Last Blog until March 5

We took our time packing and getting out of Solivita. It quickly became apparent yesterday that we weren't going to make it to the movie. No loss. It got terrible reviews.

We finally pulled out of our neighborhood around 11:30, heading south on the Florida Turnpike. I had just activated a SunPass to pay the tolls, so it was fun to go through the express lane and see the toll get paid automatically, just like the NE EZPass. I love that. Now I have both on the car, so I'm good from Maine to Florida! LOL

Around 1 p.m we stopped at one of the turnpike rest areas for lunch. I had planned to do a Subway lunch to keep my calories low, but there wasn't one. Instead we ate at Earl of Sandwich. We love their tuna melt and tomato soup, having had it a few times at the one at Disney's Marketplace. After that delicious lunch, we took off again, but about an hour later down the road, just south of Port St. Lucie, I got a flat tire. It was weird! I never lost control of the car, but I heard a noise and soon realized I had a flat. When I pulled over, it seemed like the tire had just disintegrated. There were piles of black ash in heaps around the car.

We emptied the trunk and got out all the necessities, but Mark could not budge the lug nuts at all. While he was on the phone calling AAA, a tow truck pulled up. The driver said he would change the tire for $25, so we said GREAT! We were heading back down the highway in just a few minutes, going 50 in a 70 zone with my flashers on. We had to go south 16 miles to get to the exit off the turnpike at Jupiter, FL. Then we turned right around and went 12 miles north on I-95 to the nearest tire store that was open on Sunday. We arrived at 4 and they closed at 5. By 5 we were heading out the door with four brand new tires. I made sure he looked at all four tires because they were all the same age. Starting a three week vacation by dropping $464 for tires before you even get on the ship isn't my idea of a good time, but now I have four great tires, and I had no other options. This kind of emergency is exactly why Mark wanted to drive to Miami a day early so there would be no surprises.

Back down I-95 we went, but we hit a bit of a back up from around the Ft. Lauderdale airport into the Miami area. We lost about a half hour of time, but still we really had no deadlines. We got to our hotel and the Denny's next to it at 7:30. First stop was Denny's for dinner, where I ate my usual tilapia dinner. They now serve sauteed spinach as a side, so I had string beans and spinach as my two sides. It was delicious, but the spinach was swimming in oil so I didn't save any calories there by trying to be healthy. Anyway we made it into the hotel, all checked in and unpacked, in time to watch Desperate Housewives at 9 p.m. Nice.

This is a Comfort Inn and Suites, AAA recommended. Usually we like them, but this one is FILLED to the brim, including every room on our floor except ours, with teenagers on some kind of trip. They were LOUD, but giggly, and obviously having fun. I guessed they were some kind of school group, maybe a band or chorus or something. Our room had one of those adjoining doors, so we heard everything from the room next door. No sound-proofing here! They were all speaking Spanish, so I had no idea what they were saying, but there was a lot of laughing and giggling. We turned our TV up pretty loud, so it wasn't really bothering us too much until after we turned the news off around 11:20. Then I started to wonder how late into the night it was going to go. Not late. Around 11:45 it suddenly stopped COLD, all up and down the hall as well as in the room next door. Ha Ha!! I suspect some chaperone came around and told them all to go to bed immediately. It could NOT have been a coincidence.

This morning is Valentine's Day! Happy Valentine's Day to everybody. I gave Mark some sugar free chocolates in a Mickey bag before we left the house yesterday, just in case he didn't want to take them on the cruise. He didn't, but he brought the card to open this morning. He surprised me with a beautiful sterling silver Mickey head in a heart necklace. I put it right on so I can wear it all day! Thanks, Mark. Love you lots!!

So off to breakfast at the hotel now. Then we will go hunting for a post office. We planned to mail a package on Friday, but I expected our local post office to keep the same hours as our Maryland one. Oops, never assume anything. We got there at 4, thinking it would be open until 5, but NO...it closes every day at 3:30. HUH? Isn't this a federal agency? Shouldn't it stay open a little longer? Hm...things are different in Florida. So...we still have the package in the car and are going to go find a Miami post office this morning. We also need to fill the tank with gas, so it's ready to head home on March 5 without hunting for gas on a Saturday. At 1 p.m. we have to be in the parking lot about a mile from the dock in order to catch the free shuttle to the ship. We'll get processed and boarded by around 2 p.m., I expect. It sets sail at 5 p.m.

