Day 254, Year 8: Day Trip to Boston
Date: Monday, July 15, 2013
Weather: Sunny and Hot!!! 90’s in Boston, 80’s on the Cape
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Today was hot and it looks like it is just going to get hotter throughout the week. It was not the best day for a day trip to Boston, but we had no choice. Today was the day for Mark’s three-month check-up with his oncologist at Mass General, so off we went. I also had a follow-up appointment with Dr. Cha in the Spine Center. The air conditioner in our car is a bit like the refrigerator in our boat right now. They both work great when it is cooler, but both seem to shut down when the temp goes into the 80’s. So it was a hot, open window trip. My neck issues are fine right now, so I won’t need to return to the Spine Center until I have another episode and decide that want steroid injections or want to have surgery. I’m hoping to put both of those things off for as long as possible. Dr. Kwak, Mark’s oncologist, said that Mark’s blood work results are the best she’s seen in years. He had a CT scan in April and was not scheduled to have another until next April, but we explained that we would be more at ease leaving for the winter knowing all is well. Until just recently it was general practice to do the scans every three months for two years after surgery. They have just recently pulled back to once a year. But Dr. Kwak agreed that having the scan in October might not be a bad idea. If all is well then, Mark won’t have to fly home from Puerto Rico in January or South Carolina in April for blood tests. She gave us orders to take with us to have the blood tests done whenever we are and then have them sent to Mass General. So all of this was great news for us.
When we got back to the Cape, we headed to Heather and Jed’s to see the little ones and have dinner. When we arrived, Sam, Jonah, and Ollie were all sleeping or having quiet time in Sam’s case, so we left and went to the CVS at the corner to get some photos of my sister’s 80th birthday celebration printed to send to her. When we got back from doing that, Sam was up and ready to go outside. We went to the garden, which is in desperate need of more attention than any of us have time to give it, and accomplished a few things. The weeds are trying hard to take over despite Heather and Jed’s efforts to mulch in order to keep the weeds down. Sam helped Granddad string up the bean tower for climbing beans and Jonah helped by using small clippers to cut off the flowers on the arugula. Jonah always reminds me that his Grammie Goldstone taught him how to use garden clippers and assures me that he will be careful. And he is. But boys will be boys and the helpfulness didn’t last long. Sam found it to be much more fun to crawl through the ‘tunnels’ between the rows of corn. So we abandoned the gardening for this evening and went to swing and play baseball. Ollie woke up from a late afternoon nap just in time for dinner. We had grilled sausage and cauliflower with clams, orzo with basil from the garden, and a salad of lettuce and cucumbers, also from the garden. This was topped off with cold watermelon—the perfect desert choice for such a hot evening.
Tomorrow is a Camp Oma day. We start each day at a freshwater pond in town for swim lessons and then we will go to one of our favorite beaches, Wood Neck, for a swamp walk led by the Buzzards Bay Discovery Center staff. In the afternoon we really need to take Windbird to Falmouth to pump out the holding tank and fill up with water and fuel. So I have decided to chuck plans for an indoor library program and take the boys on a sail instead. There is not supposed to be much wind, so maybe we’ll put up the spinnaker. Sam has been dying to see it and tomorrow seems like the perfect time to do it.
