Chilling in January

After all the excitement and visits in December, January is definitely a slow month for the retirees. I imagine that all the eager beavers who are still dependent on work to make an income do not share this sentiment, and are probably looking for ways to make some extra money after an expensive December month. We geezers can just sit back and watch our bank accounts fill up effortlessly. J. Well, not entirely, we went to the social security office to apply for Bonnie’s social security benefits and that was a couple hours of strenuous work.

The weather in Oregon added to the slowness. We have not seen much rain and the entire state is experiencing a severe drought. The first forest fires have started and the ski resorts were unable to open some lifts due to lack of snow. Even so, for most of the month we have not seen temperatures much above 40 degrees F (5 C) and often have foggy mornings. Lung disease does not agree with that kind of weather and we stayed indoors a lot of the time. The advantage is that we did not catch colds or flu bugs.

The chemotherapy which I had last week is starting to become routine: first the basic health checks (they are still excellent) blood tests (also good considering the medicines that destroy the immune system) and then a couple hours for the infusion.  The next day I went back to the hospital for a shot to boost production of white blood cells. The chemo has side effects; in particular that it makes you itch like crazy, but it also has advantages: I only need to shave every four days and I save on haircuts. I am not completely bald, like some people, but hair is thinning out and the mustache now resembles the first facial hair experiment by an adolescent male.

The Swagger Wagon Wine tour was definitely the high point of the month.

The Swagger Wagon 

As a Christmas present, Sara and Josh organized a wine tour and the four of us took the Swagger Wagon (Toyota Mini Van), for some wine tasting in the Chehalem Mountains. We started out with lunch in Newberg and then headed to the Vidon winery for a private tasting.

25 tastings later..

The Vidon winery is owned by Vicki and Don (hence the name) who are good friends of Sara and Josh and whom we have met some 10 years earlier at Sara and Josh's wedding at the Mt Hood lodge. There are over 600 wineries in the Willamette Valley, but we only managed to do two more that afternoon.

The wineries serve small quantities for tasting, but it adds up after three wineries with nine different wines each and we ended the tour in even higher spirits than when we started. Sara was nice enough to refrain from drinking and dropped us off at home after the event, together with some wines we bought to refill the cellar after the family finally did some serious damage to the contents of that cellar over the holiday period.

We are starting to long for warmer weather and decided to join Sara, Josh and grandkids in Maui for a week. This will be the second week in February. There were still seats open on some flights and we will be traveling way, way back in some middle seats on Hawaiian airlines, which had the shortest flights. It will require some painful adjusting to travel without perks and having to pay for a suitcase (OUCH!).This will be three weeks after the chemo and hopefully the immune system has recovered sufficiently not to catch the bugs of the three hundred people on that flight but I am nevertheless considering the Japanese face mask way of traveling.

The next CT scan will be immediately following our return from Maui and will give us an update whether the cancer is still in check. Meanwhile it has been nine months since the start of the treatment and there is some satisfaction in knowing that the exit takes longer than the gestation period needed to put me on this earth. Probably a lot longer!

Thanksgiving and nearly Christmas

It has been a month already since the last post on this sight.  So much has happened and we have had a very busy social life in the interim.  

After the last chemo therapy session on Wednesday we left for Glen Mills on Thursday to visit many of the friends we left behind in the westward trek.  Our good friends, Pat and Harry, hosted our visit inviting friends and neighbors for dinner and taking very good care of us.  Anne and Martin hosted a wonderful evening with friends and former colleges  It was marvelous to see everyone again and catch up on everyones changes and progressions.  

Unfortunately, all the infectious risks associated with travel caught Barend on our way home.  It began with a viral throat infection which created a racking cough.  Narcotic cough syrup and pills were the only help the doctors could offer until it mutated into a bacterial lung infection.  This just in time for Thanksgiving and the arrival of Jacqueline, Adam, Naomi and Julia for the holiday.

