The past year has not been one of our finest. The pneumonias. The fall. The saga of the feeding tube. COVID-19 (the pandemic, not that either of us has it). The unspecified blood disorder.
I don't want to make this a super long blog post, so I'll just say this about the unspecified blood disorder: We still don't know exactly what it is. He did get a treatment for lymphoma that helped with the pesky platelet problem but didn't clear up the pesky protein problem. The oncologist consulted his homeys from MD Anderson Cancer Center, and they were all, "Meh, we don't know." (My words.) So Vic continues to get bloodwork and a visit with the oncologist once a month to make sure things aren't going south.And yet.
When I asked Vic today about his quality of life, he said it was good. Given everything that I mentioned in the second paragraph, he has every right to feel that his quality of life sucks, but he doesn't. He can still take pictures and has been trying to do more of that. Even if we don't leave the house, we can see beautiful sunsets; the moon, the five bright planets and a comet; and hummingbird visitors—all from our house. He planted pumpkins and cucumbers and cantaloupe and watermelon in the garden. We have a boat load of pumpkins and three pickle-sized cucumbers so far. (Still no melons, but 50-50 isn't bad.) He continues to take care of all our critters—domestic and wild. Bella continues to be an unending source of happiness. We are celebrating our 32nd anniversary in a little more than a week. He has more or less recovered from last year's surgery. Even his heart seems to be a little happier: his ejection fraction is 53% (it has, from time to time, hovered in the teens, so 53% is outstanding).
Things could be worse.
This could be a much longer post with more about the unspecified blood disorder and the NotChemo he had for his lymphoma and everything that's happened since I last posted in February, but I'd rather just leave you with a bunch of pictures. 😃
SPOILER ALERT: There are some pretty gruesome pictures at the bottom. Vic wanted to post some of the pictures I took of him just after surgery, and they are not for the faint of heart. But I took some pictures of the same areas today, and I think that seeing how far he's come is pretty neat!
I'll start with fun pictures!
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| Last night's sunset—it was gorgeous! |
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| A broad-tailed hummingbird visiting our bee balm |
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| The Moon (no kidding!) |
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| Comet NEOWISE |
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| The pumpkin patch (and the rest of the garden) from above |
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| One of the pickle-sized cucumbers |
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| The melon-sized pumpkin (it's the biggest one) |
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| Miss Bella (I couldn't attach a video--Blogger said I'd exceeded my maximum size. The nerve.) |
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| Good mask-wearing citizens |
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| Vic getting NotChemo for his lymphoma. During a pandemic. BUT, a nice new quilt from his sister Alice! |
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| NotChemo, Day 2. Back to the tried and true quilt from Chris and Larry Pennel. (Sorry, Jeannie Peppel, your blanket belongs to Miss Bella now!) |
I'll sign off now so those of you who don't want to look at the gruesome pictures don't have to scroll to the end to see if there's anything else.
I once again want to thank all of you for your unwavering support. I am strong for you; I am strong because of you. 💜
And now, on with the gruesome part! (Although, now that I made them a little smaller, I don't think they're quite so gruesome.)
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