Day 106, Year 7: It’s a Wonderful World
Date: Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Weather: Another Gorgeous Day with Temps into the Low 50’s F
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, N Falmouth, MA

Mark is still doing great. He has to be very careful not to get cold or to
drink or eat anything cold for the first five days after every treatment,
but other than that, life is going on as usual. He had a bit of a problem
with the chemo pump today. He was talking on the phone this morning and I
kept hearing this beeping sound. I thought it was his phone, but when the
phone conversation ended, I realized the beeping was coming from the fanny
pack containing the chemo pump. He unzipped the pack and sure enough, the
pump was flashing red saying there was no battery power. He called the
visiting nurse association and they called the company that supplies the
pump. They then called Mark and instead of having them come to us, we went
to their office in downtown Falmouth on the way to pick up Sam and Jonah.
Now we know where they are and we know the batteries are just plain old C
cells, so we can fix the problem if it happens again. Otherwise, he is
having no problems-no side effects, no lack of appetite, no lack of energy.
We are so happy to be able to report this and just hope things continue this
way. He spent his day working on his public radio consulting job. It is
great that he has that to keep him connected and that he can do the job by
phone and email. Perfect.

Tonight after dinner, I asked Mark to try and list for me some of the most
memorable highlights of our voyage around the world. I am trying to write
an answer to the most common question we get from people, “What was your
favorite place?” And I thought listening to Mark’s recap of memorable
highlights might help me. He started through his litany and by the time he
finished, I had tears of joy in my eyes. What a wonderful world it is and
how lucky we are to have seen it by sailing around it. We started talking
about the scariest times, the absolute worst experience we had, the tense
times (a little different from scary), the most exhilarating experiences,
the most surprising things we saw, the best cruising grounds, and any
regrets. Sounds like a book to me. I guess I had better start writing.