Rounding Third and Heading for Home!

Gosh, my posts have dwindled to one a month and this one's overdue.

On the breaking-news front:

• I am in the midst of my 11th chemo treatment. After this, only one more to go, hence the headline.

•  Just returned last night from a 9-day trip to my old stomping grounds, Ohio. (Guess the headline could apply to this too.) It was great to see my sister, who lives there, and my brother who flew up from Atlanta. We managed to work in visits with a couple remaining aunts and a cousin whose sense of humor and sarcasm kept us in stitches. Makes me wish I lived closer to "family." Of course, the 90+ percent humidity toward the end of the trip did dampen that urge.

• Got to see three of Nate's baseball games. He has played great at first and outfield this summer. His Uncle Ray is still bragging about a throw Nate made from deep left-field to home plate for an out. (Most such throws are to a "cut off" man, usually the third baseman or the shortstop, but Nate's got a good throwing arm so he threw a bullet directly to the catcher.) Now he's getting his hitting in order. Wood bats are different. He's been blogging about his summer baseball experience. You can catch up with him at http://natebeingnate.blogspot.com/.

• Amanda flew into Ohio a few days after I did and is still there, enjoying (NOT) the humidity. The bad news is we were only able to take Amanda and Nate's grandma to two games before the assisted living nurses said the humidity wasn't good for her.

Shortly before my visit, one of my ex-sisters-in-law called to say I was welcome to stay at her house while attending Nathan's games. Sharon is a cancer survivor and knows the benefit of having family around during times like this. Sharon and Ray have been hosting Nathan for the last three weeks and have actually enjoyed having him and have offered to keep him through the rest of the season. I think Ray — father of three wonderful daughters and grandpa to two wonderful granddaughters — is enjoying having the testosterone level evened out a bit in his household. Anyway, it was sweet for me (and Amanda) to be included in their household for a few days. And it's nice to know my second family — which I've been a part of for nearly 25 years — isn't divorcing me, too.

I try to listen to all of the Ironmen games, which are broadcast on the Internet. To listen, go to http://www.lcironmenbaseball.com/ and click on "Listen Live" on the right hand side of the page. (Warning: the broadcast goes silent between innings and during pitching changes, so if you don't hear anything, give it a minute or two.) Seeing a few games gave me a chance to connect names to actual players and also to meet a few parents of players. About half of the Ironmen team hails from Ohio and the rest are scattered around the country. Amanda and I were walking out when one set of parents volunteered that the team loves Nate. "He's so positive, so upbeat, so involved with the team. Even when he's not in the lineup, he's supportive of his teammates." Makes a parent proud!

Amanda and I had lunch with my childhood friend Billie and her younger daughter. Billie is one of two school friends with whom I've maintained contact over the years. As lunch was winding down and the girls were taking a powder room break, Billie and I were congratulating each other on having raised such smart, beautiful, level-headed daughters. Guess we did all right! Makes a parent proud!

Who knew that all those years of slaving over jobs, houses, relationships, and life's ups and downs, the one thing that truly matters is your children. When they're good, life is good.

Life is good!

Long time, no blog

Boxes are still running my life. You'd think that four-plus weeks after the move, I'd be unpacked and settled in. Hasn't happened yet. I guess I've got a good excuse. In my usual perfect timing, I came down with a sinus infection five days before the move. Antibiotics knocked it back pretty quickly, but not before the infection wiped me out. That and yet-another round of chemo — this one on the heels of the move — knocked me back into last year. Usually, the Tuesday to Thursday chemo leaves me fatigued through Saturday. This time the whole weekend came and went and I did squat. Just opening a box took enough out of me that I'd either sit for a while or, more likely, take a nap. Even Sparky got tired of napping!

I did finally start to feel better by the following weekend, but then it was time to gear up for another round of chemo. The good news is I now have eight rounds under my belt and only four to go. Boxes will be in my life as long as they need to be.

