Friday, February 26, through Thursday, March 3, 2016: Another Week In Paradise:

Earlier in the week, we heard from Lucky Dog Rescue that they had another candidate for us---Gypsy (whose name will certainly be changed if we take her; we're currently thinking "Lindsey") will be brought to us on Saturday for the usual introduction.  Also on Saturday, Jim Winbourn will come to install ice dam preventive wiring in two places around our eaves.  On Friday, Becky got a call from Lucky Dog Rescue that due to logistical problems they will not be able to drop off Gypsy until a week from Sunday.  That news freed up Becky to drive to Los Angeles to attend Chris Buckelew's funeral on Saturday.   

I'm not yet ready for prime time due to my surgery, etc., so I'll stay home.  She packed her bag and hit the sack early Friday evening.  At 5:10 Saturday morning, she and the dogs hit the road.  It was apparently a well-attended and beautiful service at St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Westwood.

I spent part of Saturday "helping" Jim Winbourn with his project.  He didn't quite finish it, so he'll return on Sunday.  After using up the mussels we bought at Trader Joe's to make my dinner I spent a quiet evening Saturday night reading (I finished Beach Road).  Jim returned on Sunday and finished the job. 

Afterward, I puttered around, readying the house for the return of Becky and the dogs.  They arrived home after their 909-mile round trip just a few minutes before the start of the Oscar telecast.  I had already watched a few minutes of the red carpet introduction and found it extremely boring.  The Oscar host, Chris Rock, who can be pretty funny, was suitably nasty in his racial commentary about the all-white nominations this year, but he was not very funny.  Too bad.  It made the too-long (3 ½ hours) show rather tedious.

Monday was a return to normalcy.  I started reading Step On A Crack, another James Patterson crime novel.  This will be my last Patterson book for a while; I need to read a different writer for a change.

Tuesday involved a trip to Flagstaff to pick up a prescription for Becky.  Naturally, we stopped at Oregano’s to pick up a Pablo Picasso Mexican Salad for dinner.  Yum.  Since we had no desire to watch the non-stop election coverage on TV Tuesday night, we instead watched three hours of House Of Cards.  As usual, it was nasty and fun.

Wednesday morning, Becky took Ramsey to the vet early so they could put him “out” for a procedure on his rear end that everyone knew he would not like.  They found an infection as well, which they treated.  Just after they returned from the vet, I finished Step On A Crack.

I immediately started reading The Story Of My Life, an autobiography by Clarence Darrow. 

The book, published in 1932, was given to me by Virginia Martindale, a former client of mine when she was cleaning out her personal library several years ago.  I've ignored it all this time but decided it was time to attack it.  I discovered it was signed by Mr. Darrow!  So far it is quite interesting how deprived he was in his early life, and how it seems to have influenced his attitude about the world in general and, specifically, his political beliefs.   His mother died when he was 15 and his father never figured out how to make enough money for his family to do more than just survive. 

Thursday was just another day, except that the Lucky Dog Rescue people called to say they had determined that Gypsy was temperamentally suited to be the only dog in a family, since she was not at all friendly to other dogs, and they would not be bringing her to our home after all.  That was disappointing, but we certainly understood.     

 

Friday, February 19, through Thursday, February 25, 2016: An Important Medical Week:

We started out this week with a trip to Tempe---next-door to Phoenix and the home of Arizona State University.  I was last there on January 2, 2004, when Bill Wheeler and I attended the Fiesta Bowl Game between Ohio State and Kansas State.  (Ohio State won 35-28; I rooted for Kansas State, of course, since I loathe Ohio State.  The tickets were a gift from Gwen Pike, a former client of mine whose son was then married to Nicole Bidwill, the daughter of the owner of the Arizona Cardinals who played at the ASU stadium.)  The four of us went to Tempe to "interview" Libby, a Dalmatian available for adoption at Lucky Dog Rescue there.

Becky obviously doesn't think two Dalmatians are enough.  Libby was a beautiful 5 or 6 year old, about Ramsey's size though a few pounds lighter, and a bit hyperactive.  Lisa, the adoption coordinator, thought Libby was a little too dominant for our dogs, with which we agreed, and we went home empty-handed.  It was a fruitless 384 mile round trip, but I'm somehow sure they will find us another candidate and we will return to Tempe soon.

