Returning after a week

Hi:

My daughter has pointed out that I has been over a week since I posted anything. Sorry about that. I am still trying to get used to my cataract free eyes. I had the second eye done last week. I will still need corrective lenses, so a lot of my vision without glasses is fuzzy and I have a hell of a time trying to find the right combination of old lenses (I have trifocals) that make reading possible.

We have been busy since the children had the reunion here on the 8th of August. This past weekend Marian and I celebrated our 29th anniversary by driving up to Mt. Pleasant, Mi (72 miles north) on Sunday. With the help of some church ladies we were able to get into the church where we were married 29 years ago to the day. It was a moving experience. We had a snack at Wendy's since that is were we used to meet during our early courting days and then went to take a look at our old house. The people living there were home and gave us a complete tour of the place. Again a very nostalgic experience. We ended the day with a visit with Tom and Penny Wildman (Tom was on the CMU faculty). It was a magical trip for us.

I continue to be fully functional, but there are signs that the disease is progressing. I can no longer take in any substantial amount of food orally so I depend 100% on my tube feeding for my nourishment. So far so good. I am still holding my weight at 165 even though I have not taken in more then 100 to 150 calories a day by mouth for over a week.

Ed Thorp our old trainer has been coming over once a week to help me convert the queen of herbs to useful products. Yesterday we made up 5 jars of Peanut Budder and baked another 220 Waldorf cookies. The Waldorfs (two cases of quarts so far) are all vacuum sealed in quart jars so they should last a couple of years for Marian to snack on.

We have had a variety of nurses taking care of me these past two weeks as our regular nurse has been taking sick leave once or twice a week. Now she has decided to take a months leave of baseness, so we will be setting up a new “permanent” nurse in the next week or so.

Last night we had a great visiting nurse. She was the most informative and helpful hospice nurse we have ever encountered. We are hoping to have her serve us with some regularity.

Started reading “Tuesday with Morrie”. Should have read it months ago. I was reading it so fast I decided to slow down and start reading some other stuff. I will go back to it tonight. I have had the book awhile, but did not feel that it would be that relevant to my situation since Morrie was dying of ALS and I am being killed by cancer. I am over that egocentrism now. I have broadened my horizons

Margaret (Hospice Chaplain) was here today. She tries to come over every Thursday morning about 10:30 and we discuss books I have been working on and items discovered on the net. She keeps pushing me to write a synthesis of all the items I come up with, but I think that is beyond my span of attention.

This afternoon the Gallonskys are coming over. He is a retired MSU physicist and she had Harry as a teacher when she was at Wisconsin. They are UU’s and share a lot of socio-political views.

Tomorrow morning Chris (an old lunch meeting guy) is coming over in the morning to teach me (relearning for me)cribbage. Should be fun since he too is an atheists so we have much to talk about. In the afternoon Ann Andrews from the church will be here to discuss the formation of a covenant group at the UU church on the topic of coping with the final stages of life. We will probably not be able to get it going until September since so many UU’s are away in August.

Monday Tom and Penny Wildman are coming to visit, and on that morning I have a visit with my old radiologist.

So you think we are busy. Add to that “drops in my eyes about every two hours” (cataract follow up) and you begin to see a schedule that is not conducive to thoughtful writing.

Got to go now.

thanks to all who take the time to read our site.

Bob