by Judy Handley | Jan 30, 2014 | Cape Cod USA, Sailing Logs Year 9 |
Day 102, Year 9: Day in the Life
Date: Thursday, January 30, 2014
Weather: Sunny with High in the 30’s F—Feels Balmy!
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, North Falmouth, Massachusetts
Not much to report today–just a day in the life. Mark and I spent a delightful day with Ollie, but all three of us still have colds so we stayed inside all day even though it was beautiful outside. Sam and Jonah have announced that they are coming to spend the weekend with us, so I guess we had better get braced for the ‘storm’! That’s about it from here.
by Judy Handley | Jan 29, 2014 | Cape Cod USA, Sailing Logs Year 9 |
Day 101, Year 9: Update on Mark’s Cancer Treatment
Date: Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Weather: Lots of Fluffy Snow Overnight and into the Morning, 4-5 inches
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, North Falmouth, Massachusetts
Today Mark and I traveled to Mass General in Boston to meet once again with his oncologist, Dr. Kwak, and a new doctor, Dr. Hong, who is the Associate Clinical Director in the Department of Radiation Oncology. He is young and a very positive addition to Mark’s team. We started by asking once again why surgery is not an option at this point. We knew it was because the mass did not shrink significantly with the last round of chemo, but we learned today that it is really due to the location. The mass sits right on top of three important veins in the abdominal cavity. Dr. Hong is very positive that the radiation will significantly shrink the mass, possibly even eliminate it, which he says happens in one of five cases. So after five and half weeks of radiation, there will be another evaluation to see if surgery is possible. Both doctors were fine with waiting until we return from our planned trip to Puerto Rico to start the radiation, but they recommended that Mark have one more chemo treatment as soon as possible just to keep things in check until the radiation begins. That chemo treatment has been scheduled for Monday. Mark will also be taking a low-dose chemo regimen with the radiation, but both doctors feel confident that the only side effect will be tiredness as the treatments progress. Dr. Hong told Mark he should be able to drive himself to and from the treatments. He was assuming we would be driving to and from Boston every day. But we had read on the internet about housing in Boston for cancer patients and when we asked about that, Dr. Hong’s nurse practitioner said she would look into it for us. We got a call later in the afternoon telling us that housing would be available either during or after the second week in March and that Mark’s name has been submitted. We should get confirmation of this by Friday. But we still have to figure out exactly how we will do this five week stint. The good news is that it sounds easier than we had imagined since the side effects should be minimal. So we’ll figure out how to deal with this as we sit on the beach in Puerto Rico. So I’m now going to turn my attention to getting ready for that trip.
When we looked outside this morning, we worried that we might not make it to Boston. Everything was covered with at least four inches of fluffy white snow. But it was truly like powder and caused very little problem other than demanding that I drive slower than normal. We got to drive the ‘new to the family’ Honda Civic that we just purchased jointly with Heather and Jed. It is very comfortable and handled beautifully in the snowy conditions—and it gets good gas mileage. By the time we got to Boston, there was no snow at all and the sun was shining, so the return home trip was an easy one. We fared better than my brother-in-law Joe in North Carolina. He had a doctor’s appointment in Raleigh today which is about a three hour drive for him. But it had to be cancelled because of icy road conditions. And then we got an email from our friends Geoff and Chris who are living on their sailboat in Norfolk, Virginia. They got almost a foot of snow! So the conditions here with 4-5 inches of snow (and no ice) was not so bad.
Tonight our thoughts are with our daughter-in-law Jo and her family. Her parents arrived in Puerto Rico over the weekend. They were planning to stay until next week but yesterday they got word that Jo’s Uncle Robin died suddenly. Robin was married to Jo’s mother’s sister. Jo was very close with her Uncle Robin and Aunt Suzy and wrote that her Uncle Robin was “a yoga, veggie, swimming, tennis playing ex-teacher” who was loved by all who knew him. His healthy life-style made it all the more difficult to believe that he had a fatal heart attack with no warning. Jo and Justin, along with Ziggy and Coco, are now on their way to England with Jo’s parents for some healing time with family. Justin and Jo will return to Puerto Rico just a few days before we arrive and I think Jo’s parents are going to come back to visit in April. The sudden death of Jo’s uncle serves as a reminder to each of us to live each day to the fullest. Our friend Lynda Kaufman has a saying attached to all of her emails that definitely applies here. “Live like every day is your last.”
by Judy Handley | Jan 28, 2014 | Cape Cod USA, Sailing Logs Year 9 |
Day 100, Year 9: Democracy
Date: Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Weather: Sunny and Cold, Snow on the Way
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, North Falmouth, Massachusetts
I started my teaching career in 1969 as a teacher of American History in a high school of 3,000 students in Cleveland, Ohio. All 3,000 were black and American History was not the most popular subject. I learned more at Glenville High School than I taught, but in that first year of teaching I did learn the importance of democracy in all of our lives. Since returning to this country after the six year absence while we were sailing around the world, I have become very frustrated with the huge divide that has come to be in the United States. And as an educator, my observation is that many Americans really don’t understand what it means to be a democracy. For that reason, I chose the following quote as the most important statement in tonight’s State of the Union speech. “It should be the power of our vote, not the size of our bank account, that drives our democracy.” Amen. And the second statement from President Obama’s State of the Union address that I applaud is, “The debate is settled. Climate change is a fact.” So now let’s all get busy and do what we can to further our democracy and save our environment.