We do plan to buy some internet time, but not nearly as much as we did last spring going to Hawaii and the Panama Canal. I'll take lots of pictures, of course, but I'm not going to upload and send them out until after we get home. That's what cost so much money in internet time. We will check our email quickly maybe every other day, so feel free to send an email if you like. I am not going to blog because that will just take up too much time. I'm not going to lurk on FB either. We will be home on March 5 in the late afternoon, so the next FB post and blog entry will be that evening. See you then!

Meanwhile, here is our itinerary if you'd like to know where we are each day.
Feb. 14 Sail away from Miami
Feb. 15 At sea
Feb. 16 At sea
Feb. 17 St. Bart's
Feb. 18 Guadeloupe
Feb. 19 Martinique
Feb. 20 St. Martin
Feb. 21 At sea
Feb. 22 At sea
Feb. 23 Coco Coco Cay, Bahamas
Feb. 24 Miami, end one cruise, start the second
Feb. 25 Key West, FL
Feb. 26 Cozumel, Mexico
Feb. 27 At sea
Feb. 28 Miami, end this cruise, start the third, our friends Rudy and Georganne are joining us!
Mar. 1 At sea
Mar. 2 Roatan, Honduras
Mar. 3 Cozumel again
Mar. 4 At sea
Mar. 5 Miami, disembark and head home

Bye Bye for now.

"I'm on vacation, rest and relaxation..."

Only my kids will get the reference in the title, and they usually don't read the blog. It's a line from a Disney song that we used to play on a cassette tape on the morning we were getting ready for vacations. It used to make it seem happier to get up at some ridiculously early hour.

This morning we got up at 6 a.m. because we did not pack for our cruise last night. Instead, we had a wonderful time visiting with an old friend. Ellen used to live in Greenbelt, so we met years ago when we were both members of Mishkan Torah. When she retired from teaching kindergarten, she bought a beautiful condo in the Buffalo, NY area to be near her family again. We had a chance to visit her there two and a half years ago.

I knew she was coming to Florida, but I had not realized our timing would work out so perfectly. She had just spent a week in Ft. Lauderdale and then took the train to Orlando yesterday afternoon. I got a call from her once she checked into her hotel on the Disney property. I immediately drove over to pick her up and bring her back to our house for a visit. It was just so good to see an old friend and catch up on what she's been doing. She is one of my most loyal blog readers, so there wasn't much I needed to tell her about what WE'VE been doing!! It was a great ending to a great day.

This morning I was down two pounds, 247, so I was pleased. I ate what I was supposed to with one exception. Ellen brought oatmeal raisin cookies. Ooo...those are my favorites, so I ate 3 of them, but I skipped my two yogurts. My calories were 1675 for the day, a bit more than predicted, but it was still enough to drop two pounds. I'll take it. I'm committed to behaving myself again today. Then tomorrow I'll have lunch and all my meals on the ship for the next 19 days. I'm going to try really, really, REALLY hard not to overdo at every meal. Oh, if you have ever been on a cruise, you KNOW how hard it is not to overdo food and drink. Sigh. I love cruising and I love food, a dangerous combination. LOL

After we get packed and put the house in order to leave it again for three weeks, we still hope to have time to go to the movies at the Disney AMC theaters at Pleasure Island. We want to see the new cartoon movie, Gnomeo, It looked stupid in the previews, but the music is by Elton John. There's really no rush to run down to Miami, so we're going to do the movie and a Subway lunch here before heading down south. Tonight we'll be in a Comfort Inn and Suites near the Miami airport. We did that so we didn't have to worry about getting there on time tomorrow. We can relax tomorrow morning and easily get to the dock around 1 p.m. I will blog one more time tomorrow morning from the hotel, and then there will be no more blogs until the evening of March 5 when we get back home. I'm sure that will be a LONG one!!

