Day 186, Year 11: A Day in the Life
Date: Monday, April 25, 2016
Weather: Overcast, High in the 60’s F
Location: At Home in Evergreen Preserve, Lowell, MA

Not much to report today. Somehow the day just slipped away. Mark is still feeling good. He had one incident today when he felt a little nauseous. He just closed his eyes and told himself to reject that feeling and I turned on the diffuser with the peppermint oil. One or both worked and the nausea passed.

Tomorrow we are going to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to have lunch with good friends Leslie and Rich Kole. It will be our first social outing since Mark started on this drug trial. I think it will be good for both of us to get out and visit.

Day 185, Year 11: Another Good Day for Mark
Date: Sunday, April 24, 2016
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Windy, High 60 degrees F
Location: At Home in Evergreen Preserve, Lowell, MA

Mark had another good day without taking anti-nausea meds. He had a little nausea after eating a big dinner, but it was very temporary. He ate a huge salad for the first time in weeks and that might have triggered the nausea. He has just not been able to tolerate anything green and he might have overdone it with that salad. We’ll take this one day at a time, but for right now, we are just so very happy with how things are going without the nausea medications. It is like Mark has emerged from a dense fog.

We got our second update from Lee and Lynda this afternoon. They returned to Windbird today and took off another huge load of ‘stuff’. And along with our friend and agent, John Schwab, and his wife Beth, they got the dinghy off the front deck and raised on the davits. They have done an amazing job and we are so grateful. Now we just have to figure out how to get our clothes, our dishes, our pots and pans, our spices, and on and on, from there to here. We don’t have a plan yet, but we are working on it. Sure wish Star Trek transporting was a reality.

Day 184, Year 11: A Wonderful Day
Date: Saturday, April 23, 2016
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Cooler, High in the 60’s F
Location: At Home in Evergreen Preserve, Lowell, MA

It was a wonderful day. The most wonderful thing that happened today is that Mark is back. For some reason he decided to skip taking the anti-nausea meds yesterday and discovered last night that he was not nauseous. He did, however, have severe stomach pains that he hasn’t had for about a month, but he took extra pain meds for that. Today he took no anti-nausea meds and he had a great day—no nausea, no drowsiness. He was really back to being himself and could eat whatever he wanted. We can’t figure out why this has happened, but we won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. We are just grateful and hope it continues.

The second wonderful thing was our big outing north to Goffstown, New Hampshire, to the Benedikt Dairy Farm to buy 100% grass-fed, organic beef liver and fresh eggs. Mark’s blood tests yesterday showed a borderline low HCT (hematocrit) count meaning that he has too few red blood cells. And this puts him in the borderline anemic category. What we have done in the past to combat this is to have him eat organic beef liver and beets. We already had the beets but needed the organic beef liver. The farm in Goffstown was the closest source I could find, so off we went. The farm is in a beautiful location on the top of a hill. You go into the farm stand store which is in a barn right on the road. I had called ahead for the beef liver and it was in the cooler in a bag marked with my name. I took that and got into the adjacent cooler for eggs and then entered what I had taken and the price of each in a book. You then put the amount owed in a box. It felt really good to buy food in this manner—so much nicer than the supermarket.

160423 Day 184 Cape Cod, USA–Benedikt Dairy Farm

And the third wonderful thing that happened today is that we received an email from Lynda Kaufman reporting that she and Lee had taken five carts of stuff off Windbird today and will return tomorrow for more. They are taking only those things off the boat that are out in plain sight and they are not completely done with that. How many carts will it take once we delve into all the storage cabinets? I don’t even want to make a guess. But we are so incredibly thankful to Lee and Lynda for getting this process started. Thank you, thank you.

We heard from both of our children today. Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco were still in Culebra this morning when Justin called. They have had an incredibly good time camping at Flamenco Beach. They are staying in the Soul Pad, the tent they lived in for a few months in what became known as the Pirate Camp. Ziggy asked yesterday why people try to pretend they are not animals by living in houses. But they are returning to mainland Puerto Rico tomorrow to live once more in house. Flamenco Beach is one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, so I understand why Ziggy would just like to stay there. We heard from Heather this evening that she and her brood are back on Cape Cod after having a great time in DC. We are so glad that both families had so much fun on their spring vacations.