Sara and Josh hosted the Thanksgiving meal and Mike (my brother), Lee (his wife) and his youngest daughter Abby, joined us Wednesday and Thanksgiving day.  It was an exceptional feast and wonderful party.  Four of the five grandchildren returned to the lake house with us for more fun and games until the California family left for home on Saturday.  My afternoon with the wee ones was going to the cinema to see Frozen.

Frozen was an applicable theme as the weather turned to deep freeze soon afterward.  The lake was frozen over then came snow on top of that.

This made the start of Christmas preparations somewhat difficult except for the Elving (shopping) which is mostly my entertainment along with interior decor.  With the help of Sara the tree was cut and brought home and the exterior lighting was begun and later completed.  We are now more or less prepared for the grandkids from California and their parents too, of course.

The most recent chemo was this past Wednesday due to the delay caused by the recovery from infections.  Back on schedule now.  The same day our Ithaca family began their arrivals with Aafke.  Tammo and Jelmer will arrive tonight from California and NYC respectively.

The next chemo at the end of the month will include the results of a CT scan so there will later be a better picture :) of the status of the cancer.

Of Moles and Voles and Donut Holes

A lot has happened since the last post on November 4th.  That was two days before our oncologist visit and infusion chemo.  As it turned out, there was no chemo because the scans taken on November 5th revealed that the maintenance drug was not working to hold the line on regrowth of the lung tumor and a new lymph node tumor in the abdomen was spotted as well.

We went off with a game plan for starting a pill therapy to later be followed by another round of infusion when that failed to prevent a cancerous first down.

Barend, of course, researched the financial aspects of this since it fell under the prescription drug plan rather than hospital costs.  Ouch, double "DONUT HOLE" time, since we would have reached the limit before the end of this year and within a month in 2014.

Avenues of subsidy were investigated but bore no fruit in our case, so on to the next plan.  Luckily the doctors involved agreed that it would be better to spend the $10,000 on a vacation than line the pockets of Genetech and their partners in Tarceva so we moved to infusion again today.  

Whole new set of side effects with this one; hair loss which you might think is not problematic since he has so little but it will involve his mustache and chest hair so.....

This is the last chance to see "Hairy Barry" 

We are heading eastwards to Pennsylvania tomorrow for a long weekend to visit our good friends and former neighbors.  The weather forcast for Glen Mills is about the same as it is for Beaver Creek so we will not be reminded of the extreme cold and snow that Pennsylvania winters can bring.  A good time willl be had by all.

A Sunny October in Oregon

Bonnie and Hans

The first week of October brought us more overcast days and showers. Fortunately our lives were brightened by a visit from Hans who came all the way from Singapore.  Hans and I go way back: We both grew up in Wassenaar, went to the same grade school, high school, college and both lived in the infamous Ferry Street house in Eugene. Hans used to live in Portland and still has a ton of friends in the area whom he visited while staying at our house. In between visits we had fun catching up on our lives and reminiscing about good old times. Hans could not profit from the nice sunny weather which we had the rest of the month, though people living in Singapore and Sydney may actually enjoy cooler temperatures.

Sunny Fall weather in Oregon

On the medical front there is not a lot to report. The maintenance chemo is easier to take and it is certainly easier than Bonnie’s failed tooth implant, for which she needs at least three procedures to correct the situation. Ouch!  While the health may be stable, the golf game is deteriorating and getting to the point of being embarrassing.  Actually, it is embarrassing:  on a bright sunny day I managed to get my worst score in the Oregon City Golf Club daily tournament.  I don’t quite know what to do about this, other than putting the blame on the oncologist.

Jacqueline, Bonnie and Grand Kids at the
Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate park

Family visit to the Science museum in San Francisco

With two free weeks between hospital or doctor visits, we now have the opportunity to do some traveling, so we flew to the Bay Area to visit Jacqueline, Adam and the California Grand Kids. The girls had a school free day on Friday and we visited the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. We visited the Japanese Tea garden and the Science Academy museum, which are both located in the park. On Saturday the girls worked on their Halloween costumes with some help from Oma while Adam and I watched the Oregon Ducks game in the local pub. (yep, won again: Go Ducks). It was a fun weekend, and if Bonnie had not discovered that our flight home was booked on Monday, rather than Tuesday as I thought, we may still be there.

