Flower photos taken from my dad's garden when I was visiting my parents last month. The pansies were a gift from Uncle Gaby and planted by Aunt Lis. The camellia is a winter Goerig family favorite and PLEASE someone tell us what are those curly green things in the lower left?
My dad wants to fill in the garden with sunflowers when he starts feeling better. Let's hope that's soon!
-Hillary

Day 27. Or is it “Magic Number 15”? I kind of like the smaller numbers getting smaller every day, now that small numbers are possible.
Our struggle the past few days has been with dehydration. Peter thinks he’s drinking enough, but we need to start measuring. Yesterday the radiation tech noticed something about Peter that made her think he was dehydrated, so we went to the cancer center and sure enough, he needed IV fluids. He felt better almost immediately.
He’s trying harder now to eat. He just finished a McDonald’s hamburger and a smoothie, so if we can get some more fluids down him today, he should be OK for the day.
The twice-weekly trips to the dialysis clinic for Epogen continue; “epo”, as it’s called, is a hormone made by the kidneys which helps bone marrow make red blood cells, and so people with busted kidneys often have problems with low hemoglobin. Frequent blood tests will tell his nephrologist how well dialysis is working or what aspect of his current treatment might need tweaking; that’s one good thing about peritoneal dialysis – there are lots of ways to tweak it.
It was nice having Lis with us over the weekend. She brought a carrot/sweet potato soup that is out of this world, and she pureed some for Peter. Sometimes it seems as if Peter’s throat has been burned by the radiation, if that’s possible, and he can’t tolerate foods that are too hot or too cold or too crumbly. No more English muffins, he says.
His motor skills seem to be improving and he needs little or no help with buttons and shoelaces now.
Our friends Mary and Panos from Charleston are coming for a visit this weekend. We haven’t seen them since they accompanied us to Durham in December, when Peter was admitted for his suspected brain abscess. In spite of the hard time he’s having with the chemo and radiation, I think he’s in much better shape now than he was then and we hope they think so, too.
So long for now. Some inconsiderate person must have broken into my house and dirtied every dish and utensil I own, but they left the washing-up to me, it seems!

Day 23. A new month! I told Peter today, “Your treatments will end THIS MONTH!” I’m looking at my calendar page for February and it’s already full of stuff to do, visitors coming to visit, so I know the time will fly.
Peter’s having trouble keeping down what little food he can eat, so that will be our focus now. He wanted a McDonald’s hamburger today and it stayed down.
He wanted to go for a walk this afternoon, so we bundled up and walked around the block. He hasn’t done that in a long time and I hope he keeps it up.
Now we’ve got the weekend to look forward to, and sister Lis arrives tomorrow with her dog, Millie. Lis and I will put our heads together about this food business. If anyone can get results in that department, it will be Lis, the self-described “food nerd” of the family!
Peter has invented a new way to keep his dialysis fluid lines in place so they won’t set off the alarm when he rolls over. Let’s hope it works.

When I was visiting my parents last month I was able to take my dad to get a haircut. Here he is on Jan 22, 2013 at Sheats Barbershop in Athens. Despite feeling so sick, he hasn't lost his desire to be dapper. - Hillary