Day 183, Year 11: Summer Sneak Preview for Earth Day
Date: Friday, April 22, 2016
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Warm, High in the 80’s F
Location: Back at Evergreen Preserve, Lowell, MA

Happy Earth Day! The weather today was a sneak preview of summer. It was a balmy 82 degrees with bright sunshine. Since we were at Mass General most of the day, we didn’t really get to do anything to celebrate Earth Day, but when I was at the supermarket in the late afternoon I saw a Discovery video about the use of geo-engineering to solve some of our problems caused by climate change. I bought the DVD and tonight we watched the first segment tonight. It was about launching a space sunshield using special lenses that would diffuse the sunlight. Sunglasses for Planet Earth! An interesting idea if all else fails. But first let’s try to change the way we live to be more earth friendly. That’s my Earth Day message, and I’m stickin’ by it.

Mark had an interesting day. He has been fighting nausea for three weeks by using the prescribed anti-nausea meds and then by adding the diffuser with peppermint oil. Today he took no anti-nausea meds and used no diffuser and he had no bouts of nausea. He’ll continue his self-imposed ban on anti-nausea meds through the night and into tomorrow to see what happens. Could the anti-nausea meds be the cause of his nausea? Hmmmm.

Yesterday I got a very special email from Lynda Kaufman. Lynda and Lee are our friends in Little River that we cruised with last winter. We have known them for about 35 years, but had not lived near them since 1984 until we started spending time on Windbird in Little River, South Carolina. But the point here is that they have made a most generous offer to help us by getting things moved off Windbird to make her more presentable for showings. We left the boat ready to sail it north, not ready for sale. Lynda is going to pack up some of the more egregious offenders and take them to her garage. Our sales agent, John, has been most understanding of the mess we left behind when we arrived in Little River and quickly headed north. But I know he will be as grateful as we are that Lynda and Lee have made the offer to clean things up a bit. They also had some great suggestions for how we might get all of the stuff moved off Windbird without actually having to put Mark through the agony of the long road trip to get there and back. The ‘having’ of good friends is a wonderful thing. Thank you, Lynda and Lee. And a very happy birthday to you, Lee.

Day 182, Year 11: Purple Rain, Daffodils, and Adirondack Chairs
Date: Thursday, April 21, 2016
Weather: Sunny and Cool, High on the Cape 55 degrees F
Location: Staying at Heather and Jed’s, East Falmouth, MA

Adirondack chairs were really the focus today, but before getting into that story I’ll mention our connection to Purple Rain. With Prince’s passing today, we were all reminded of his song, album, and rock musical drama, all with the name–Purple Rain. It was a huge hit in 1984, the year we moved from our farm in southern West Virginia to Salisbury, Maryland. The home we bought there was on the corner of a street and all along the side-street part of the property were these beautiful, big, old Crepe Myrtle trees. We didn’t move into the house until late summer 1984, so we didn’t get to see these magnificent trees in bloom that year. But the next summer when we did see them in bloom, we were all awe-struck with their beauty. In 1985, all of the trees were heavy with those tiny little purple blossoms. And when the blossoms fell onto the street, it literally looked like purple rain. Thus, our first connection to Prince.