Late in the afternoon, I learned that none of my credit cards was working because the information in the strip on the reverse side of all of them had been erased.  It took only a few minutes to realize that happened when I had the MRI on Tuesday.  My wallet was in my pants, which I was allowed to wear during the procedure, and the magnetic field of the machine erased everything nearby.  I called all the card issuers and ordered replacement cards.  Until they arrive, I'll be without any means to buy anything.  That was OK with Becky, but she relented and gave me one of hers.

Saturday, we arranged for our ice dam-prevention wiring to be replaced in the front and side of our house.  Even though it's been in the high 50s for the last week, we expect there to be a lot of snow in March.  Jim Winbourn, our new best friend who set up our outside big tree lighting for Christmas, seems to know a lot about these things and we're counting on him to take care of the setup.

I made dinner on Saturday from Mussels we got at Trader Joe's.  Just yummy.  After dinner, we started to watch Newsroom, from Netflix.  It's an Aaron Sorkin series, like The West Wing was.  I happen to think he's a brilliant writer, but, with the exception of A Few Good Men which I loved, his stuff is too liberal, and the dialog is hard to swallow.  It's like L. A. Law was  many years ago.  It completely misrepresented what I believed the legal profession was like.  But, I was never a member of the mainstream legal profession, so I could have missed the point.

I started Sunday morning off with an Ebbert Fizz.   It usually turns an everyday Sunday into something special.  We'll see how this one turns out.  Because the weather has been so nice, it feels like spring has arrived.  Today was no exception.  It compelled Becky to undertake a version of spring cleaning---on the outside of our house.  We (mostly Becky) picked up all of the pine cones that had fallen from our 16 pine trees, and together we (again, mostly Becky) raked up bags and bags of pine needles.  Both the front and back yards are now beautiful again.

Monday morning, Gary Gagna, the owner of Aspen Alarm Systems in Flagstaff, arrived to attack the problems we are having with our alarm system.  A half hour later, everything was fixed.  Yea, Gary!

Monday would have been Bill Shelton 's 90th birthday.  To honor him, we went to the canyon so Becky could place some of his ashes in such a wondrous place. 

 

She also walked the dogs three miles from the Visitor Center to the Bright Angel Lodge while I had a couple of beers and did some reading in the bar there.  The bartender, Ray, turned out to be a 17-year veteran of Xanterra who has worked at the places we did, and others, and we discovered a number of mutual friends.  We had fun walking down memory lane together.

On the way home, we stopped in Tusayan at the Casa Bonita restaurant for some delicious Mexican food.  While there, Becky received an email from our friend Alan Buckelew announcing the untimely and simply awful death of his wife, Chris, from what was apparently a heart attack.  Chris was a hoot, so full of life.  She and Alan just finished building a new home in West Los Angeles and they just started planning the July wedding of their daughter Erin.  What a tragic interruption of their life together.  Chris will be sorely missed.  Processing the news made Monday night essentially a blur for us.

Tuesday morning we met with Dr. Kuefler to deal with the next step in my cancer therapy regimen.  The news was great. 

Recent tests determined that my melanoma is a particular mutation that responds to a recently approved pill therapy that actually can result in the cancer cells dying and not returning.  There is an intervening administrative step that, it is hoped, will result in my receiving the first batch of pills by this time next week.  Hooray!  We must celebrate tonight.

Upon arriving to the Northern Arizona Oncology, I checked in and Becky sat next to me.  She suddenly recognized two people who were sitting next to us.  Joe Hap was an usher in Becky's wedding to Bill Madden in 1975(!), and Stephanie was Joe's date for the wedding.  They got married 8 months later.  Becky ran into Joe in downtown Los Angeles some years ago, but hadn't seen Stephanie since the wedding---more than 40 years ago.  The Haps now live in Williamson Valley, near Prescott, Arizona, where they have acreage and horses.  Joe is a patient of Dr. Kuefler's.  How's that for a coincidence?

After leaving Dr. Kuefler's office, I got a haircut---my first since December 8.  The barber had no problem working around the surgery.  And she was able to overcome the effects of Becky's attempt at barbering last week.

Then we saw Dr. Boettcher to assess the healing progress of the December surgery.  With a tiny exception, the progress is satisfactory, and I can stop bandaging the "wound."  The exception is a tiny spot where the wound seems to have stopped "closing."  We'll watch it for a while; if it doesn't close any more, there is a procedure available to help.

