Staying Busy

Gorman and I are trying to act like normal people.  We had our supper club at our home last Friday night and had so much fun.

We are leaving for UAB in a few minutes.  This will be a quick and easy visit; just blood tests and a physical, chat with the Research Nurse and then we should be headed back to Fairhope by noon tomorrow.

On Friday we are going to New Orleans for the weekend.  Gorman’s old high school buddies have a reunion every few years in NO, planned around the Ole Miss-Tulane game.  He’s looking forward to this.

Well, we are pressing ahead with arranging our Maine trip in October.  I’ve made all the reservations.  I tried to get trip insurance but guess what: cancer is a pre-existing condition and they won’t cover it so what the heck.  We’re just making our plans.

Every day I pray and ask God to please give us at least a few more good years together.  Sometimes I think I can almost hear God saying to me, “I gave you today.  Are you going to waste it with fear and worry?”  Then my outlook improves.

We realized a while back that both Gorman’s hearing and vision have gone down, affected by either the surgery or the radiation?  Who knows.  So he got new glasses, which didn’t help much.  As a part of the clinical trial, he sees the UAB opthalmologist every other month.  This doctor gave him a new prescription and he now has new glasses that are a huge improvement.  This is just a little quality of life thing that has given him quite a lift.  It’s nice to be able to see!

Celebrating Our 43rd Anniversary In Highlands!

Another Round of Temodar

Gorman finished his fifth dose of Temodar today and is doing okay; not great but okay.  It’s just the usual symptoms: fatigue, queasy stomach and no appetite.  He keeps saying it could be worse and he tries not to give in but he’s dozing on the sofa right now, which is just what he should be doing.

Well, it’s been a while since my last post; we’ve been busy and that’s been nice.  We had a lovely time in Highlands.  The weather was cool enough to build a fire several nights and we loved that.  We ate at some good restaurants, shopped a lot (speaking for myself) and just enjoyed being in a cooler climate.  We laughed about having to wear sweaters to sit outside in the mornings; delightful!  We spent a fun evening with some old friends from Jackson who live in Highlands half the year.  Gorman got to fish and really enjoyed that.

Hurricane Isaac was stirring up the Gulf Coast while we were in Highlands.  We talked about coming home early but decided there was nothing we could do and we actually stayed an extra day to avoid all the heavy rains.

We have been planning an October trip to Maine, Gorman’s favorite place.  Now we realize that his next MRI is October 3, the week before our trip.  What if it’s a bad one?  Certainly we wouldn’t want to be heading off on a trip if that happened.  What if the doctor called for more radiation or maybe another surgery?  What if he thought something needed to be done immediately without delay?  As you can see, I can “what if”  myself endlessly but this is our life now.  We can’t really plan very far ahead.  We life from MRI to MRI and from chemo treatment to chemo treatment.  The chemo we can work around but the MRI every two months always brings such anxiety and, yes, fear.  Our faith keeps us living and enjoying each day and we really try not to think too much about the future but that MRI shoves it in our faces.  It so helps Gorman to have something like a trip to look forward to so I guess we’ll just keep on trucking and counting on the best.

Despite the heavy doses of chemo each month, Gorman’s hair has grown back and now covers his scar so he doesn’t feel self-conscious anymore.  Most people don’t even know he’s sick and he likes that.  I read that someone said that his cancer was the least interesting thing about him.  Gorman could have made that same statement.