Day 246, Year 6 Trip to Boston
Date: Monday, June 27, 2011
Weather: Beautiful Day, Temperature in the mid-70’s
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Today was the big trip to Mass General Hospital’s Urology Department in Boston. Mark’s urologist is Dr. Cutie. How much grief must he have endured in his life due to his name? He is on the youngish side, but seems very knowledgeable and is forthright about what he has expertise in and what he doesn’t, without any hesitation in referring Mark to other physicians if and when needed. Today he showed Mark the images taken of his bladder in Puerto Rico and explained that the bladder is greatly distended with walls that look very thin. But he can’t really make any determinations without going in and seeing for himself. So on July 15 Mark will go back to have the nasty little stones in his bladder removed and while in there, the doctor will have a good look around. The follow-up appointment won’t be until the end of July, so we have lots of weeks of waiting before we really know anything more. Mark has go back this Thursday for pre-op testing, so it looks like we will be making lots of trips to Boston this summer and fall.
Jed’s parents, Marti and Donald, took us to Boston this morning on their way back to Maine and we took the bus back to Woods Hole. While on the bus we got a call from our son Justin. We really couldn’t talk to him while on the bus, but we did a bit of texting back and forth and found out about the wild fire in New Mexico. Because the fire is encroaching on Los Alamos National Laboratories, home of the atomic bomb, many people are being evacuated. We talked via Skype to Justin, Jo, and Ziggy tonight and found that they can see the fire clearly from their home in Madrid even though it is miles away. Everyone is on high alert due to the fact that there are huge amounts of plutonium and uranium and all manner of radioactive materials at Los Alamos. The official word is that things are stored in such a way that the fire will not be a problem in terms of a nuclear threat, but Justin and Jo and the people in their town are not convinced of this. Justin and Jo are scheduled to fly to England on Wednesday, but they are very unsure about leaving house sitters with their dogs and cats, van and bus, and all of their belongings. If there should be some sort of nuclear leak they wouldn’t be able to return to their home when returning from England. So they are watching and waiting and are just not sure what to do. We will check with them again tomorrow to see how things are going. It is extremely frustrating to us that we don’t have a good wireless connection here on the boat-so we only have internet when we go to Heather and Jed’s. That means we really don’t have a way of tracking what is happening without going to shore to a restaurant with wifi or going to Heather’s house. Hopefully we’ll get this problem worked out, but it is just one more thing that is making adjustment to life here difficult. But we had dinner at Heather and Jed’s tonight once we returned from Boston, and just being around grandchildren helps to melt away the difficulties.
