removed her fentanyl patch about lunchtime today during Mary's shower and forgot to replace it. No difference in her pain behavior so we may not replace it at all. This is something the Pain Ace suggested anyway and it looks like a good idea.

This has been a great week. Sometimes, weeks are just like that. From the no charge replacement of the milk frother to the Oncologist kissing Mary goodbye and pronouncing her cancer free, it has been an exceptional week. One of my Nikon lenses has been malfunctioning and they won't repair it under the five year warranty unless I produce proof of purchase. Amazingly, I stumbled into the long missing receipt this afternoon! The reason I had not found it was that Mary bought it for me so it wasn't in my history of purchases and it was, for some long forgotten reason, tacked to up on the garage wall. Who can say? And, Mary's car has had a slow leak in the left rear tire. This is the third weekend that I was going to fill it when I decided to simply take it to my regular tire shop to have them fix it. When I picked it up, no charge! I bought the tires there and much to my surprised, all tire maintenance is free!

MaryR gave me a ride back to the tire shop today so I could pick up the car. I told her about all the good stuff that seems to be happening. I said with all this positive luck, I should head to a casino and place a bet or two. She suggested I buy a lottery ticket at 7-11. I did--I don't know the answer yet!

Mary's appetite is good, she is eating well and expanding her menu interests. She also said I need to prepare the week's supply of oatmeal cereal and I need to bake some muffins for the week. Excuuusssseeee me! You want me to bake something! You have got to be kidding!

Again I want to thank Ingrid and MaryR for visiting during lunchtime this week. MaryR commented that it was so good to see the difference from a week ago when the narcotics had Mary on the ropes and unable to do just about anything (recall the remote control problem) to this Friday when she was up and in the kitchen helping with preparations for lunch. Thank you!