by Judy Handley | May 30, 2014 | Cape Cod USA, Sailing Logs Year 9 |
Day 221, Year 9: Another Day in the Life
Date: Friday, May 30, 2014
Weather: Mostly Sunny
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, Massachusetts
Today was just another day in the life, but everyone had an early start. Heather and Jonah dropped Jed, Sam, Ollie and bicycles off at the beach near Sam school by 8 am to participate in the East Falmouth Elementary ‘ride your bike to school’ event. Heather then headed on to Woods Hole to have a special breakfast-before-school morning with Jonah. Mark and I started our day at 5 am as we had to be at the bus station in Falmouth by 6 am. We got there 10 minutes early and Mark immediately got on the bus headed to Boston where he had pre-op testing done at Mass General. Ollie and I went to the library for toddler storytime and then drove most of the way to Boston to pick Mark up. Ollie slept during the entire trip and woke up just as we were heading back across the bridge to the Cape. We got back to Falmouth at 1:15 pm and took Mark to work at West Marine. Then we headed home for an afternoon of play.
The Goldstones are coming to Quissett tomorrow to do a little fishing from Windbird. The boys are anxious to catch their first fish of the year and the early stripers are running. So we’ll give it a try.
by Judy Handley | May 29, 2014 | Cape Cod USA, Sailing Logs Year 9 |
Day 220, Year 9: The Weed Eaters
Date: Thursday, May 29, 2014
Weather: Sunny and Warmer
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, Massachusetts
Mark and I are big time weed eaters. And I don’t mean that we use a handheld tool to cut weeds. I mean that literally we love to eat certain weeds and have for years. There are two weeds that we really enjoy at this time of year—lamb’s quarter and poke weed. And the wonderful thing is that these weeds are incredibly prolific and will take over your garden if you don’t religiously pull it up . . . and then cook and eat it. Heather intentionally lets the lamb’s quarter grow in her garden and when she needs to plant an area, she simply eats the weeds she takes out of the garden. So today Ollie and I worked in the garden and I pulled up the lamb’s quarter that was just the right size. Then I walked around the outside of the garden and picked poke greens. I then cooked these greens just as you would spinach and enjoyed the free food that is jam-packed with nutrition. Lamb’s quarter has more calcium and Vitamin A than most other greens like spinach and Swiss chard and it also has a high concentration of B vitamins. So the next time you pull up one of these pesky weeds, pull up some more and head to the kitchen. The Latin name for lamb’s quarter is Chenopodium album. ‘Cheno’ translates as goose and ‘pod’ as foot, so this weed is often called goosefoot. I really enjoyed the following story I found on the web. Hope you enjoy it, too.
Lamb’s Quarters–Chenopodium album
A Story by Susun Weed, 2009
I told the new apprentice we were having lamb’s quarters for dinner.
“I won’t have any. I’m a vegetarian,” she replied.
With a smile, I corrected myself. “Some people call it fat hen.”
“I don’t eat chicken either,” she responded with a frown.
“It’s also called goosefoot,” I countered, suppressing a grin.
“Not goose, not even the feet, do I eat,” she said with force.
And I agreed, “Pigweed is a more common name for it.”
“No matter what kind of animal it is, I am NOT going to eat it,” she stated firmly, her eyes shining with fervor and unshed tears.
I confessed, now openly laughing. “It’s a weed. A plant. A cooked green!”
