It's always nice to spend a little more time at Pike Place Market. We stopped by for a little shopping to fill out the grocery/spice list for Thanksgiving dinner, after having stopped off at the hospital to have Silent Bob disconnected. I had a mission at the market - check out the shellfish. National Public Radio had a feature story about oysters last Tuesday night that stayed in my head all week. Many of our local bivalves were noted. I have decided that next weekend will have to be devoted to shellfish appreciation, with a sampling of all of the different local oysters (and one or two from further away) - Kumamotos, Olympias, Penn Coves, Quilcenes. The story is at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16250281. To get in the mood, I picked up a bag of Penn Cove mussels which ended up as lunch today, steamed in Belgian beer and shallots. And next weekend is also the second short season of the fall for razor clamming, so I expect to snap up a few of the elusive clams (really, they are elusive - they really do move quickly as you try to excavate them).
A relatively uneventful week at the treatment clinic this week. I think I owe my nurse this week, Jenny B, an apology for being a difficult patient. She was working with a new nurse to the oncology group and did an excellent job explaining the four-page list of pre-medications and medications to be administered that day. But like I said, I'm a difficult patient - it's not that I cause trouble, but I guess I'm a little more sociable than most of the patients. It's not unusual for other patients to come and visit me, or for me to go visit other patients for a chat. It's a way for us to stay connected with each other, compare notes on treatment, and offer a sympathetic ear when things aren't going quite as well as hoped. But I think it makes a little more work for the nurses, trying to keep track of us all, as our IV trees sound off and they try to figure out who needs to have a bag of meds changed out. And it's probably a lot more work if you're trying to provide instruction to a new person and your patient keeps moving around on you. The nurses do a pretty good job of adapting to our mobile ways, and if I end up parked at a different station, somebody else will keep an eye on me until I go back to my own chair.
I offer an apology if I've made taking care of me more work than necessary. My treatment puzzles me. My first round of the nuclear option fries my skin, and then the following round does nothing except make me too tired to stay awake. And with virtually no obvious skin rash this time, I guess the latest set of numbers are not a surprise with an increase up to 8.6 from the previous 5.4. So now I wait to see what the third round will bring - itches, rashes, fatigue - who knows what I'll end up with this time.
Regardless of what ends up happening, I plan to enjoy a little time off for Thanksgiving, and hope that you enjoy it as well.
