Day 328, Year 10: From the Beach to Boston and Back
Date: Thursday, September 3, 2015
Weather: Sunny, Temp Still in the 80’s F,
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, MA
There was plenty of activity today from going to the beach with the boys to driving to Boston to pick Mark up from a procedure that was delayed by more than four hours. The delay meant we just got home at about 11 pm. So it was also a l-o-n-g day.
Mark and I went to Heather and Jed’s as usual this morning and then the boys and I took Mark to the bus station to catch a bus to Boston. He had to be at Mass General at 1 pm and I needed to take care of Sam, Jonah, and Ollie, so the bus seemed the best solution. The boys and I then went to Wood Neck Beach. The tide was coming up and it was the highest tide I have ever seen there. The incoming tide made for good in-coming current riding, but the water was moving super fast—too fast for me to able to safely ‘catch’ Jonah. He is light as a feather and just doesn’t have the strength to fight the current. So he only rode the current in a couple of times. It was just too strong for Ollie, but Sam enjoyed a few rides. At some point, I realized that the tide was coming up so high that the parking area was covered in water. So we all started walking towards the parking lot so I could move the car. About that time, we spotted Melissa Keefe, Heather and Jed’s neighbor, with Molly and Joey. The boys were super excited to have beach friends, but first, Melissa and I both had to move our cars. Once that job was done, the kids really enjoyed playing together at the beach. Just after noon, the tide started to turn. Now the water in Lazy River was rushing out to sea and it was much deeper than normal. But Melissa and I decided that we would let all but Ollie ride the current. She would stay at the starting line and I would stand in the middle of the ‘river’ downstream keeping kids from riding out to sea with the strong current. The problem was that the kids started down Lazy River before I could get to the end point, so Sam, Jonah, Molly, and Joey almost zoomed out to sea. Melissa rushed to help me and people on the beach also pitched in. I first caught Jonah and sent him back through the current where a young man held on to him for me. Melissa caught Molly and Joey and another boy held on to Sam. About this time our friend Jane Woodin waved from the opposite shore. The current was just too strong and there was no way I could over to her side to say hello. Besides, I was still saving kids from the current. So I’ll say it now, “Hello, Jane.” She had the ‘minis’, her four year-old twin grandchildren, but they were sensibly playing on the beach, not in the rushing current, and being four, they seemed to be absolutely fine with that. It is tough with the age differences between Sam, Jonah, and Ollie. The things that are appropriate and fun for Sam, and mostly appropriate for Jonah (with a little help), are just not appropriate for Ollie. So when I am by myself with them, I am stretched to the max trying to let Sam and Jonah do one thing while Ollie is doing another. It will always be like this, but as Ollie gets a little older, I think it will get easier.
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| 150903 Day 328 Cape Cod, USA–Fun at Wood Neck Beach |
At 2 pm, Jed came to be with the kids and I left for Boston to pick Mark up. I mentioned in last night’s log that he was having a liver biopsy and having what I called ‘radiation seeds’ implanted. We found out today that the ‘seeds’ are tiny gold stones. So now Mark has “three gold stones” implanted in his abdominal cavity. These are not radioactive. They simply help triangulate the exact location where the radiation beam should be focused. They also did a liver biopsy. But all of this was done after he had to wait in the waiting room all afternoon. There was an emergency situation with the person scheduled in the imaging operating room before him and it was not until after I arrived and waited with him for another hour that they took him in. That was at 5:15 pm, but he was out in one hour as they promised and was allowed to head home much sooner than they had said. He is fine other than being on pain meds for a sharp pain in his left shoulder. Evidently there is some connection between the liver and the shoulder area and the pain made him very uncomfortable. But once he took the pain meds, he was fine. After an hour and a half in recovery, we were allowed to head home. We stopped along the way to get dinner. They gave him a sandwich and some juice after the procedure, but since he had not eaten or had anything to drink since midnight, he was still a hungry bear. This living with cancer thing is just sometimes no fun at all, but somehow Mark goes through all these procedures with grace and no complaints. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be a good patient like him. And I hope I never have to find out.
Tomorrow we will celebrate the end of summer and the end of Camp Oma for 2015 as school here starts on Tuesday. The temperature is supposed to drop about ten degrees tomorrow as the winds will be blowing in fairly strong from the North. So I don’t think we are going to the beach tomorrow. I haven’t fully decided yet, but I think we will head to Hyannis to play mini-golf at Pirate Cove. But, shhhh, don’t tell the boys. I want it to be a secret until we arrive tomorrow morning.