Tomorrow we head to Boston so Mark can meet with his oncologist and a radiologist to discuss the next step in his cancer treatment plan. We have lots of questions and hope to come home with lots of answers.
by Judy Handley | Jan 27, 2014 | Cape Cod USA, Sailing Logs Year 9 |
Day 99, Year 9: Little Things
Date: Monday, January 27, 2014
Weather: Overcast, Breezy and Warm—High in the 40’s F
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, North Falmouth, Massachusetts
I’m sitting here writing my log and glancing up every few seconds to look at the photos changing on the digital photo frame that Heather and Jed gave us for Christmas. There’s nothing I like more than looking at photos of my five beautiful grandchildren. So thank you, Heather and Jed, for this gift. It is one of those little things in life that gives great joy.
We spent our day looking for ‘little things’—specifically looking again for snowy owls and other birds. We thought that the warm weather today might bring out the birds, but it was quite the opposite. There were almost no birds to be seen. We drove down dirt roads to obscure places to no avail. So I’m giving up my search for snowy owls. I’m much too impatient to go into the wild and sit and wait. So I went to the store and bought a small bird feeder that Ollie and I will hang in the backyard tomorrow. I’m definitely a backyard birder. I’ll put out food and they can come to me!
by Judy Handley | Jan 26, 2014 | Cape Cod USA, Sailing Logs Year 9 |
Day 98, Year 9: Search for Snowy Owls and a Movie
Date: Sunday, January 26, 2014
Weather: Sunny, Cold, Windy—Felt Like 3 degrees F with Windchill
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, North Falmouth, Massachusetts
Snowy owls prefer to live in the tundra in northern Alaska, Canada and Eurasia, but once in a while they wander further south. The people who follow these creatures know that every year a few snowy owls find their way south, but in 1945 and 1946 they made a coast-to-coast invasion in southern Canada and the northern United States. In 1966 and 1967 they invaded the Pacific Northwest region of this country. Beginning in 2011, bird watchers started seeing more snowy owls in the northern US than in any normal year. And this winter they are being reported in record numbers all across the Midwest, the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic states. There have even been sightings in South Carolina and Bermuda. So either their population has increased dramatically or the food they depend on for survival, lemmings and voles, are scare. We have talked about going out to try and catch a glimpse of them since December, but it took an email from our bird watching friends Patsy and Eric Decker on the Eastern Shore of Maryland to get us going. They went in search of snowy owls yesterday on Assateague—one of our favorite places in the whole world. And this prompted us to go in search of snowy owls today on a beautiful Cape Cod beach. We called Heather to see if the boys would like to go with us, only to find that they were also going to look for snowy owls. So we arranged to meet at South Cape Beach which is about a 20 minute drive from here. We knew it was cold, but since owls live in the Arctic, we didn’t think that would be a problem. We forgot that we do not live in the Arctic, and none of us could withstand the biting cold for long. But for a short time we enjoyed the bright sunshine on the beach. We saw no snowy owls, just sea gulls, but it was worth the trip. We’ll definitely try on another day when it is not quite so windy and cold. Today we walked on the beach and used binoculars to look in the trees further inland. But what I read tonight tells me we should have been looking for them sitting on the beach or among the dune grass. They like tundra, sometimes grassland, but are never forest lovers. So quietly walking the paths just in from the beach and looking down, not up, will be my next approach. And the funniest thing of all is that I learned this in an article written by my daughter. I searched for “snowy owls on Cape Cod” and kept going down the list to find an article that sounded interesting. I found one, clicked on it, not paying attention to the source, and found myself on a WCAI radio page. After I read the article and looked at the photos, I went back to see who wrote it. It was one Heather Goldstone back on December 16. That daughter of mine certainly does get around! For everything from Fukushima to snowy owls, she’s my ‘go-to’ source of science info.
Our friends Bruce and Jane Woodin contacted us yesterday to see if we would like to go to a movie and dinner with them today. We’ve only seen them once since they returned from Mexico and now they are headed to Florida for about three weeks. And we’ve never been to see a movie here on the Cape. So we jumped at the chance to see them and to see the movie 12 YEARS A SLAVE. Whoa. If you have seen this you know it is a very difficult film to watch. The fact that it is based on a true story makes it even harder to watch, but the acting and directing was superb and it is certainly a story that needs to be told and watched. Film critic Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle summed it up best for me. “It provokes recognition in us of the very heart of darkness. It makes the unimaginable imaginable.” It is both profound and painful. Without seeing any of the competition, this film gets my vote for Best Picture. If you haven’t seen it, it is a ‘must see’ before the Oscars on March 2.
by Judy Handley | Jan 25, 2014 | Cape Cod USA, Sailing Logs Year 9 |
Day 97, Year 9: Sam’s Birthday Party
Date: Saturday, January 25, 2014
Weather: Overcast, Much Warmer, Daytime High in the 40’s F
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, North Falmouth, Massachusetts
Today we had Sam’s birthday party here at the Fiddler’s Cove Marina Club House. There were lots of little boys and two little girls who had no problem holding their own. Heather and Jed set up game centers all around the huge room, including a magnetic dart board and a pool table. The club house is a very large, long room with furniture on both sides, but nothing down the middle. The wood floor down the middle looks like a runway and at times today I thought maybe we were going to take off! But at the end of the day everyone emerged unscathed after having lots of fun. As Jed said, “No one was hurt and nothing was broken. That’s the definition of a successful party.” It was a good day.
A little side note here for the GoPro enthusiasts. Mark played around with it today, but all we learned is that we have a lot to learn. Figuring out how to successfully use this gadget is a little more complicated than we expected. Mark took pictures, but some were out of focus, and the video he shot uploaded as many still frames. We’ll have to give it another go tomorrow.
