Day 238, Year 7: Full Thunder Moon
Date: Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Weather: Still Hot and Sunny
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
What a beautiful sight is tonight’s full moon. We saw it rise as we driving
home from the North Country this evening. You don’t get quite the same
views as you do when you are at sea, but even a glimpse here and there
between buildings and trees was breathtaking. The Native Americans in this
part of the world kept track of their seasons by naming the full moon of
each month. July was either the Full Buck or Full Thunder or Full Hay Moon.
This year I would call it the Full Thunder as we have been having our share
of thunderstorms. Hay was cut early this year and we don’t have many buck
deer. But if we did, we would see their velvety antlers starting to push
through during July.
We drove to Boston today for Mark’s appointment with Dr. Sherri-Ann
Burnett-Bowie, his endocrinologist at Mass General. Her take on Mark’s
slightly elevated calcium and parathyroid hormone levels is that the
condition is due to primary hyperparathyroidism. This just means that the
cause of the problem is in the parathyroid glands themselves and not caused
by another source. Her recommendation is to treat this with a medication
instead of surgery. She is recommending that he have an infusion of Reclast
which is zoledronic acid once or twice a year. Zoledronic acid is a
bisphosphonate that helps prevent osteoporosis. So it doesn’t cure the
problem. It just manages the possible side-effects. We need to do a lot of
research. At the end of the day, we have more questions that we did when we
went into our meeting with the doctor. Mark had more blood and urine tests
today and has to have an MRI of the specific area. Once we get those
reports, and get the answers to some of our new questions about the
recommended drug, we’ll decide whether or not to go along with the
recommendation or seek a second opinion. Sure wish we didn’t need to deal
with this right now, but we do. So we will.
Just before leaving for Boston today, we realized that Mark’s New Hampshire
driver’s license is expiring on his birthday which is this Saturday. So
after the appointment, we rushed to Concord to apply for the new license.
We made a quick stop at our storage unit to pick up some summer clothes and
then it was back to the Cape. We’ll do some July 4th celebrating tomorrow
and get ourselves ready to our long weekend trip to Maine. We’re looking
forward to the visiting, but not to the getting ready part. Leaving the
boat for most of five days with no way to recharge the batteries means that
I have to turn off the freezer and fridge AGAIN. And that means moving food
back to Heather and Jed’s. Maybe we should just stop eating.