Things chemo, moving and divorce have taught me:

We lived a very peaceful life in Dove Canyon for nearly 15 years. Maybe too peaceful. It was the kind of neighborhood where you pulled your car into your garage, closed the door and cocooned in your house or back yard, rarely to be seen. If I hadn't been an avid (if sporadic) gardener, I doubt I'd see a neighbor for days. So I've enjoyed rediscovering the sounds of life that occur in my rental townhome. Kids actually play outside. Sirens whiz down Lake Forest Parkway. Even the occasional rumble of my neighbor's home theater sound system doesn't bother me. An added bonus: An ice cream truck cruises the neighborhood like clockwork at 5 p.m. each day. I'd forgotten there were such things. (So far, I've resisted temptation.)

I am ready for chemo to be done. My platelet count is low, so every little bump becomes a major bruise. I know I should be thankful that chemo has gone as smoothly as it has. Aside from the fatigue during chemo weeks, my other big side effect has been thinning hair. How bad is it? Let's just say I keep a lint roller by my bed so I can swipe clean my pillow each morning. I know I should be thankful that I still have hair — however sparse — all over my head. At least it's not like breast cancer chemo which leaves most women temporarily bald. However, it drives me a little crazy that Nate has taken to shaving his head. If he doesn't want that hair, I'd take it! The good news: It takes about a third of the time to blow dry my hair these days.

The other good thing chemo has done is kill my appetite. During one of my early chemo sessions, I panicked when I overheard a woman complaining that she'd gained 10 pounds during chemo. Since I'd dropped 10 pounds during the "divorce" year, and lost 5 more after my colon surgery, I wasn't eager to think about packing the pounds back on. Fortunately, I've lost 20 more. Chemo makes food taste differently — and not in a good way. Things taste bland or metallic; chewing is exhausting; swallowing an effort. Even when something sounds good, halfway through the meal it loses its appeal. Consequently, I don't each much during the chemo weeks. I think my stomach has shrunk, so that even on off-chemo weeks, I fill up pretty quickly. Can't decide if this has been the easiest or hardest 35 pounds I've ever lost! Makes me laugh: My good friend Shari has taken to calling me The Incredible Shrinking Woman.

I worried that the move would make the divorce more "real," and thought that I might sink into a major funk. However, it's been rather peaceful not having to tap dance around a soon-to-be-ex. I think I did my grieving while we were still living under the same roof. I'm still not happy to be divorcing, but I do know I will survive. A favorite quote: I can be changed by what happens to me. I refuse to be reduced by it. —Maya Angelou

Back to my boxes.

Too much stuff

The world did not end on May 21, as predicted by apocalyptic Christian broadcaster Harold Camping. I would have been royally pissed if I did all that packing and moving, only to have the world end the day after my big move. Thankfully, it didn't. (Although, as I look around at these stacks boxes and jumbled rooms, the end of the world does hold a certain allure.)

So, the big moving day has come and gone and I have way too much stuff. Despite what felt like a major purge that included a garage sale, much paper shredding,  many, many, many charitable donations, and a huge storage space, downsizing from a 3400-square foot house into a 1500-square-foot townhome has convinced me that 10 pounts of s--- won't fit in a 5-pound bag. Fortunately, one of our first pieces of mail was from another charity seeking donations. As I unpack, I've already started a pile of things I was crazy to move. The purge continues.

Even after an exhausting day, it was amusing to watch five grown men try to squeeze a 34-inch wide refrigerator through a 30-inch wide doorway. From our view on the patio, Amanda and I could clearly see the fridge wouldn't fit without removing the doors. Still, they persisted, each mover offering what he thought would be the magic maneuver to make it fit. Thirty minutes later, they took the doors off and squeezed the fridge in the house.

This move would not have happened without tremendous help from Amanda and Nathan, who each did yeoman's work, most of it without complaint. Off to a slow start, soon-to-be-ex Mark even came through in the end. My Realtor friend Grace put in countless hours hauling me around over the last year as I struggled to picture myself in a different place. My friend Maggie pitched in with numerous packing and hauling tasks. She even had a great idea for arranging furniture in the new place. Other friends who pitched in included my long-time buddy Shari, my bookstore partner Denise, my (long-ago) walking buddy Martha and her husband Bill. Amanda's friend Ashley and Nathan's friend Alex also came to my aid. Even the friends who didn't physically pitch in gave much needed moral support along the way. Nothing like a life crisis (or two) to help you figure out who your friends are. Thank you every one!!!