Now to what was happening in our world today. This morning I waited for the Adirondack chairs to dry since I had washed them with the special prep cleaner last evening. Before noon I deemed them thoroughly dry and I started the water sealing process. Heather and Jed bought the sealer and when I opened the can and gave it a stir, I was surprised to see that it was chalky gray in color and the consistency of watered-down Elmer’s Glue. As I quickly found out, Adirondack chairs are incredibly difficult to coat as the sealer dripped through all of the cracks. I was using a brush but I could not possibly brush out this thick liquid so I grabbed a rag and brushed and rubbed, constantly turning the chair over to do the same on the underside as that is where the drips went. Something I estimated would take an hour was taking much longer. I got two chairs done before it was time to leave to go sign the rental agreement on the apartment. I was exhausted from constantly turning the chairs and my back was killing me from bending over. But more than anything, I was totally frustrated with the incredibly bad job I was doing. Thank goodness these are lawn chairs are not fine furniture! Long story short, I finished two chairs before we had to leave and then coated the third chair when we returned from our afternoon outing. Then I called it a day. I had thought that I could get the two required coats on each of the three chairs this afternoon, but that just didn’t happen. These chairs were bought at The Christmas Tree Shop for about $50 each. Last fall when they were purchased, Heather and Jed had already bought two beautiful wooden Adirondacks from L. L. Bean (with a life-time guarantee on the painted finish), but the cost for each of those was six times as much as the unfinished wooden chairs at The Christmas Tree Shop. For Heather’s birthday the end of September she wanted three more chairs so the kids would each have one. I thought it was ridiculous to pay $300 for a lawn chair and encouraged the purchase of the cheaper ones. But I stand corrected. Now I know first-hand why an Adirondack chair with a life-time guaranteed finish costs $300. You get what you pay for.

Our afternoon outing took us to The Studio where we signed the rental agreement for the apartment. We were not able to get in to see the apartment again, but Ed, the resident maintenance man, had drawn a diagram of the place with measurements. He wants to fancy it up a bit and then Amanda, the owner’s daughter we have been working with, will send it to us. That will help with our planning of what might actually fit into the apartment. After that appointment, we drove to the other side of the harbor to West Marine. Mark wanted to visit with the gang there and we were quite surprised to see that the entire store has been re-arranged. The new set-up makes the store seem so much larger. Mark probably won’t be able to work there this summer, but I know he will be walking around the harbor to visit quite often. We then drove to Spohr Gardens to see the daffodils. I have mentioned that I would have liked to return here this weekend for Daffodil Days at the Gardens, but then I realized that we could just go there and take a walk on our own. It is just a short walk around the Gardens, but Mark had never been there and he really enjoyed the views across the pond. He also loved the collection of huge anchors on display. Some of the daffodils were a little past their peak, but most were still lovely. When we left the Gardens and headed back to Surf Drive we saw our first osprey of the season. It is always an exciting time of year when you see your old friends return home.

Tomorrow we leave here at 6:30 am in order to get to Mass General by 9 am. And tomorrow night we will be back in the condo in Lowell. Heather, Jed, and boys will return here from their school vacation week in Washington, DC, visiting with Grammy Goldstone. And sometime this weekend Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco will return home from a school vacation camping trip on the island of Culebra. We’ll be so anxious to hear about all of their adventures.

160421 Day 182 Cape Cod, USA–Daffodils and Osprey

Day 181, Year 11: Drive to the Cape
Date: Wednesday, April 20, 2016
Weather: Sunny and Cool, High on the Cape 55 degrees F
Location: Staying at Heather and Jed’s, East Falmouth, MA

We took our time leaving the condo this morning as I had received an email from Heather telling me that I would not need to drive to Rhode Island to pick up the bees this afternoon. She found someone who was willing to switch delivery dates with her. She will now get her bees in early May and we didn’t need to rush today. When we did finally leave the condo, we went to visit my niece Lynn at Lowell General Hospital. It was almost noon when we arrived and she was still in the Emergency Room waiting for a hospital bed to become available. She was much better, but the doctors are still not sure what caused the problem yesterday. So they are keeping her for a bit longer for observation. After our visit with Lynn, we started the drive to the Cape. When we got to Falmouth we drove on to Quissett Harbor. We had hoped to catch Rick and Weatherly, the owners of Quissett Harbor Boatyard. They weren’t there, so we’ll try again tomorrow. In January we reserved a mooring for this summer and have been making partial payments. A couple of days ago we decided to leave Windbird in Little River for the summer in the capable hands of our friend and Triton Yacht agent, John Schwab. He is hopeful that the boat will sell soon, so we won’t be needing the mooring here in Quissett Harbor. It is doubtful that we can get our money back, but it is worth a try. Anyway, it was almost 4 pm when we arrived here at Heather and Jed’s. Since we didn’t need to deal with bees, I had another project in mind. For Heather’s birthday last September, she got cedar Adirondack chairs that needed to be assembled and stained. She assembled two of them in the fall, but two more were not even unpacked. Today Mark helped me get them out of storage and he assembled one of them while I got them ready to clean and stain. The cleaning happened late in the day and I will let them dry until tomorrow afternoon when I will stain them.