by Judy Handley | May 28, 2014 | Cape Cod USA, Sailing Logs Year 9 |
Day 219, Year 9: Mark’s Surgery Date Set
Date: Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Weather: Overcast and Misty All Day, Windy, High in the Low 50’s F
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, Massachusetts
As Mark’s new surgeon, Dr. Ferrone, promised, we were called early today with a date for his surgery. As of the first call the surgery was going to be on June 25th. Then a couple of hours later, Mark received another call and the surgery date was reset to next Thursday, June 5. The reason for the change was to accommodate the schedules of the doctors. Dr. Sylla, Mark’s original surgeon, wants to be in the operating room as an observer and cannot be there late in June, so there was some shuffling about and the new date was set. It is certainly going to be a crowded operating room with new surgeon, old surgeon, and radiation oncologist all in attendance. But this is fine with Mark and he is actually glad that it will be sooner rather than later. In his opinion, the less time you have to think about these things, the better. It is rather short notice for the folks at West Marine, but hopefully the influx of summer help will be able to cover for Mark. And since we were totally unprepared to find out that the decision is to do highly invasive “open” surgery rather than less invasive laparoscopic surgery, we are still trying to figure out the how to deal with that. It’s hopeless trying to talk to the doctors about when it will be safe for Mark to return to Windbird. They have no idea what it means when we say we live on a mooring. They think we are talking about a dock. And unless they have tried to climb aboard a sailboat on a mooring from a dinghy in rough water, they have absolutely no way to give us guidance. We’ll just have to use our best judgment and figure this one out ourselves.
Heather and Jed are being extremely flexible in figuring out how to juggle their schedules to cover daycare in the absence of Oma. I will definitely stay at the hospital all day on the day of the surgery and then plan to be in Boston most of the next four days. Since two of those days are over the weekend, that helps a bit. But by Tuesday, June 10th, hopefully I will be back to take care of Ollie.
I just got a good laugh. As I am sitting here writing my log, Mark is sitting across from me on his computer filling out his Mass General Medical Passport. That’s a fancy way of saying general medical history. He just blurted out, “Now that’s a stupid way to ask that question.” When I asked him what the question was, he replied, “Do you have trouble remembering things?” The answer has to be YES or NO. Well, all of us have trouble remembering some things, so I assume everyone has to respond with a YES. They forgot to ask if you have selective memory. And I loved the next question. “Which of the following best describes your living arrangement?
Homeless
Assisted Living Facility
Nursing Home
Group Home
Unstable Housing
Disabled Housing
Independent Housing
Foster Home
Rooming House
Rehab Facility
Prison
Other”
Now how does Mark answer that one? I say ‘unstable housing’; he prefers ‘other’. Whichever, we are definitely boat people. And right now we are cold boat people. The high temp today was about 54 degrees F and there was not one smidgeon of sunshine to warm things up. So the temperature in Windbird when we got home tonight was not much higher than the temp outside. Darn cold. The weather forecast shows sunshine and warmer weather for tomorrow and Friday. That will be a welcome relief.
by Judy Handley | May 27, 2014 | Cape Cod USA, Sailing Logs Year 9 |
Day 218, Year 9: Meeting with Mark’s Doctors at Mass General
Date: Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Weather: Partly Cloudy Morning, Overcast Afternoon, Windy
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, Massachusetts
The short story . . . Mark’s new surgeon, Dr. Cristina Ferrone, along with Dr. Kwak, Mark’s oncologist, and Dr. Hong, Mark’s radiation oncologist, are all in agreement that Dr. Ferrone will attempt a resection (removal of the cancerous mass) through traditional open surgery immediately followed by a dose of radiation to the area to kill any remaining cancerous cells. If removing the mass doesn’t look possible once Dr. Ferrone is inside and can see the actual location in relation to vital organs and veins, she will switch to a procedure called nanoknife. This is the insertion of rods that look like long toothpicks into the cancerous mass and then an electrical charge of some sort is sent through those rods into the mass. This is called the irreversible electroporation of the cells (IRE) and it literally blows holes in the cell walls so the contents leak out and the cells die. This is the new procedure the doctors have been talking about and it has a very high success rate. It is only used when there is a cancerous mass that can’t be reached by traditional means, but it sounds very promising as a future cancer treatment. Unlike ablation procedures that ‘freeze’ or ‘fry’ cells, this procedure does not harm any of the surrounding area. Anyway, the operation will happen as soon as the operation room that can accommodate all of this technology is available and we should find out the date tomorrow. Whew!
