Still cold here, and the trees are looking somewhat apprehensive and half-hearted with regard to their obligation to bloom; not the onion grass, however, which was poking up everywhere until it got mowed yesterday…by Peter! I was shocked to hear the mower being cranked (“Who could that be?”) and, sure enough, there was Peter, all bundled up and pushing the mower out of the garage for the first time all Winter.
Other adventures yesterday included a trip to the doctor for Peter to leave some blood to be tested for exposure to Chicken Pox. We are both trying to get our Shingles vaccinations but one must be certain of having had Chicken Pox because the vaccination can cause the disease in a person who has not already been exposed, and Peter couldn’t be sure.
We also drove to Atlanta Airport to pick up daughter Margaret, who had some business in Cancun and arranged to stop over with us for a couple of days on her way back out to the Bay. We stopped at Mall of Georgia for a good dinner on the way home.
So, you see that Peter is getting out and about and resuming many normal activities once more. He just came in from putting out food for the bluebirds we are seeing on the property. One overstressed male has been flying into our windows, attracting the attention of Lemont, our cat. Bluebird and cat were face-to-face, separated only by a pane of glass and a screen. If birds can have heart attacks, I worry for that one.

It’s now eighteen days of chemo/radiation/xanax-free living for Peter and what a difference! People who see him lately are telling him how good he looks and how much he seems like his old self again. He’s taking brisk walks every day, sometimes to Earth Fare to buy provisions and carry them home; he’s resumed doing the dishes after I cook a meal; he turns his clothes right-side out without help from me, and he asked to be driven to Office Max to buy Turbo Tax and see if he can file our income taxes. He’s eating normally again: tonight he ate a big hamburger. Following his directions, I took him to his favorite barber shop this afternoon and he got his shaggy head neatened up, GI-style. His hair has taken quite a beating from the surgery and then from the radiation, and all the lengths had to be reduced to one, the shortest! I have to say, he looks much better. One of his sleeping meds seems to be helping to some extent, so he’s getting more sleep, at least after midnight, when it kicks in. The sleeplessness is what’s bothering him the most now, and maybe some gout, which comes and goes.
He just walked in and I asked him what he had to say to the fans. He says he’s looking forward to getting his keyboard skills back and being able to write to you, so you can see that he has no trouble setting priorities!

I know many of you were checking the blog site yesterday, expecting the promised report from our visit to Duke, but your faithful reporter was prostrate with fatigue and had to take the day off. Thank you for your patience!
Peter’s day at Duke started with a visit to the lab for some blood work, then to the MRI building, concluding with a visit to the oncologist at the cancer center. Dr. Ranjan had the blood work and MRI results in hand and spent quite a bit of time with Peter. One of his kidney numbers was high, indicating that the kidneys are struggling , perhaps in part due to the stresses of chemo and radiation, so she has stopped a couple of his meds in order to allow the kidneys to recover, if possible. There was nothing to worry about on the MRI, although it was done without contrast; the contrast medium is also hard on the kidneys and, thanks to the blood panel, the radiologist knew in advance to make that adjustment.
Peter’s biggest problem right now seems to be lack of sleep, so he is hoping to find a medicine that will work for that. He took a good walk alone yesterday and is definitely eating better, trying to reverse the substantial weight loss of the past two months.
We will need to return to Duke April 3rd for a PET scan, but after that we might be able to get the MRIs done here in Athens and not have to drive to Duke more than once every four months.
Overall, Peter seems to be doing well, considering what he’s been put through, and Dr. Ranjan said as much.
Very special thanks are due here to our good friend, Ed Levine, who stepped up and offered to be the second driver on this trip, when Lis couldn’t do it due to her broken hand and bronchial infection. Ed was going to “help” with the driving but ended up doing three-quarters of it; Peter says that’s because our car is just so much doggone fun to drive, but we both agree that it’s also because Ed is an all-around nice guy. When Peter discovered on the road in North Carolina that his camera bag, containing his wallet and ID, cell phone and house keys, had gone missing, it took Ed to focus our thinking and put us back on the trail. We had been stopping so frequently for Peter to stretch his legs that I had despaired of knowing where Peter might have left the bag, but Ed found the McDonald’s we had visited and the young lady behind the counter reached down and produced Peter’s bag, all its contents intact. Thank God for honest people and all the happy endings they make possible.

Today we’re packing and trying to remember everything we need for a road trip, because tomorrow morning will arrive before we know it, and we will soon be making tracks for Durham, North Carolina, and Duke. Peter is having a good day, and for the first time in a long time, his voice sounds almost normal! Either the chemo or the radiation had made his voice scratchy and low in volume, sometimes barely above a whisper, but today I notice that it’s much stronger. He has been eating better, too, and we took a 20-minute walk around the block.
Peter’s brother, Gaby, and Gaby’s grandson, Erik, were with us and with Lis for the last two weeks, and they are leaving today to return to Germany. Gaby was here in Athens with us for four days, and he and Peter had a chance to catch up with each other. Lis had an accident at home and broke a bone in her right hand, so she’s now wearing a cast, and then she came down with a bronchial bug, so she won’t be able to drive with us to Duke tomorrow, as she had planned. Our good friend, Ed Levine, has offered to accompany us as a second driver, for which I am so grateful. It’s an eight-hour drive, one way, and although Peter is much better now than he was in December, it will be reassuring to know that Ed can take the wheel when my knee locks up, as is its wont, or when I get sleepy, after too many hours of superhighway. We’ll be on the southern edge of the latest snow storm, so I’m hoping that it will stay out of our way.
The dialysis cycler malfunctioned last night in a new way, necessitating a late call to Technical Support, and we lost three hours dumping out of the dialysis in progress and starting over, after which the night went fairly smoothly. Peter is trying to pace less, but he says that he has to work so hard not to get up and pace that he can’t sleep! ??? Are our problems intractable, or what? Or are they merely intricately baffling, in a Zen-like way?
I’ll try to send an update some time Wednesday, after we’ve seen the docs and have something to report.