Friday Feb 9 Update

Here are the pictures I promised from yesterday’s hike to the green sand beach. The first one is just looking down at the beach; the second one is Don and Tom down on the beach. The third one is on our way back with Don wearing a necklace he picked up; someone had been down there in a vehicle (against the law) and lost some rim off their wheel. Don is ever the clown, so he had to wear it a while. The last picture is Don and I at what I call the Storybook trail today. We were all exhausted after yesterday and slept in this morning. Then we took the Storybook trail and came back to eat sandwiches out up in Kapaau. The Roses are gone back into Kona for their luau experience and Don and I are relaxing. We’re all going to bed early tonight to store up for tomorrow’s favorite hike.

The original purpose of this blog was to keep you updated on my progress in this battle with cancer, so I’d better return to that before you think this is all about a vacation in Hawaii! It is certainly wonderful to be here and if it weren’t for family and friends and lack of funding, we’d love to live here.

I continue to take my oral meds and will through the middle of March. March 6^th I have an appointment for a full body thermogram in Florence, Kentucky. The purpose of that is to see the status of the lesions in my breast and also see if there are any other spots in the rest of my body of which we are not aware at this point. That will help us to determine what direction we should take with treatment after that point. The lumps continue to soften and shrink, so that is good and the goal we had in mind at the beginning of treatment.

I still have plenty of hair, although it continues to fall out. I guess I had plenty to spare. It’s much thinner than it usually is, but most folks won’t notice the difference. The meds are not fun to take, but they are tolerable. They sometimes make me a little nauseated, but never enough to cause much problem. It’s more like indigestion, I think. I don’t have any serious problems with it, so I’m not complaining. I’m not especially fatigued and feel like I’m in pretty good shape because we are going at a pretty good spin. This has been a good experience for me in that I’m learning to cope with not controlling everything; I’m still challenged with the concept of rest. I sleep like a brick, but slowing down to get the rest is my challenge. I’m working on it.

Thanks for caring. Love you all! God bless; I thank Him for my health and your love.