Now for the longer story. We now know why meditation is pushed as an important part of fighting cancer. You need to meditate in order to survive the long waits. We have waited three weeks to finally get today’s meeting scheduled and once we arrived, we had to wait almost two and a half hours to get the three physicians together. And even then the referring surgeon, Dr. Sylla, could not attend the meeting. We have been in the offices of the two oncologists and know how very busy they are all the time. And add to that unexpected issues where one gets delayed for a bit, so then the other takes another patient while waiting and gets delayed, and it goes on and on. We understand and accept the delays, but it can be frustrating. Just meditate! But once everyone was in one room, things moved pretty fast. We first heard that traditional surgery was being recommended by Dr. Ferrone even though we had been told that it was too risky. She explained that indeed it does look risky on the scan, but that often once she gets inside it can look quite different and might really be possible. This will not be done laproscopically. So whether the mass is removed or the nanoknife procedure is done, there will be about a 4 to 5 inch incision, a 2 to 7 day hospital stay and a 5 week recovery period. During that time Mark can work, but he can do no heavy lifting. I’m convinced he won’t be able to live on the boat out here on a mooring because of the difficulty of getting onto the boat from the dinghy, but he is sure that he will be fine. He has an appointment with his primary care physician tomorrow and maybe she can help answer that question as we didn’t think to ask the doctors today. Somehow we’ll figure it out. And once we know when the operation will happen, we will start dealing with the scheduling details. I explained to Dr. Ferrone that there is a 5 day period when our daughter Heather is out of town and I have to be here to help take care of the boys. Her response was that this operation needs to happen sooner rather than later and that hopefully it can be done before Heather is out of town. But if the times overlap, she assured me that there are 10,000 people at Mass General to take care of Mark and that he would probably be better off without me there to keep him from resting. She’s probably right, but that will be difficult for me. She saw the look in my eyes and said, “You can use lots of ‘face’ time to communicate.” I guess I’d better get a Facebook account of my own.
As we were all leaving, Dr. Kwak looked at Mark and said, “In my mind we are still working on a cure here.” Mark replied, “I like the way your mind thinks.” She went on to remind us that there can always be more cancer cells that are in the body and just not detectable at this point, but getting rid of what we know is there is a great first step. We are hopeful.
by Judy Handley | May 26, 2014 | Cape Cod USA, Sailing Logs Year 9 |
Day 217, Year 9: Anticipation
Date: Monday, May 26, 2014
Weather: Overcast with Rain Early, High Winds
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, Massachusetts
We are once again anticipating what we will find out when we meet with Mark’s new surgeon tomorrow afternoon at Mass General Hospital. We already like this doctor from what we have read about her on the internet. If you can believe what you read, she is good at what she does, is obviously innovative, and is extremely dedicated to top-notch patient care. We can’t wait to meet her and get on with the next steps in Mark’s fight against cancer.
Today was cool, windy, and overcast—not your top-quality Memorial Day. After I took Mark to work and returned to Windbird, I just couldn’t get warm. It was only 64 degrees F inside the boat and with no sunshine, there was no hope of it getting warmer. So I spent my day baking. The oven immediately warmed things up and made me happy. And the strawberry-rhubarb pie and banana bread made Mark happy when he returned home from work.
by Judy Handley | May 25, 2014 | Cape Cod USA, Sailing Logs Year 9 |
Day 216, Year 9: Dinner at the Woodin’s
Date: Sunday, May 25, 2014
Weather: Cloudy Early then Mostly Sunny, High Near 70
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, Massachusetts
We just got home from a lovely evening at the Woodin’s. Bruce and Jane are the folks we house sat for back in the fall. They were traveling for much of the winter, so we have only gotten together a couple of times. We always enjoy their company, so we have to make an effort to see them more often.
I took Mark into work this morning, went to the grocery store, and then spent the afternoon cooking and trying to catch up on emails. I didn’t get very far, but will continue again tomorrow after I take Mark to work. That’s about it for today.
