Long weekend

It’s overcast but warm today, with a tinge of smoke in the air from wildfires burning out West.  The fact that it’s affecting us, so many thousands of kilometres away, is distressing to say the least!  Today’s flowers are from my “brother’s” garden in southern Ontario; they look like a victory sign, so I thought I’d share that!  Jerry is currently at the park with Don, and I imagine that they are enjoying themselves, especially the tiny dictator, who just loves to run around and boss the other dogs that he meets!  He thinks he’s bigger than he is, and has no fear of challenging dogs that are 15 times his size!  Don reported difficulty breathing today, which we attribute to the humidity and the smoke, a combination that is not conducive to easy breathing even in a fully healthy person, and definitely not someone with COPD.

I’m currently at the hospital getting a blood transfusion; so that’s how my Saturday is going… fair indication, really.  I’ll also add that taking pain medication before bedtime is not recommended… I was in some pain last night (unusual for me these days, but it does happen every now and then) and took one of my meds, and I was awake until almost 4am before I finally dropped off to sleep.  My tummy is finally settling down, thank the good Lord, as it’s been almost 4 days of challenges.  My appetite is not great today, but I actually felt the first stirrings of hunger in about a week.  I think the new meds are battling it out with my system at the moment, causing these difficulties.  It’s pretty normal that this weekend (after chemo) is when I feel most tired, but when you add in tummy issues and low hemoglobin, I’d like to be able to sleep uninterrupted for about a day, followed by gorging on some excellent food.  Anyone volunteering to cook something yummy and high calorie?  😆

My sister is now back at home with her family after an all-too-short visit and a packed work agenda.  I spoke with them this morning, and my little niece was super excited to have received her new jewellery box, and showed me that she’s already put in her “toy” jewels and it’s in pride of place on her “beauty station.”  It will, she informs me, be decorated to look even prettier than it does now.  (It’s a wooden box with a butterfly design that’s intended to be painted)  Then she asked if I could come to her house tomorrow, or if she could come to mine.  I promised that I would come to visit soon; and she wants me to wear my sunflower dress so we can look alike again!  My nephew thanked me for his monster truck and then ignored me for the rest of the time 😁  They’re off today getting cleats as they start playing football (American soccer) next week — he’s very pumped about that!  

I’ve got a couple of hours here, so I’m using part of the time to write this, and then I’ll finish off reading grant applications; I’m running a bit behind schedule on those as I took the week off to deal with feeling less than great.  It’s fine, though.  I’ll feel more energetic after this, and hopefully with a good night’s sleep and a hefty meal (with some personally delivered fresh strawberries) I’ll be closer to my usual self again.  Please pray hard that my scan results are better this round, and that the “doctors will be confounded” — it would be so much fun to do that! (And my oncologist would also love that too.)

Ok, I’m off to read lengthy documents — this is the only time that I miss having a laptop instead of my trusty iPad.  The screen isn’t really big enough to run 2 apps side by side, and to do copy/paste is annoying.  I don’t really do enough work to justify a laptop, though, so I just suck it up and grumble.  And argue with my printer, which is eternally out of ink, even after I’ve just put in new cartridges.  I don’t do enough printing, either.  Neither is a real problem, I just wanted to whine a bit.  Enjoy your weekend!