Monday, June 20, 2016

Friday, June 17, through Friday, June 24, 2016: Nearing My Birthday:


Friday morning I got another pedicure from Corey.  I know having someone do a pedicure on a man is iffy ("metrosexual" is the appropriate term, I believe) but if I cut my own toenails the result is pretty bad. 


That night, Becky surprised me by suggesting pizza for dinner.  I had been drooling every time I drove by the Pizza Factory in town for the past few weeks, but had been afraid to suggest getting one because of pizza’s deleterious effect on anyone’s diet.  Not surprisingly, I agreed to her suggestion.  Thank you, Becky.


After dinner, we watched State Of Play from Netflix.   It was a pretty good Washington corruption movie about seven years old, starring Ben Affleck, who is perhaps the worst actor on the planet, along with Russell Crowe, Rachel McAdams, and a few other notables.


Saturday, Becky made red bandannas for the dogs and herself, in anticipation of July 4 and other holidays, and that night we watched a few more episodes of Fargo, thus ending the second season.
Sunday was Fathers’ Day, of course, and I received nice phone calls from Donna and Rick.  Becky and I hopped into the hot tub right after breakfast.  (Becky forgot her bathing suit, that little vixen.)  It happened to be a warm, beautiful day, with amazing cloud formations.


Otherwise, I relaxed as expected.  Before dinner, we watched two redbox movies---Hello, My Name Is Doris, which was clearly the dumbest movie ever made, and A Royal Night Out, which was pretty entertaining.  Later, I watched the exciting game 7 of the NBA Finals between the Warriors and Cavaliers.  Congratulations, Cavs!


Monday was the first day of summer, of course, and the day started out warm and beautiful.  The next few days are expected to be very hot (115+ in Phoenix, for example) but, being in Northern Arizona, we will have much lower temperatures.


My new notebook computer is finally working.  The first computer would not even boot up, and then the battery in the replacement would not recharge.  The company now sent us a new AC replacement cord (which arrived on Monday) on the theory that the problem was with the cord not the battery, and apparently the diagnosis was correct since the battery is now recharging.  Yea!  Becky spent most of Tuesday getting my new computer set up---adding programs and such.  I watched, since I am a novice at that sort of thing.

 
On Wednesday, Becky went to Flagstaff for a facial and to do some shopping.  I stayed back and entertained the dogs---mostly by napping and doing crossword puzzles.

Thursday turned out to be quite interesting.  I haven't said anything about it here since it was very confusing, but for the past month or so I have not been feeling very well.  I have had no energy and have run out of breath after just the slightest exertion.  I attributed it to a side effect of the cancer medicine I started in late March.  I knew the medicine was working well against the cancer but thought it was not doing so well in the side effects department.  And it was getting worse.  Becky thought I was very pale much of the time.  Thursday morning I saw Dr. Mathern for a regularly-scheduled follow-up appointment and told him I was getting concerned. 


He checked my blood work results, waved his magic wand, and pronounced that I was anemic enough to require a blood transfusion(!) and to start taking doses of iron and steroid supplements.  It turned out that the hospital was so busy that day that the transfusion could not take place until Friday.  We spent the rest of Thursday contemplating what all of that implied.  A few adult beverages helped.

I hung around the house on Friday, waiting for the hospital to call with the news that a room was available for my transfusion.  We had arranged to leave the dogs at the GC Railway Kennel for the day, but weren't going to drop them off until we were sure of the timing.  I finally got the call that a room would be available at 1:00 PM, and that the procedure would take at least 4-5 hours.


We decided that was too indefinite in the case of the dogs, so Becky stayed back and I drove to Flagstaff by myself.  I  had long thought a "transfusion" involved replacing all of your blood; I was wrong.  It turned out that the procedure (pumping just two additional pints of blood into me) was boring and painless but time-consuming, and I did not leave the hospital until 8:30 Friday night, so it was wise that I went alone. And I was able to make significant progress through The Secret Servant, a Daniel Silva novel I just started.  I slept well Friday night.     
 

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