We had champagne with our dinner to celebrate the wonderful day we just had.

Wednesday, I finished Things That Matter.  It's not a book you race through to find out whodunit.  Charles Krauthammer is such a brilliant thinker and such a terrific writer, you savor each word. 

I then started Beach Road, another James Patterson crime novel.  This is one you can race through, which I mostly did on Thursday, which was otherwise a routine day.

Friday, February 12, through Thursday, February 18, 2016: Nice Weather:

Friday was a nice warm day (60 degrees) and we enjoyed watching the snow melt away.  We also relaxed from our whirlwind visit from Peter and Terry Shelton.  Becky went to Flagstaff for a haircut and to do some shopping.  The dogs barely moved the whole time she was gone.  I located a company (Aspen Alarm Systems) to fix the two problems we are having with our alarm.  It turned out I gave them some bad information about what was wrong.  I need to call them to correct the situation.  Our friend Barbara Coad was due to arrive Saturday morning by train for a three-day visit.  She called Becky in the early afternoon on Friday to say she had a horrific cold and would have to reschedule (for May) as the result.  We were very disappointed.  I had already set the table for the three of us.  (I later checked the "train status" on the Amtrak website and determined that both the eastbound train from Los Angeles---which is usually on time---and the westbound train from Chicago---which is often as much as three or four hours late---were essentially on time for both of what would have been Barbara's trips.)  We decided to go to Winslow (90 miles away) to have lunch at the historic La Posada Hotel as a consolation.  We were last there in 2009.  It's a classic Mary Jane Colter design.   

I ordered a delicious French Dip sandwich with a glass of Sangria.  Becky had a honey barbeque Mexican dish with chicken and green corn tamales.  It was a fun early Valentine's Day meal.

For dinner Saturday night, Becky had what was left of her lunch and I had one of my Trader Joe's Thai dishes.  To avoid watching the Republican debate, we watched two hours of the Fargo TV show from Netflix.  Weird (It's the Coen Brothers, after all) but very entertaining.  Sunday night we watched the first three episodes of last year's True Detective.  It's a little too slow for me, but I'm sure we'll watch more.

Before we left Winslow on Saturday, we stopped at a barber shop to get a haircut.  It had been two months since my last one and I was getting a little shaggy---where I still had hair.  When she saw that the site of the most recent surgery was not yet completely healed, the barber backed away, saying she was concerned about causing an infection.  I thought her concern was a bit overblown, but I couldn't talk her out of it.  Instead, on Sunday, Becky took over the job---using scissors and my electric razor.  I'll let someone else assess the result.

We had reservations at The Red Raven for Valentine's Day dinner, but changed our minds and decided to celebrate at home with filet mignons, baked potatoes, and a very nice 2012 bottle of Justin Isoseles.

I woke up on Monday with a stiff and sore neck.  I attributed it to simply sleeping at a funny angle.  It didn't improve, and by Tuesday I was in serious pain.  Because of its location, we thought it might signal another attack of melanoma.  With the blessing of Dr. Kuefler, we headed for the Emergency Room at the Flagstaff Medical Center to see if they would do a scan of some sort.  I was already scheduled for a brain scan (MRI) there on Friday, but this would be a little better---just as a matter of timing.  We arrived at noon, and were taken rather quickly. 

That was the last thing that was quick.  They took some blood, and a couple of hours later did a CT scan of my neck.  They promised to do an MRI of my skull and neck shortly.  It turned out that didn't start until 11:30.  We finally left the hospital at 2:45 Wednesday morning!  We (including the dogs) spent the night at the La Quinta Inn.  Becky had earlier taken the room and relaxed there while waiting for me to be dealt with.  She bought some food for us since we hadn't eaten since 10:00 in the morning.  We finally hit the sack at 4:00AM and slept four hours before heading home.

It was a very long day.  The medical report was that the neck pain was due to...(wait for it)...a sprain and there was no evidence of any melanoma that we hadn't already known about.  It should heal over the next few days.  They gave me a prescription for some pain medicine, in case I was a wuss.

