Joy is in the simple things

Tonight, as I was driving home, Mary and I talked about dinner. She had decided on dinner as a baked sweet potato, chicken and a green salad. My commute time is about 30 minutes and it was a touch longer tonight because I had to stop and get dog food for Shauna. And yes, we have bluetooth in all our cars so we can talk hands free and comply with California law.

A call--Mary reports the chicken is badly freezer burnt and probably will prove to be inedible. After picking up the dog food, head to the grocery store to pick up a cooked chicken. And while there, throw together a salad at the salad bar for dinner as well, Mary requests.

When I get home, she asks if we can go for a walk before dinner. I agree but mention that the sweet potato ought to go into the oven. Mary reported it was already in the oven. That is the first of the simple things--its the first thing she has cooked since May 10th!

I change and we go for a walk. That is another simple joy. Mary was full of enough energy to walk before dinner. A great feeling.

When we return, I set about the task of feeding the dogs and that involves putting the new supply of dog food into the storage container plus the protocol of doggy meals in our house. When that is all done, I walk into the kitchen and see that Mary has set the table, has tossed and dressed the salad and was carving the bird! What a joy! Mary fully engaged in preparing the meal was absolutely wonderful!

She exhibited a healthy appetite and ate without any difficulty. That just tickled me to see her being so normal.

And the kicker? I cleared the table and then put our garbage bins at the curb which took a few minutes as I had to cut down several large cardboard boxes. When I came back into the house to put the dishes into the dishwasher--it was done! Mary had rinsed and loaded the dishwasher.

It is absolutely amazing how much joy one can find in the simple things. This is so far from where she was one week ago, it is nearly mind blowing to see the progress. Oh, she did express one complaint...the kitchen utensils had not always been put away in the proper drawer. Let see, we've had how many cooks in that kitchen since March? What is the expression? Oh yeah, "get over it!"

As for medical issues, there are none to speak of. We haven't heard a peep from Stanford so we hope that means the CT biphasic scan has not detected any inter-peritoneal disseminated cancer sites.

That's all for now.