Speaking of tomorrow afternoon, the reason for this trip to the Cape is so we can sign the contract for renting the apartment on Falmouth Harbor. We stopped across the harbor from The Studio (the name of the apartment complex where we will be living as of June 15) and took the photos posted here.

160420 Day 181 Cape Cod, USA–The Studio

We are anxious to sign the contract to make this official. After we sign the contract tomorrow, we will return here so I can stain the lawn chairs. We will either head back to Lowell after 5:30 pm to avoid the worst of rush hour traffic on our way home or we will spend another night here and drive into Boston during rush hour on Friday morning. Mark’s appointment at Mass General on Friday is at 9:20 am which puts us driving into the city at the worst possible time. Making that morning drive is surely a test of one’s patience! But Friday is a short day at the hospital and we should be able to head out of the city before evening rush hour. I’d love to drive back down here to go to the Spohr Garden daffodil festival on Saturday, but I’m not sure we’ll have the energy for that. At the same time, it could be a busy weekend for showings of Lynn’s condo and we will need to be out there anyway. So we shall see where we end up for Saturday and Sunday.

Day 180, Year 11: Busy Day
Date: Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Much Cooler, High 62 degrees F
Location: At Home in Evergreen Preserve, Lowell, MA

It was a busy day. I left here at 10:15 am to go pick up my niece and head into Boston to try and sell her boxes and boxes of books. Even though the majority of the books were first editions and many were rare books, the downtown Boston used bookstore was not interested in any of them. The gentleman who went through the boxes did not think we would find a used bookstore that would buy them. We tried one more store, a little closer to home, and they bought a few but certainly not enough to make it worth continuing to try and find other places that might be interested. So Lynn decided to take the books to the Billerica Public Library and donate them. This is the town where she grew up and where her sister Candi lives, so it made sense to donate them there. I hauled the boxes out of the van and then Lynn hauled them into library on a dolly and somewhere in that process, she started feeling shaky. As soon as we were finished at the library, we headed out to get something to eat, but by this time, Lynn was visibly shaking and feeling very sleepy. I tried to get her to come home with me or let me take her to her sister’s house, but she insisted on going home. When I dropped her off, I could tell she was getting worse, so I called her sister Candi. Long story short, Lynn is in the hospital for observation tonight as the doctors try to figure out what is wrong. Thankfully Candi had the foresight to go check on her immediately after I called her. Hopefully it is nothing too serious. Lynn, we are thinking of you and hoping that whatever happened today was just a temporary glitch.

160419 Day 180 Cape Cod, USA–Books

I rushed home after dropping Lynn off at her apartment in order to meet the realtor here at this condo. She was returning this afternoon to take photos and Mark had done a great job of doing the last tidying for the photos. The condo should be online tomorrow and hopefully a buyer will be found quickly. For the photos, the realtor wanted the kitchen counters to be completely cleared and they basically need to stay that way for subsequent showings. Living in a place while it is for sale is tricky business. You need to keep everything ready to show at a moment’s notice. The realtor promised that we will get a text at least an hour or two before a showing, but this means things really need to be kept ship shape until it sells. I’m already growing fond of the totally clear kitchen counters. Maybe this is something I can continue to do even after leaving here. Well, not totally clear, but certainly not crowded with ‘stuff’. Mark and I also took time for a nice walk up to the pond to check on the wildlife. It is nice to take time to appreciate common birds like Canadian geese and Mallard ducks. When you see them up close it is hard not to marvel at their beauty. And those beavers actually showed themselves to me this evening. I loved watching them ply the waters using their tails as rudders. Spectacular.

