Kno Knitting Happening

No, no knitting.

I frogged Leonie's sweater and found the pattern I will actually use but have not started it.

School is down to the wire, the lit mag needs to be put to bed, and student papers await my expert analysis. Heh.

And our house is full of family now. We have DD#1 who just finished writing and emailing her last paper (would that I could have emailed finished papers to my professors in college--sigh) and now calls herself a senior. DD#2 and her BF Alex are here (he's visiting until Sunday) and she will be performing tomorrow as Roonil Wazlib at the SF Public Library at 3. DD#3 is finishing her classes (today was the AP Spanish Lit exam--imagining myself taking that exam EVER makes me LOL), and wiping down counters and pulling shots at Peet's Coffee. DMIL spent the day in SF (what is with all these acronyms? IDK.) getting her museum fix, after nearly a week now of cooking and kitchen duties at our house.

Lest you think that her ungrateful DIL isn't treating her well, let me just say three words: upper respiratory virus. Sigh. This has been my year for every little germ that comes down the pike (or sticks to my stapler--it's the students who give me these little gifts). After a wonderful dinner with DH at our friends' house a week ago tonight, (and the last [outstanding!] wine Keith can enjoy until he's finished treatment), I realized I had a bit of a sore throat. Woke up the next morning to a bugger of a cold. Then it turned into a croupy cough. But enough about me--I am finally on the mend.

Which is good because DH had his first chemo treatment Wednesday. I'd been doing my utmost to avoid spreading my germs around, and am still holding my breath that no one else will come down with this thing. He spent the entire day in the treatment center at Camino Medical Group, a brand new facility with quite a thoughtfully arranged place for those who need their medications to fight the good fight. He was accompanied most of the day by his mother and/or DD#1, and DMIL even came home to make him sandwiches, taking them back to him for lunch. Now that's love. <3<3 Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I was sleeping, coughing, swilling tea, taking copious doses of medicine, repeat ad infinitum. When DH came home that evening, he looked pale but really, otherwise, no different. He had dinner with us, stayed up doing work and emails, and then went to bed as usual.

Two days out, he is feeling achy but in most respects is not showing ill effects from the drugs. For the five days after treatments, he has to take prednisone (in doses, he says, that out-do Arnold Schwarzenegger and Barry Bonds completely), which helps eliminate any nausea that might creep out around the edges of the anti-nausea medication they started his chemo with. It is also a cancer fighting drug (I had no idea!), so his four-pronged hayfork is now stabbing away at those cancer cells.

He agitated for, and was given, a CD with his CT and PET scans, showing the locations of all the lymph system tumors and indicating their relative size. Having documentation reassures an engineer in some way, and the scans make manifest what he is trying to eradicate by taking extra good care of this body while the chemo drugs do their magic. And with the scans and other data, he has quite characteristically made sense of his life by creating a Powerpoint sort of presentation. 8^)

Time to get some rest so I can get up and spend my Saturday working on last details of the literary magazine. The sooner we get it done, the sooner I can get on with the rest of the school year and all its frenzied happenings.

It is my sincerest hope that you are all knitting and enjoying your craft. I intend to start doing that around June 8, the only limitations being my wonky shoulder and being available for DH's support and care needs. Cheers,
~Stacie