Emmett and Oma at the pre-school Halloween Party

We were invited to our grandson’s preschool Halloween party on Wednesday morning (very nice!) After the party he took us to his favorite restaurant for lunch.

On Halloween itself, Bonnie had the first of her implant surgeries and had to rest the remainder of the day. I went to Josh and Sara that afternoon and enjoyed all the kids’excitement of calling on the neighbors and collecting tons of candy. Even Kellan, just one and half years old, quickly got the hang of this event and grabbed hands full of candy to fill his Halloween bucket. (way to go, Kellan!)

The End of Summer

This week brought us an early start of the Fall with the remnants of a Typhoon causing storm winds and dumping tons of rain across the Pacific Northwest. It was also the first time the lighter one-drug maintenance chemo had been scheduled. Prior to infusion, the Oncologist reviewed the CT scan which was done the previous week. The results were encouraging and showed that the tumors had not increased and neither had the amount of fluid in the lungs. It confirmed previous scans showing the effectiveness of the cancer drugs. The infusion itself was much easier to take and much shorter: we were out of the hospital before noon and the only downside to that was that we missed out on Sara’s lunch visit to the hospital.

While the medical results are remarkable, Robin’s visit to Oregon easily surpassed that. He made a quick and very much appreciated visit to Portland as part of a whirlwind tour across the USA that included Portland Oregon and Portland Maine. We attended the same college and lived in the same Brussels neighborhood. The last time we were together must have been some 20 years ago. We had one and half day to catch up on what has happened in all that time. We also stopped by to visit Sara who knows Robin from her formative years in Belgium. Well..... Belgium definitely, formative maybe.

Robin, Sara and two grand kids.

The time was limited but we managed to see some of Portland, visit the house on the lake, and have a nice dinner in town next to the theater where we had tickets for a concert of Opera highlights. When it was time to move from dessert to the theater Bonnie discovered that the performance I booked was in a totally different venue but a quick taxi ride got us seated on time. Oops, another senior moment. We all stayed downtown for the night, and Robin was off early the next day for a flight to Boston. 

Major Milestone

I just completed the sixth cycle of  chemo infusions, which means that from now on I will be on a one-drug maintenance regimen. This will be done on a three week schedule and takes only about 2 hours.  The hope and expectation is that it will be with fewer side effects. The first six rounds of the infusion took 7 to 8 hours. There will be an additional CT Scan in the coming three weeks to determine the progress followed by an oncologist visit before the next infusion.
So far everything is turning out much better than the medical profession had anticipated. All my vital signs are normal, I can walk normally, my weight is back to normal, and most of my pants don't slide down to my ankles immediately. Due to a partially collapsed lung, I do tire a little faster which unfortunately shows up on the scores for the second nine holes. Other than that I consider myself a medical wonder, and we are grateful for everyone's support that made healing through positive thinking possible.
Sara, whose office is close to the hospital, usually takes her lunch with us when we visit the infusion room, and this time she was accompanied by Alexandra's Chinchilla, who was sent on a field trip to her Mom's office. For the benefit of my granddaughter, here is the proof Chinchilla was really at the hospital.

Amy, the manager of the infusion room, cuddles
Chinchilla

Unwelcome Visitors

Living on Beaver Lake is gorgeous, but it also has it disadvantages. There are really beavers in the lake and right now is about the time they forage for winter. Unfortunately that involved two of our trees that are now missing. One disappeared in the lake and resides wherever the beavers have their lodge, and the other one turned out too big for them to handle and the gardener removed the remnants.

The first tree that went in the lake

This was a two night job

The job was finished the second night. The beavers
dropped the tree of course right on top of
the beaver trap.