What another hugely busy month we have had and I have had little chance to catch up! Brian was suppose to have his maintenance chemo on November 6th but that ended up being cancelled as Brian had hurt his hand by accidentally jabbing it with a pick when putting our new patio set together. A few days after hurting himself his hand started to swell and he ended up going to the doctor’s for antibiotics and to make a long story short, he ended up having to go on oral antibiotics twice as the hand swelled up as soon as he finished them, to ultimately going to the Emergency Dept for IV antibiotics which he had to keep returning to the ambulatory care clinic for a week and finally after about a month, it seems to be okay although his hand is still a bit swollen around his knuckles. Finally, Dr. McKeown (Oncologist) agreed for him to have his chemo last week. Unfortunately though because he was delayed in getting it, he had to go through the “slow infusion method” again to make sure he did not develop a reaction to the retuximab, so it was another 6 hour session at the Cancer Clinic. But after that, he has done well once again with his chemo. He felt a little out of sorts for a couple of days and then started to feel much better. His next chemo maintenance will now be February.
I seemed to have a hugely busy month with “girl’s weekends”. The first girl’s weekend was a “family one” with Gwen, Connie Cathy, Christine and I meeting up in Corning New York for a fun weekend together of shopping, going to museums, and out to enjoy some fabulous dinners. Unfortunately Pat was not able to attend this year as she had to work that weekend. We are hoping that next year we can get Breanne and the girls and Jenn out to the family girls’ weekend.
The next weekend after that I got together with my two longest friends (my two bridesmaids!) for a girl’s weekend here in Guelph. Barb and Kim came to see our new condo and we did a full day of shopping in St. Jacob’s, had a very nice lunch there and then in the evening watched a great movie. They stayed overnight and after breakfast headed home. Poor Barb, she took the train from London to Guelph and on Sunday morning I dropped her off at the train station and unfortunately her train was first delayed and then cancelled; so she had a 3 hour wait at the train station for them to organize a bus to take the passengers to their destinations. It was a long day for Barb to say the least!
This past weekend, Breanne and James headed off to Las Vegas to participate in the Rock N Roll half marathon and to have a nice 4 days mini-vacation while Brian and I looked after the girls. We had great fun with the girls, that were really quite good; the biggest issue was the 2 dogs as they are the ones that kept us awake at night as Mavie on the first night wouldn’t settle down and wanted to sleep at the front door and Timmie wanted to keep him company but then someone would pass the house or they would hear a noise and the barking would start. I eventually had to put Timmie on his chain to keep him in the bedroom with us. Thankfully the next few nights were not too bad with the dogs as Mavie came to the conclusion that Breanne was going to be away a long time. The girls though slept through the night, ate well and seemed to totally enjoy being with us although I must say by Tuesday night, we were glad to see James and Breanne home again!
So now we head into December and I’m hoping for a little bit calmer month until Christmas arrives. Then we will be leaving for Florida for the month of January and be back in February in time for Brian’s next chemo round.
We have Roy and Pat coming down to stay with us for a week in Florida; so I will probably do more blogging during that time when we will be doing more things, so stay tuned!
I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a very safe and prosperous New Year!!
Cheers!!!