Back to boxes ...

Moving on, literally and figuratively

My house looks like it's been ransacked, but packing does that to you. The sale of our house of nearly 14 years is proceeding smoothly with closing scheduled for May 20. (We'll have 3 days after that to vacate the premises.) Amanda and I spent lots of time looking at rental options on realtor.com and, with the help of my Realtor friend Grace, we settled on a townhouse in Lake Forest, about 20 minutes from here. Now that we have a new place lined up, everything else seems so much more real.

The owner has been nice enough to allow us patio access before the lease even starts, so we've made several trips over with my multitude of potted plants, plant stands and assorted tables and chairs. After decades of gardening in yards where the work is never done, I'm looking forward to "container" gardening where I might actually get everything looking good and be able to relax and enjoy the outdoor space without thinking: "There's another flower bed that needs weeding or planting."

Nathan's home for three weeks, so I have some muscle at my disposal. Typical Nathan, he called me Thursday afternoon on his way to the airport in Longview, Texas. He was 15 minutes away for a flight that was leaving in 20 minutes. Arrrrrgh. Actually, the Longview airport is so small that he had a slight chance of still making the flight. But, alas, the doors to the plane were closed so he had to bunk in with a friend and fly out Friday. It's good to have him home and if he ever stands still long enough, I want to measure his height. I swear he's taller than 6-foot-3.

Nathan was one of my concerns in rental house hunting. He'll hardly be in California for the coming year (summer in Ohio playing in a wood-bat league and then his final year of college in Texas). Amanda and I could have made due with a two-bedroom, but I wanted him to have "a space to call home." The townhouse has four bedrooms (tiny, tiny, tiny), so even Sparky gets a room!

Mark is "too busy" to find a place, so he's opting to live in a hotel for the coming year. With rents so high in California and his company's corporate discount at this hotel, it makes sense financially. Personally, I think it's strange, but I keep reminding myself I don't (pick your verb) get to / have to / need to manage his life anymore.

Chemo looms tomorrow — my sixth of 12 treatments — so the rest of the week will be wiped out. Hopefully by the weekend when the lease starts, I'll rally and be able to make a few trips over with lamps, pictures and other assorted stuff that's too hard to pack up for movers to handle. I've got some friends lined up to make some car trips and once my "stuff" starts to occupy my new space, a new page will be turned in my life.

One wrinkle: A few weeks ago, I rolled over to sleep on my stomach and felt a lumpy thing in my abdomen. Lumpy things are scary when you already have cancer. I mentioned it to my oncologist, who felt it and decided to order an ultrasound. (The ultrasound experience may be a blog entry of its own titled: "What's wrong with medicine today.") Anyway, best thinking is it's a seroma, which is "a pocket of clear serous fluid that sometimes develops in the body after surgery. When small blood vessels are ruptured, blood plasma can seep out; inflammation caused by dying injured cells also contributes to the fluid." (Thank you, Wikipedia.) This apparently has been developing since my January colon resection surgery. In the short term, it means a trip to my surgeon, Dr. Shaver, for a look-see on Thursday. In the long term, it could mean needle aspiration of the fluid or surgery to place a drain in my gut. Neither one sounds like fun, but at least no one is thinking it's a new tumor. Just one more hurdle on my road back to health.

Progress on the home front

Finally have some solid news to report on the house-for-sale front. We are 'in escrow" ... as in, someone made an offer, we accepted and now we're working on things like termite and home inspections. Sadly, or ironically, this offer is lower than one we received before the home went into the multiple listing service last October. Our realtor and a couple agents showed the house a few times while we were finishing our "spruce up" tweaks. We had a verbal offer that was $25K higher than where we ended up, but considerably lower than what we were asking. We turned it down, thinking "Geez, we're getting offers and the house isn't even listed yet." Fools, we. We also had a low-ball offer — more of an insult — on Christmas Eve, which we rejected. It's not the greatest offer, but it is time to move on with my life.

