Slow Mo

Extreme worry has paralyzed whatever creative neurons might have been lurking in my red head these past few weeks.
But,
           
                             My NYC babe is going to be okay.....she's coming out of the woods.
                                             .................Exhale..........
                   
Meanwhile, in the city of roses, there's pruning, fertilizing, weeding, nurturing, adoring going on in our yard.  We haven't been in this property a whole year yet so there's lots to explore.  Sitting next to the leaded glass multi paned windows in our living room,  I can watch the leaves on the rose bushes emerge slowly in the warm sun, glimmering with their newborn leaves.  Outside, the lilac bushes are ripe with deliciously scented petals that whiff through the large Rhododendrons as we work and swing in our yard, oblivious to quarantine.  It's not until I go inside and read the plethora of news articles do I remember the bullshit going on in this country.

Why is Karma so laid back?  I want to arm Karma and send it out do it's job.  Start on the Florida beaches dear Karma...go, go sprinkle your kismet to those who taunt you....the protesters, in particular...the whitey carrying swastikas, the trumptillian, moronic imbeciles of the shameful republican party.  Bullseye. 

Two shuffles forward, one shuffle back.
Jolynn is at Day Plus 74.  The path is bumpy, laden with stomach issues and nausea and vomiting and lethargic afternoons.  It's not one big happy adventure.  The weekly clinic visits continue to show excellent blood counts but her weight is a yo yo.  Food still doesn't please her no matter how we try to get variety and healthy options, delivered to us by our online neighborhood grocer.  I continue to research the whole bone marrow transplant universe because I need to stay informed, to focus on the big picture, to keep it real.  I found an article on the American Cancer Society that I will post here in case anyone else is as interested in the facts as I am.  The struggle is real.  Documented.  She's on a well worn path, a gravel path that isn't always pleasing with bare feet.  But still we go forward with hope.
                                       What to Expect:
https://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatments-and-side-effects/treatment-types/stem-cell-transplant/transplant-side-effects.html

Jolynn insisted on helping me plant some flowers last week.  She has good days and bad days while she waits for her hair to grow back, ever so slowly.

Moving Slow and it's alright.
       
                                                                Curtis Mayfield
                                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Du9pCalSCU

FREE!!

                                                        CANCER FREE RESULTS!!

Keeping this short so I can return to my beloved yard work, Jolynn has just received news from her doctor that her bone biopsy results show no P53 cells, calling it "really great news!".  

                                                                        WOW!!

The next test will be after her Day Plus 100 bone biopsy and that's a ways off.  Today is Day Plus 59.  On May 9th, right after her 67th birthday, she will be unleashed from many of the drugs that she is taking right now and will be able to roam freely in the world....if the world is letting people roam freely by then.  

This was the test we were waiting for - the green light for 100% cure of cancer!  We are elated! 

Wooooohooooo!  We are celebrating!

So the moping ends here.  The redhead needs help now - Jolynn is back on track to snap out of it and put that tool belt back on! Time to move forward with confidence and seize the day, dammit!



Come On!
                                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWLIgjB9gGw

Is it still April?

Good fucking grief.

It feels like we've been in solitude for six or seven months!

    Oh yeah.  That's because we HAVE been quarantined since people started putting pumpkins and bales of hay on their porches in preparation for Halloween back in the fall of 2019.....decades and decades ago. Jolynn's cancer diagnosis with her low white cells shunned us from society long before it was popular to wear masks and hide out in the house.  I'm not complaining.....just sayin'.  

            I want to frolic at a jazz festival on the river with thousands of people 
                 waiting in line at the same food booth with me, cutting in line, 
                           dancing in line, coughing freely into the air! 
         
I know, I took it one step too far.  But the sentiment bears acknowledgement, no?  

His disappointment that I wasn't a boy pretty much shadowed my young life.  My parents had five girls before they suddenly had 2 boys.  The same doctor delivered each of the daughters and my dad told the story of his somewhat humorous yet also very sincere response to the doctor to "take her back and bring me a boy".  Parents could get away with that kind of joking around back in the sixties. Today, they would be scorned and stoned on Facebook before they could even get to the hospital parking lot.  So I reluctantly had to learn things I really didn't want to know about when I was growing up as the oldest of 7 hooligans in a bizarre family. That's a whole blog onto itself.  I learned to drive a tractor when I was 3 and I could change cloth diapers with real sharp pins when I was 5 because I had to pitch in and earn my keep.  Approaching learner's permit age, I was given lots of leeway to practice driving - that's the good news.  The bad news is that I had to drive my dad's big truck with a huge truckbed and a stick shift.  I earned a driver's license the hard way but I wouldn't have it any other way.  I remember my dad telling me "When you're driving, always assume the other drivers are assholes" and I took him at his word.  That's why I'm a damned good driver to this day.  

We had to sneak out out of our home in Portland this morning to drive an hour for a few urgent errands.  They were URGENT, don't yell at me.  I drove my car, Jolynn drove her truck.  It was blissful.  As I was driving on the back roads and on the highways to the countryside, I remembered my dad's words and I was thinking that I had to assume not only that people were assholes, but also that they had the CoVid 19 virus. It was nerve wracking...all of those infected assholes driving around me, out to get me. 

I wonder if they were all thinking the same thing about me.

Aside from urgent errands (yes, urgent!) in town, we also had to go to our farm house that will be going on the market one day soon.  We ate our packed lunch on the porch with the pups and the rain.  Quite lovely.  I was thinking about my grandma.  Thirty five years ago I visited her at her trailer not too far from Pittsburgh.  She had a home when I was little but she had moved into a trailer at some point while I was off being a teenager.  Her place was always filled with plants.  This one day, before my daughter was born, she took me inside her cramped kitchen and gave me a tiny little tree in a pot.  The tree was the size of a palm, the palm of a hand.  Go ahead, look at your hand to see how short that tree was on that summer day.  Against all odds, with all of my odd moves, I was able to keep that little tree alive.  It now sits in the carport at the farm house.  It is sheltered because is is a sensitive tree so I have to water it regularly.  

Yes, that's my tree.  See how beautiful she is, growing in the carport!

Like I said, our errands were urgent.  We didn't touch anyone.  We didn't breath in anyone's breath.  We didn't stand next to anyone or wipe our noses on anyone.  

We are safe.  No accidents.  No germs.  No dancing in lines.  No dancing in the streets. 😊

Yet.


                                      Martha and the Vandellas!

                       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdvITn5cAVc