Sandwich Life Cancer 2023: 104 Appointments, but Who's Counting?
Ernie had 104 doctor appointments in 2023. Number of weekdays, less holidays, in a year? Around 250. So on average, he had an appointment every two, two and a half days. I gotta say, it really felt like more.
Well, it was 104 appointments but that includes blood draws, scans, infusions, stent replacements, radiation treatments, etc. It's a rough count. I may be off by a few numbers either way, but I swear some of those "come in for more platelets and/or blood infusion" appointments didn't always show up on there so I bet it’s more. Some of those appointments were 8+ hours to boot. Suffice to say, we spent a LOT of time at the Cancer Center here in town, as well as Barnes Hospital in St. Louis. We spent so much time at the Cancer Center here in 2023 that Ernie even got the grumpy valet guy to be friendly to him.
Once.
Just once.
Recently I’ve been telling folks how perky Ernie is these days (for some reason Vasireddy always laughs at this, I guess it’s not a medical term). It wasn’t until I was looking at pictures from last year and pulled up a picture of Owen buying his first legal drink from Kerry at Fries and Peanuts in January of this year that I remembered that Ernie’d been too sick to go with Owen on his birthday proper. And in fact even that day he was a little shaky.
I sometimes forget how damned sick he was back in 2022 and how long it has taken him to more or less recover. Losing 70 pounds in a matter of, I don’t know, months I suppose, but a lot of it came off in just a few weeks. I can’t bear to look back at my blog and see. My stomach knotted up right now just thinking about it.
I just started writing about the fact that the Black-Volk Festival was over two years ago when I checked dates and found, to my amazement, that no, it was only a year and a half ago, not two and a half.
I can not begin to understand the passage of time.
He still has some days that are better than others. We try to keep him plenty hydrated as if he veers toward dehydration it can set off some nasty side effects. We have a follow up at Barnes in a week or two and here at Carle he will continue with his Keytruda, but only every six weeks now (same dosage overall, but given in a larger dose so less often).
Who knows what the future holds but I am grateful for his current status and we try to savor every damn minute of it.
Onward.
Love,
Cynthia
Oh, and I had a mere 27 appointments but a lot of those were physical therapy (I don’t know why that matters…physical therapy just sounds more positive to me).