MIA

I know I've been MIA for a while now, but there's been a lot going on lately.

Keith came to Houston on a business trip the second week of November and I decided to give him a ride back to Austin and stay and visit that weekend.  The weather was beautiful and we had a wonderful time.  I did manage to take a few pictures.

We went to a place called The Oasis which overlooks Lake Travis.  It was an overcast day, but still very pleasant.

I thought this statue was cute...

And this map of the United States made me laugh...

And Keith gave his elderly mother some apple juice...with brandy.  It's good for aches and pains.

And I had a nice visit with my grandcats...

Then I came home from Austin and didn't feel well for about a week.  Nothing got done around here for a while, but things are back to normal now.

Reid did have his appointment with the oncologist and his infusion that week and also saw the stem cell doctor again on the recommendation of his oncologist.  The mass had shrunk again, but it wasn't gone.  Based on that the oncologist felt he should now consider another stem cell transplant.  So, things are moving along in that general direction.  Reid is scheduled for another PT scan on the 30th and if the mass is still shrinking (and hasn't started to grow) he will probably be having a stem cell transplant using Keith's stem cells shortly thereafter.  They're talking about possibly admitting his sometime around December 12th.  Of course, all the other testing has to come through OK too.  He'll also be having the bone marrow aspiration on the 30th and Keith will have to come to Houston for more testing.  Then Keith will donate the stem cells and Reid will be admitted.

I believe he'll be in the hospital for around a month and then we'll have to live down in the Medical Center again for a while.  I'm not sure how I'm going to be doing all this with the dog and cats.  Last time Jim came home to let out the dog and feed the cats while I was at the hospital.  Keith and Troy tell me not to worry that they will help, but I do worry about EVERYTHING!

I did wrap Christmas presents last night and hope to get the ones out of state mailed this week.  Then I'd like to tackle Christmas cards.  I'd skip them this year except there are people that don't know that Jim died so I'd like to get them out.  There are lots of old friends that we only communicate with at Christmas.

On Monday the people will come back and finish the slab work (hopefully).  I called the flooring company and told them what's going on.  Hopefully, they can get a crew in to put down the new floor before things get any busier around here.  I'd like to get the house back in order.  Right now we have boxes piled all over the dining room.  And I need to take down the Halloween/Thanksgiving decorations.  I probably won't be putting up any Christmas things.  There's only so much time.

Reid and I drove to Brenham and met Keith for Thanksgiving Dinner.  Brenham is about half way between Houston and Austin.  It was a beautiful day and we had a very good dinner at a Brenham restaurant.  Then we found an empty table outside a closed coffee shop and played a game while we checked the Houston Texans football score on our phones.  What a game!  Reid and I listened to the rest of the game on the radio on the ride home and then watched the game that evening.  We had recorded it just in case the game was exciting.  It was!

I forgot the camera and took these pictures with my phone.  This is the empty table we found for our game.  In case you're wondering the game we played was Pandemic.

And this is Keith and Reid shaking hands the germ free way like Howie Mandel.  (We're becoming very germ conscious again with a possible stem cell transplant looming.)

I'll try and drop in from time to time with updates.  I just find myself kind of worn out in the evening and if I haven't had time all day to get online I just skip.  I've been doing that a lot lately.

I'm so tired of blogger and this new dashboard.  I had everything in this post evenly spaced and even though it looks OK once I hit publish it's all messed up.  I give up!