160419 Day 180 Cape Cod, USA–Wildlife

Tomorrow we leave here and head to Cape Cod. Heather and Jed are not home, but we are going down to stay at their place for a night or so. On Thursday we sign the contract for the apartment we will be renting. Tomorrow I will take Mark down and then I will head back to Rhode Island to pick bees up for Heather. The bees were supposed to arrive last week and Heather drove all the way there to find out the delivery had been postponed to this Wednesday. While I am driving to pick up the bees, Mark will work on getting the hive ready. We’ll also try to find time to commune with the Max and Mortimer, the guinea pigs. I’m sure they are missing the boys. We are a poor substitute, but we will try.

Day 179, Year 11: Disappointing News
Date: Monday, April 18, 2016
Weather: Sunny, High 71 degrees F
Location: At Home in Evergreen Preserve, Lowell, MA

It was a beautiful sunny morning and then the phone rang. It was the owner of the apartment on the Falmouth Harbor that we have gotten so excited about moving into the first of June. That won’t be happening now. The current tenant is buying a condo next door and he will not be moving until June 15. I know it is only two weeks later than planned, but I hoped to be all settled in before school is out and Camp Oma begins. And school is out early this year, the last day being sometime during that same middle week of June. Camp Oma will be much scaled-down this year, only three days a week, but still it would have been so nice to get settled in earlier. And besides that, we are both so anxious to get us in a settled situation. We are so very lucky that my niece has let us live here, but we are literally living out of our suitcase. And June 15th is two whole months away. My first reaction when I got the phone call this morning was to look for another place, but I know that the apartment on the harbor is just the right place. Besides, both of the other two places we liked are rented already so we would have to start the searching process all over. If this condo sells quickly, we will have to move in with Heather and Jed for a few weeks and store furniture that we will be taking from here in a garage in the apartment complex where we will be moving. The owner felt terrible having to change the move-in date and he offered to store things for us if needed. So, disappointed as we are, life is still on track.

Heather, Jed, and boys headed south to Washington, DC, this morning to spend a few days of their spring vacation with Grammy Goldstone. Lucky them. Besides spending time with Grammy, it is going to be so nice and warm during their visit. I checked the weather and saw that it was 91 degrees there today. The rest of the week is not going to be that warm, but I know the boys will enjoy the warmth. Mark and I head to the Cape on Wednesday to do a little work in our storage unit and to sign the contract for the apartment on Thursday. And tomorrow my niece Lynn and I drive into Boston with a car full of her books in hopes of finding a buyer. Busy times.

Day 178, Year 11: Signs of Spring
Date: Sunday, April 17, 2016
Weather: Mostly Sunny, High 70 degrees F
Location: At Home in Evergreen Preserve, Lowell, MA

It finally felt like spring today with a high temp of 70 and sunny skies. And obviously the flora and fauna loved it. Little green leaves popped out all over today and the turtles came out of hiding to sun themselves. These are true signs of spring and we are loving it.

The peppermint oil (Mentha x piperita) that we have been using in the infuser really seems to be helping Mark with the nausea. He was so nauseous when we got home from the hospital on Friday, but I immediately unpacked the newly arrived infuser and oil, plugged the infuser in, filled it with water and drops of peppermint, and started infusing our air. The nausea went away and it has stayed away. We are new to the idea of using essential oils but peppermint, a cross between watermint and spearmint, seems to be doing its job.

