80% and counting

Mary said last night that she feels like she is at 80% of normal now. That is very good! And, it also is one of the checkpoints the Oncologist wanted before starting the chemo next week. We don't know how Gemzar will affect Mary. Each patient is different so all we can do is get started and observe the impact. Given Mary starts on Oct 12 as planned, and that she does three weeks on and one week off, the earliest she would finish is just before Christmas. But, they warned us to NOT make any plans based on a fast sequence. Each week of chemo, Mary has to take and pass a blood test before the injection. If her red count, white count and platelets are below requirements, the chemo is skipped for that week and continues the next week. Also, they said they'd accommodate holidays so that could add some weeks too. We are thinking mid to late January to wrap up the 9 injections. And, finally, they may find the impact of three weeks in a row too much so they'd switch to two weeks of injection and then skip a week.

In other words, ultimate flexibility.

As for the routine stuff, Mary is doing great. Sunday was Farmers' Market and Mary managed to buy some late season corn. We had near 100 degrees the prior weekend, if you recall, so some of the local fruits and veggies had a wonderful end of season spurt. We also bought fresh wild caught Alaskan salmon and locally caught black cod and they became Sunday and Monday dinner along with the corn on the cob and fresh veggies.

Mary went to lunch at Santana Row with Marge on Monday. That was her first meal out without me around and she did very well Mary reported. And, she drover herself as well. For my readers who don't know Silicon Valley, Santana Row is basically an outdoor mall located across the street from our large indoor mall anchored by Nordstroms and Macy's. The difference is that the Row has good restaurants (no food court) and more high end shops--Burberry, Gucci, Ferragamo and even Orvis have shops in the Row.

In addition to her luncheon outing, Mary did the laundry and managed to put it all away--except the king size sheets but think about that for someone her size. We made dinner together and afterwards, she announced she wanted a cookie. So, off to Lunardi's at 8PM to acquire the proper dessert.

And, yes, that means we walked away from the Vikings-Packers game but no fear, we have TiVo! Football goes so much faster when you can speed through 'between the plays time' and the ads. If Farve can stay healthy, the Vikings may have a good shot at it this year--finally! And, actually, we started TiVo recording when we began preparing dinner because we really don't like the TV to control us, we love our TiVo because we control TV.

Mary is currently dabbling on Facebook. If you don't have an account, you'll have to sign up (its free) and click here for her home page. She just posted that she will attend her Book Club tonight for the first time since March. Yippee!!

While Mary is at book club, I will be watching the next event in the dome in Minnesota. Last night in the dome was Vikings-Packers and tonight is Twins-Tigers for the AL Central Championship. They played 162 games and ended in a dead heat so they decide the outcome of the 162 games by playing one game. Everything else in baseball is best-of-three or best-of-five or best-of-seven but not this one. And besides, if its down to one game, why not skip the 162 games in the first place? Anyway, last year was the same situation only it was the Twins and White Sox playing in Chicago. The Twins lost. This year will be better!