The rest of Wednesday was a blur, mostly napping (Becky went to the local clinic to see Dr. Gibula to follow up on some previous blood work) and, of course, making sure the dogs were OK.   Thursday's highlight was watching The Martian, from Netflix.  I'm not a fan of this kind of movie, so I sort of ignored it, while Becky seemed to enjoy it a lot.  Most of this week the high temperature was in the 50s, and it was nice.  A lot of the pretty snow has melted.

 

Friday, February 5, through Thursday, February 11, 2016: A Big Week:

Friday and Saturday were quiet days of recuperation from our hectic Tucson trip.  We did a little cleanup of some patches of snow, tidied up around the house, played with Ramsey and Kelsey, and prepared for the Super Bowl on Sunday.  For no good reason that's a big deal for me.  This year it is especially so because the Broncos are in it.



The highlight on Sunday was, of course, the Broncos big upset victory over the favored Panthers.  While I naturally rooted for the Broncos, I had the feeling all along that Cam Newton would have a spectacular game and Peyton Manning would have only a so-so game, and the Panthers would trounce the Broncos.  I was right about Manning but wrong about Newton.  The Broncos defense just smothered him, and he was completely ineffective.  Yea, Broncos!



Monday morning we finally got the results of last Wednesday's biopsy.  The bump on my neck was malignant, as we had frankly suspected.  That means we need to quickly start an immunotherapy regimen, which apparently can be done by Dr. Mathern's office in Flagstaff---meaning we do not need to be involved with Tucson any further.  In an odd way, that's a relief, notwithstanding that it means my cancer is active. I placed a call to Dr. Mathern's office to get on his schedule.  It turns out that he is in Europe for the entire month, but he has associates who can take care of the situation while he is away.  Late Monday, I heard from my contact, an administrator in Dr. Mathern's office, that it wasn't quite that simple, and he would get back to me.  It was hard to sleep Monday night.

Tuesday we had appointments in Flagstaff with our medical team anyway, so we waited to attack the situation.  First, we met with Dr. Cohen, my new cardiologist, who announced that my echocardiogram last Friday was normal, and that all was well with my heart---except for an occasional bit of atrial fibrillation, which he said was no big deal as long as I took my blood thinner regularly.  That was great news.

Our next meeting was with Dr. Boettcher who announced that my recovery from the December surgery had progressed to the point that we no longer had to apply the magic solution to the surgery site, and I no longer had to wear a hat 24/7 as the result.  Yippee!  We discussed with him the frustration we were having over the progress with Dr. Mathern's office regarding the next step in combating the active cancer.  He explained that medicine was practiced by doctors, and not by assistants and administrators, and he immediately called Dr. Mathern's office and was told we could see Dr. Mathern's partner as soon as we could get there to plan the next steps.  We saw Dr. Kuefler a few minutes later, who gave us a thorough explanation of the next steps, and scheduled all of them.

While this whole process for the last nine months has been a complicated dance involving doctors, labs, and assorted others, I must admit that the communication and cooperation among all the people involved has been amazing.  I mentioned that to Dr. Boettcher, who said it is due in large part to the fact that Flagstaff is a relatively small town and every practitioner involved knows each other.  We celebrated with another wonderful Pablo Picasso Mexican Salad from Oregano's that we picked up before returning home.  Tuesday was a good day, all things considered.

Wednesday we prepared for the imminent visit of Becky's brother Peter and his wife, Terry.  They drove up from San Gabriel that day, arriving at 2:30 in the afternoon.  We immediately had lunch (Gazpacho, which Becky had made on Tuesday) and started catching up.  We hadn't seen them for several months and had a lot to talk about. 

After lunch, the three of them went for a long walk with the dogs while I puttered around.  By the time they got back it was time for pre-dinner cocktails and snacks (hummus and veggies).  Then dinner and more conversation.  Thursday morning involved breakfast, another long dog-walk, then all four of us went to Bearizona for a visit.  We were almost alone there, so we had plenty of opportunity to commune with the animals.  It's always fun to go there; it's a nice asset to Williams. 

We then had lunch at the Red Raven, our favorite, and it was suddenly time for Peter and Terry to head home.  They were here only 24 hours, but it was a wonderful time.  They are very nice people.  Just after lunch, the Buffalo Fence people showed up to finish the job they started a couple of weeks ago.

Thursday night we collapsed.  It's great fun to have guests, but it's tiring.