My niece Lynn and I continue to spend our afternoons sorting and packing her things. Today I packed up all of her photo albums that were occupying a bookshelf in the extra bedroom and took that empty shelf into the kitchen. Mark helped me carry it in and then I filled it with all of the appliances that were on the kitchen counter. The realtor wants the counters clear to show off the countertops for photos on Tuesday and for subsequent showings. But I must say I think it looks a bit strange to see a totally clear counter. To me it looks sterile, like no one lives here. But we are going to follow the program and we got the counter cleared while Lynn continued sorting through books on bookshelves in the living room. We now have ten big boxes of books tucked away in the back of our car ready for the trip to Boston on Tuesday. Lynn will return tomorrow to do more sorting and we might end up with another box or two.

Working with Lynn has reminded Mark and I that we have a lot of sorting and packing to do ourselves. Once we feel like we have the nausea under control, Mark and I are going to try to make a trip to Little River to pack up everything that is on the boat. We had originally thought that Mark would stay here and I would go alone, but at this point he thinks it would be easier on him to be with me. We’ll just have to freeze packets of food and take a big cooler with us. It will be hard to fit this trip in between his infusions, but we worked out a tentative plan today and we are going to give it a try. We will wait until the first week of May when his infusions move from Fridays to Wednesdays. We’ll leave Boston on a Wednesday afternoon right after the infusion and drive to Nyack to Ed and Lynne Kirwin’s. We haven’t informed them of this visit, but now they’ll know! Then on Thursday we will drive from Nyack to Little River. We will have to borrow Heather and Jed’s van for this trip and from Friday to Sunday we will pack up as much as we can in the van and start home on Monday. Before we can make this trip, however, we have to clear space in our storage unit to hold the bounty from the boat. Whether we like it or not, it looks like our future for the next few weeks is going to stay centered on sorting and packing. Our present plan might be too ambitious, but we shall see.

160417 Day 178 Cape Cod, USA–Turtles and Other Signs of Spring

Day 177, Year 11: Sorting, Sorting
Date: Saturday, April 16, 2016
Weather: Mostly Sunny, High 61 degrees F
Location: At Home in Evergreen Preserve, Lowell, MA

This afternoon was another four hour work session with my niece Lynn sorting, sorting, sorting through books and clothes she still has here in this condo. The realtor will come on Tuesday to take photos and get the condo officially on the market, so we are making a huge push to sort through as many things as possible before then. Today the focus was books and clothes. I went through her closet and sorted through clothes while Lynn went through huge plastic boxes of books that she is trying to sell and packed them into smaller cardboard boxes that we can actually carry out of the condo. The plastic boxes were way too heavy for us. She will return tomorrow for another work day and on Tuesday morning we will take the books into a bookshop in Boston that might buy them. She ended up with ten big cardboard boxes today and there are still more books to sort through. The job of whittling down Lynn’s belongings to a size she can accommodate in her new apartment seems endless, but I’m we are making great progress.

Mark had a good day. He got up at 7 am and had his double breakfast and then went back to bed until 10 am when he got up to take his chemo pills. He went back to bed, but got up after about half an hour. I then turned on the infuser with the peppermint oil in hopes of calming his nausea and giving him an energy boost. Last night I turned on the infuser on his bedside table when he went to bed. In about 20 minutes he woke up and was quite energized—too much so for bedtime. It could have been because he slept most of the day at the hospital or it could have been the peppermint oil. Obviously we have a lot to learn about using essential oils! We turned off the infuser and moved it out of the bedroom. He went back to bed and eventually went to sleep. When he got up this morning, I turned the infuser with the peppermint oil on in the living room. I ran it every other hour during the day, and Mark really felt like it gave him an energy boost and he had no nausea. He is still taking anti-nausea medications, but yesterday they weren’t doing the job. We are trying the peppermint oil to aid in the anti-nausea war and to hopefully avoid taking the Ritalin that the nurse practitioner prescribed. It does work to give him an energy boost, but I just hate having him take so many different medications. If the peppermint essential oil in the air continues to work, we’ll try some other oils.

Tomorrow will be a repeat of today with the exception that it will be a little warmer. It was delightfully warm by late afternoon today and tomorrow it should be warm much earlier in the day. It is hard to believe that it is really spring because it has been so cool. I, for one, am ready for some proof that spring is here in earnest.