Terminating the Science Experiments

As Mary was in her half hour waiting period after taking her weekly dose of osteoporosis medicine, she joined me in the kitchen to terminate the ongoing science experiments.

Reenie often made meals with a little extra so Mary could use the extra for lunch. Well, those lunches should have happened some time ago! Some of them had definitely developed the patina of far too much time having passed. We also found items in the fridge that Tim and Lara bought when visiting for Easter. We found other interesting items--cheese, fruits and veggies that had all long exceeded their 'eat by' dates. The champion, however, was the goo that Mary made before her first symptoms appeared in March. The goo? We are not sure what it started as but it certainly deserved to be terminated!

This all sounds worse that it really was. These things were overlooked was because we've had several cooks in the kitchen (including me!) and we all keep adding to the inventory and no one did a systematic clean out of the odds and ends in the nooks and crannies. Its done now so we are good.

Mary stretched the pain killer interval yesterday and ended up at 25% instead of the 33% we had planned on. Hopefully, she can be under 20% today. She is doing this by extending the intervals and by splitting the pills so she is taking fractions of a dose. Even at this very low level, her system is reacting. Our girl is sensitive to drugs--that we have proven multiple times.

I return to work tomorrow and Mary will be on her own for the day. She has asked that I acquire fixing's for lunch tomorrow and Gourmet Dreams will deliver some meals for the first part of the week and they'll be great, as always. My employer is on shutdown a week later (June 29) so I'll be home again same as this last week.

We hope to hear from Dr. Chang this week. He indicated that he would be working on the radiation dose quantities, fitting Mary into the schedule for the available treatment equipment and making sure our insurance coverage was squared away. Perhaps we are optimistic that all of that can be done this week. He did say he wanted to start in two to three weeks so that would be either July 6 or 13.

Until then, we simply need to work on Mary eating, walking and getting stronger. Once we know the radiation daily schedule, we need to arrange transportation to Stanford. Marge has volunteered to help a bit, Ingrid did too after she is back from her vacation, and I am sure I can do a few runs myself working around my work calendar. It all depends on the equipment scheduling. We don't know what time of day it will be, if it is the same time of day each day or if it varies day by day. Mary may be driving by then, but we don't think she should drive after the treatment starts.

We have an invite to Lillian and Bill's BBQ this afternoon. We're hoping Mary is feeling up to it for it will be good to join the festivities.