Thursday, June 21, 2007

Thursday, June 21, 2007 - A week later...

Hiya Bloggy,

Hehehe... ok, I have had a gentle nudge (or was that a kick in the butt??) from my friend Chet who subtly reminded me that it's been a week since the last posting. I seriously have no idea where the time goes! I'm turning into being a bad blogger (grin)!!

Soooo what has gone on in the last week? Oh oh... chemo brain definitely makes remembering daily stuff a real challenge, so I won't even begin to try and remember what happened on what days! Suffice it to say, it's been a busy week.

The most important... I am FINISHED MY RADIATION/ORAL CHEMO treatments!!! YIPPPEEE!!! 25 sessions of 3 zaps from 3 different angles, so a total of 75 zaps are now completed! With the completion of the radiation is the completion of the oral chemo... both have caused some interesting side affects that I hope don't take too long to get rid of. The oral chemo has caused problems in both heels which makes walking a bit of a challenge. I also have all over muscle/joint pain which is probably caused by the combination of chemo/radiation and doesn't help that I also have the underlying issue of arthritis. The radiation also had just started to form a burn/rash on my lower left side, but Dr. Ma gave me a prescription cream and after two days that seemed to do the trick. Of course, even though I've stopped the radiation... it still continues to do it's thing for the next 2-3 weeks before my insides can even think of starting to heal. So I now get 4 weeks of no treatments... to let the radiation do it's thing...before going back on the 2 aggressive IV chemos. That will go until the middle of September. But hey, at least the daily radiation is now behind me!

I have also been working on Box Office processes/procedures for Theatre Under The Stars. This is like going down memory lane. I used to work with TUTS a kajillion years ago and had forgotten how beautiful it is in the middle of Stanley Park in the summer. Then to do theatre...what more could you want? The difference now is that I can't be there for every performance... I have to juggle my time so that I don't over commit myself and give me enough time for rest and getting through the chemo. But I have learned that the best things to keep my attitude up is to keep me busy with stuff I love doing... and working on shows with old friends is high up on that list :)

This is a picture of Malkin Bowl, aka as our outdoor theatre stage. Right now, it is not set up, so you can see the stage area is boarded up, as well there is no fencing or seats set up for the audience area.


Hehehe... this is a prime example of the results of all our Pacific Northwest rain. The plant life loves it and Stanley Park has oodles of varieties of plant life. This pond is just in front of where the box office will be.

This is the Stanley Park Pavillion. Notice just to the left of the yellow umbrella and underneath the windows there is an open door? That's our theatre office that we have our meetings at, answer phones, etc. A little trivia... this building was where my parents had their wedding reception almost 55 years ago.

Let's see... what else has happened. Oh, on Monday, I met up with some of my Hawaiian buddies. Peggy and Chris who live in Langley, Lynn and Darlene from Idaho, and John and Marge from California. The hotel that the 4 of them from out of town were staying at had a (gasp) Casino so guess where we all ended up spending hours at?? (grin) And yes, I did get lucky in that I hit a progressive jackpot for $1011... just in the nick of time because I was down to my last $38 :)

This is a picture of darling Otto and his mom, Darlene. We are at Chris and Peggy's new house that is still being built. Otto, Darlene and her husband, Lynn, are from Idaho and had driven up here.

I also met up with my friend, Robin-Eliece who is in town for two weeks. She is from Vancouver but currently living in Prague, Czech. So we got together and went out for lunch. She will be coming over here again this afternoon. Not sure what we will be doing because I'm a little tired. We may go out for an early dinner or just hang around here.

I also went out for a spur of the moment dinner with my friend, Doug the other night. Doug lives across the street from me and he had called to congratulate me for completing my radiation treatments. Since neither of us had eaten, we decided to go out for dinner.

Sooooo... that's about it for now! We shall see what the weekend brings :)

Ciao for now!

Cheryl