Favorite Stories

Well we made it through the 4th with all our fingers intact!  Dave got up in the chair to watch the kids (neighbor kids in the cul-de-sac had their own spoils) light things off and even though we didn't go to see any big displays we had plenty of neighbors with the big booming overhead less than legal stuff going on. It was a short and sweet display.  We went back inside, I gave Dave a haircut and got him back to bed.

The next day he had chemo and everything went pretty well.  Owen came with us because we thought it might be fun to go to the hospital cafeteria and eat at a "restaurant" (it's actually pretty nice) together but really the whole thing just bored him and he probably won't want to go with us again.  Hahaha.  Poor kid.  That's part of what being a kid is all about, right?  Getting dragged around by your parents to things that don't interest you? 

We've noticed that Dave's feet haven't been as swollen the last couple of days.  I can actually see his ankles again!  *snicker* His nurse was on vacation and just saw him after a week and a half away and noticed it right away.  We suspect that not doing the Temodar anymore (it's been about 6 weeks since his last treatment) is helping the swelling.  We knew it was one of the possible side effects but it's nice to actually see a result.

We're having a bit of an emotional week.  We've started talking about how long he'll be on the Avastin.  Not that we're chomping at the bit to make a decision but we're well aware that his arms are gradually getting worse and we're trying to make an educated decision about how much longer the chemo will benefit him.  As morbid as it may seem to think about this stuff we want to find that balance between giving him comfort and prolonging his agony.  We'd rather have a plan of action than let it sneak up on him and have to make a snap decision.  We're planners.

We seem to do pretty well as long as we have a plan and something to work towards.  Dave says that he has a finish line, not that he's racing for it or anything but he knows that there's an end point to this suffering for him.  For us, his passing isn't our end because we will continue on but it's definitely the start of something new for us.  It is a strange sort of limbo because we make plans but nothing firm necessarily because we don't have a time limit and that's ok.  We have to be adaptable but knowing what direction we're headed and being on the same page has been helpful.

In my plight to make sure Owen doesn't spend the entire summer playing on the computer (ya right, good luck!) I asked him to pick some books he'd like to read for pleasure.  He does enjoy reading but has had to do an awful lot for school that he wouldn't have necessarily chosen himself.  He picked up the The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander.  We call it the Black Cauldron series because it's the books the Disney movie of the same name was based on.  I think he's only read the first of five but he just started a couple days ago.  I'm glad to see him back in the world of books and away from the computer.  Now if only I could get him to read outside... ;)

This month we have a free preview of the Encore channel and they're showing just about every old James Bond movie without commercials.  David watched a lot of them growing up but there are a few he hasn't ever seen and I haven't actually seen any of them except a couple of the newer ones.  Normally I come in somewhere in the middle and he tells me what's going on and all the trivia about the song and the bond girl and all that because he has to read about the movie while it's on.   I'm trying to clean off the bookshelf so I can finally get around to painting but so far I get about a shelf done and have to stop because the dust gets to my allergies and I don't want to stir up too much and aggravate Dave's allergies.  We're all staying busy.

A journal entry from 1984

"Favorite Stories
My favorite stories are the choose your own adventure stories or horror stories or fantasy stories. My favorite story was a big book that was a fantasy story with about 300 pages.  It was about a little girl that was a sorcerist and got lost in the jungles of Xanth.  Her mother goes after her with all her friends.  But the girl gets caught by an evil witch.  They finally rescue her but find out their country is in danger of being destroyed by little creatures that eat their way through everything. They gather together and save their country."

David adds that he was talking about the Xanth series by Piers Anthony but since he wrote so many books he doesn't remember which one he was specifically talking about.  When I asked him about the horror stories he has no idea what he was talking about.  He figures he either read something he thought was scary and called it horror or maybe he wanted to be scared so he said that but didn't really know what horror meant.  I swear it's like Owen could have written these, chip off the old block.  He's so into "horror" right now even though he's never actually read or seen anything we'd consider horror necessarily.  Boys! 

HA! That reminds me.  When Owen was little we used to sarcastically say, "Oh the horror" when he'd freak out about something that wasn't all that big of a deal.  When he finally picked up on it he started saying it too, sarcastically, but with his pronunciation it came out more like, "Oh the whore!"   (which of course he had no idea what it meant) HAHAHAHA not exactly the same thing but it became a family meme and Dave and I still say it occasionally.   He also called my hope chest a "wish crate" and when the Woody doll (from toy story) would say "somebody poisoned the water hole!" he'd announce "SOMEBODY'S TOYS IN THE WATER HOLE!"  That one still makes me laugh.  To a kid your toys in the water hole is probably just about as upsetting as poison.  Ah innocence.  I'm sure there are more but those are my favorites that come to mind.