I have another chemo under my belt — my fourth, making me one third of the way done. This week's chemo went as quickly the previous one, so it looks like my port fix is permanent. The bad news is the chemo weeks wipe me out. It's incredible that I can awake from a night's sleep, be somewhat active for an hour or two, and then need a nap. This is going to complicate packing! Thankfully, some very dear friends have offered to help — and I'll be taking them up on it.

Baby Girl got a new car this week — a Honda Insight (hybrid)! They are rare and hard to come by because they are built in Japan and we all know what's happening there recently. Our local dealer got one in with a navigation system and bluetooth, which Amanda wanted. She test drove it on a Friday. After Tuesday's chemo, we took a couple written offers from other dealers (out of our area), but the local dealer wouldn't budge on pricing. Looked like we were going to have to make a drive to Temecula to get her the car. Surprise, the next morning our local dealer called was willing to negotiate. We met nearly in the middle, so it was worth it to "shop local" and get the purchase made without having to drive all over SoCal.

Today we took a load of Christmas stuff — we have ALOT of Christmas stuff — and stored it temporarily in Mark's boss's unused second floor office space. Mark's boss, a former neighbor of ours, is allowing us to use the space to store the stuff we don't need to deal with immediately, which should make divvying up the household and moving into two places somewhat easier. We'll be storing other stuff there that we can't sort quickly, as well as stuff we probably will try to sell once we get settled in new places. Going from a 3500-square foot five-bedroom house with a loft into two condos or apartments isn't going to be easy.

Had some sad news this week. Fred Turner, the sports editor of the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, passed away on Monday. Fred was the one who hired Mark in Fort Lauderdale, where I had been working for five years. Because Mark and I happened to be from NE Ohio, we hit it off and the rest, as they say, is history. Even though Mark and I won't be riding off into the sunset together, we did manage to create and raise two wonderful kids during our 22+ year marriage. Without Fred, I wouldn't have the two best things in my life. So, thanks friend. Rest in peace.

So much for an "off week"

This was supposed to be my good week, the week between chemo treatments when cancer moved to the back burner and I felt human again. I did feel human, but cancer still had a starring role.

On Monday, I had to go in for a dye test to see what was happening with my recalcitrant chemo port. The port disc is the size of a quarter and sits below the skin in my upper left chest. A tube running off to the side of the disc is supposed to feed directly into large vein. In my case, the tube makes a complete loop around the port, before feeding into the vein. This is probably what's making the chemo treatments so sluggish and time consuming.

"Never seen that before," said Dr. K, who did the dye test. From there, it was a series of phone calls to convey the test results and schedule to surgery to fix the port. So, Monday I'll be going under the knife again to, most likely, get a new port. Because chemo's supposed to start the next day, the surgeon will place the chemo needle during surgery so it's in place for Tuesday's third round of chemo.

Not a major complication, by any means, but enough aggravation to be depressing. How depressing? I spent 45 minutes wandering a department store's super sale with a 30 percent off coupon in my pocket and couldn't find a thing to buy. That's just not like me.

Nothing's ever easy!

My chemo port is misbehaving. Today, it would give no blood (so I had to have a stick in the arm), and unless I was flat on my back, the chemo drip slowed to a random drop every few seconds. Normally, being told to lie down would be music to my ears. However, even good things like recliners have their limits and two hours flat on my back is mine.

Phyllis pointed out that a gentleman who was getting the exact same chemo as me started a half hour after I did and finished  a half hour ago. I still have 800 ml to go, plus another smaller bag of something else after that. I've already been here four hours!

So the next adventure in my treatment will be next week (my "off" week) to get some dye injected into the port so that any problems in my line will be visible. Phyllis says I may need a new chemo port, which probably means another surgery. But if it speeds things along, it will be worth it.