Barnes Trip Report and the People Have Spoken
And we wandered home
Long day yesterday and I must admit that a few wander muscles must need some work because I was achy as hell when I woke up this morning, just from being in the car all day I think.
We planned to leave by 7:00 am and we pulled out of the alley at 6:56!! VICTORY! Sweet, sweet victory.
We were headed to the Barnes west of St. Louis, not our regular downtown haunt. We got there about 15 minutes before Ernie’s blood draw. Perfect timing. It was scheduled for 10:30, he was done at 10:36 and the results of his test were in our email at 10:42. Wow. Our doctor appointment was at 11:30. So we Wordled, did the NYT Connections and Spelling Bee, and we waited and we waited and we waited and we waited. And then we waited some more. Eventually they called Ernie’s name and we leapt up. Waiting room behavior is so interesting, with some people taking their time, slowly gathering their things, and finishing their coffee before ambling over. Others, like us, frantically leap up as though there’s a 15 second time limit to get there before losing our appointment. We’d been waiting a little over an hour and a half at that point. We finally got into the room, they did his blood pressure, etc. and then waited another 20 minutes. Ernie checked out a big dead bug on the floor. I leaned my against the wall. I think we were somewhat dazed and glazed at that point.
The doctor came in and it was a quick appointment. It was just a follow up after his completion of Pluvicto. We could have done it by phone but I feel as though we need to be face to face occasionally. My dazed state resulted in me sounding like an idiot. When was his last treatment? Mmmmm. How long has he been on Keytruda? Mmmmm. Was he on Cabazitaxel or was it Docetaxel? Mmmmm. And honestly, it didn’t matter a bit, he found all the info in the chart but I was so frustrated with myself that I was almost teary as we waited for the valet to bring our car. I sputtered away and Ernie just said, “You’re ok, girl.” I used to be able to spout this stuff out effortlessly. This cancer journey has gone on so fucking long (sorry, I’m trying to swear less on here), but it’s been twenty years this year, so sometimes it becomes a blur and you just shrug and say, ‘mmmm.’
I looked at Ernie and said, “WHY have I never made a SPREADSHEET?”
Now I have a goal. If I can do spreadsheets for every holiday meal I can damned well make one of all his treatments.
I’d planned a couple of stops on the way home. We felt like it was late in the day at that point and grumpily pondered skipping them. Once we got in the car we realized it wasn’t that late, and the sun was shining so we kept to our plan. I’ll just share a picture or two and save the rest for another day.
We got home close to 6:30, having stopped to buy wine to go with the leftovers in our refrigerator. We ate, watched a little West Wing, and crawled on into bed.
THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN!
I so enjoyed my little poll in my last post. In fact I mistakenly texted a friend late one night, saying, “I’m so enjoying my little pill.” She wrote back and said, “Uh, little pill?” “POLL, POLL,” I quickly wrote back. Anyway, I think there’s one day left but the results have been pretty consistent all along. Eighty-five percent kindly said they wanted to get an email for every post (thank you, otherwise I would have felt terribly guilty about the barrage of posts) and fifteen percent completely understandably said they’d like just a weekly round up. Friday clearly was the day of choice for said weekly round up. OK! I’m ready! The first round up will go out a week from tomorrow.
NOW, listen closely. I’m hoping to make this as simple as possible.
Go to thesandwichlife.substack.com/account and scroll down to Notifications. Turn them ALL off EXCEPT for Weekly Round Up. You will now receive only one weekly round up email and not an email for every single post!
This is available only for paid subscribers. Although you will be able to turn on the Notification for it as a free subscriber, the emails that go out will only be visible to paid subscribers.
Please let me know if have questions or problems with it. The first Weekly Round Up will go out next week, on Friday, 19, 2024!
Several times yesterday I found myself wanting to say, “Sweet Jesus!” I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from but I finally remembered.
Onward.
Love,
Cynthia