Day 62, Year 8: Clean Bill of Health for Mark
Date: Friday, January 4, 2013
Weather: Cloudy with Sun Shining Through; Daytime Temp Back in the 30’s F
Location: Visiting with Heather and Jed, East Falmouth, MA
What a great relief. Today we met with Mark’s oncologist, Dr. Kwak, and she gave him a clean bill of health for now. Today she told him that she wants to keep a close eye on him and will have him return to Mass General for scans every three months for the next three years?but that we expected. The spot found on this lungs in October is no longer there, so we are assuming that the theory that it was inflammation from the parathyroid surgery was correct. He has a node in his lungs, but it has been there for the past year and it hasn’t changed. So the doctor is not concerned about that. She says many people have nodes in their lungs and that it is usually nothing to worry about. His blood test shows normal levels for everything, so all systems are a go. Hurrah! Hurray!
For months, I have been preparing to take off for the Bahamas as soon as we got a positive health report, but that might not be happening. Mark is leaning heavily towards staying in South Carolina for the remainder of the winter. He hadn’t really talked to me about this, but he mentioned it to Heather earlier in the week. He knows how much I was looking forward to being back in the land of white sand and turquoise water, but at this point, I think Mark should get to do what he wants. He spent most of the past year feeling really lousy during the six months of chemo treatment and is just now starting to feel really good. He wants to get some serious boat work done on Windbird. He loves it in South Carolina and he feels that he can relax and get work done at the same time. I love it there as well and will be sad to not get to warm water for snorkeling, but I think Mark deserves to do what he wants for the next year. A firm decision hasn’t been made, but if I had to place bets tonight, I’d say we’ll stay in South Carolina until time to return here in the spring and then head to the Bahamas next winter. Stay tuned for the final decision.
After meeting with Mark’s oncologist, we had lunch in the Mass General cafeteria and then headed to John’s Auto Sales across the river in Somerville. The car part had arrived from Ford and it was installed quickly. We won’t know until Monday if we can actually get the car inspected, but things are looking good so far. We made a quick stop at IKEA on the way home to buy two more solar powered reading lights and got back to Falmouth in time to go to Sam’s swim class. I was amazed at his progress since October. He has always been timid about jumping into the water, but he now jumps with abandon. I have watched Sam in swim classes since he was a year-old and I’ve never seen him so confident. It was fantastic to watch. After dinner we had a fun evening of karaoke and watching music videos on Mark’s tablet. We progressed from singing the Star Spangled Banner to singing along with Queen to We Will Rock You. Then Sam and Jonah watched Willie Nelson and Leon Russell sing a few songs on Utube with Granddad while Heather sang with Oliver listening attentively. It was a fun evening.
Every other Friday, Heather goes to Sam’s kindergarten class to teach science. Today she was helping the kids set up an experiment for the up-coming school science fair. They filled a tub with water and then put in plastic, paper, and styrofoam objects to see which ones will biodegrade over time. When Heather was trying to explain to them what a hypothesis is, one little boy in the class offered that it is ?a question that can be tested.? Heather had been giving a long, involved definition and was absolutely floored that a five year-old would have such a perfect, concise definition. He offered that he learned it from a dinosaur on television. Heather was amazed that in her long years of science education, no one had ever offered such a perfect definition. There is hope.
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| 130104 Day 62 Cape Cod Visit, USA–Fun with Jonah's Karaoke Machine |