Good Morning!

It's a chilly morning here. When I got up, the temperature was 48 degrees, heading to a high of 61. Even Mark won't swim outdoors at that temperature. We are going to shul this morning where we will put four names in for the Refuah Shlayma list: Gordon, Lisa, Mark, and me. Even though my PET scan is clean (Thank God!), I still have my 33 days of radiation to do and my five years of Arimidex to take. I do not consider myself cured yet, but I'm certainly well on the way. I've been fighting the beast since last June. It's exhausting!

I took my first Arimidex pill last night at bedtime, starting my five years of this regiment. One of the most troubling side effects of Arimidex is weight gain. This has me quite concerned. My eating is completely out of control right now. I am unable to say no to anything in a restaurant, and I'm eating too many snacks at home. I was able to put the breaks on this behavior in April of 2009 out of extreme fear that I would die if I didn't because of the hernia surgery I was facing. Dr. Falcao put that fear in me, and it worked. Now I need to dig deep and find that fear again to keep me in control. The thought of five years of Arimidex with an immense weight gain might do it. I am 248 on my home scale this morning. That's disgusting. I was 242 on Tuesday, so in less than a week I have already put on another six pounds. That's more than a pound a day. That's just not normal, but then my weight problem is NOT normal. I even exercised at the weight machines, the stationary bike, and lots of walking on the track and in the Magic Kingdom. Despite that, I still gained six pounds. Unbelievable.

If any of you have ever been on a cruise, you KNOW that it is NOT a good time to start a diet. On our last big vacation, I gained 15 pounds in seven weeks, a bit over 2 pounds per week. I'm going away for three weeks this time and could very well return weighing 260 if I'm not careful. This is getting very scary to me. Not only will it make it hard to walk and move around again, but it will also make my back hurt terribly and could tear open the hernia. The mesh in there is not designed to hold up to a huge weight gain. I weighed 219 in September when it was repaired for the second time.

Another terrible thing about this weight gain is that I have almost no clothes that fit. When I lost over 100 pounds, I gave away all my "fat" clothes. I gave away everything in sizes 3x and 4x, sizes 26 and up. I kept only a few things in 2x, and the rest were 1x and sizes 20 to 22, a few 24s. Now most of those just don't fit. I weighed 40 pounds less when I bought them! What can I expect? Many years ago, as I started to go from 250 to 322, I just kept buying clothes in the next bigger size. Once I lost that weight, I had determined that I would NEVER need those big sizes again, so I gave them all away as we prepared for our move. I donated over 25 large garbage bags full of clothes! So....if I don't lose weight SOON, I'll be wearing the same three or four outfits over and over because I am just NOT buying bigger sizes again.

So this morning I got up with the resolve that for at least the next two days before I get on the cruise, I will do my very best to keep my eating to 1500 calories a day and to exercise at least some today and tomorrow. After shul today, Mark and I are going up to the Palms where I will do four weight machines for arms plus the stationary bike. I started the bike last Saturday and did 5 minutes. Monday I did 6 minutes, and Wednesday I did 7. Today's goal is 8, but if I could go 10, I'd be thrilled. I hope to walk at least 25 minutes also. We walked the indoor track earlier in the week, and I did a mile in 22 minutes. I should be able to do at least that today as well, either indoors or outdoors.

My first meal will be as soon as I finish this blog. Because of the C diff, I had been eating a lot of oatmeal and Activia yogurts. In fact, I ate two yogurts and two packs of instant oatmeal every morning. Sometimes I also ate a banana with that. Calorie count for all of that, including the banana, is about 660 calories. OUCH! Maybe it worked because I no longer have C diff (Thank God again!), but it started off my day with three times more calories than I used to eat when I was losing weight. My breakfast in those days was three sausage links and one yogurt, 200 calories. I read online somewhere once that if you keep your breakfast to 300 calories then it is a good start to having about 1500 calories a day when losing weight. So, this morning I am going to cut everything back by half for a start. I am about to go eat one pack of instant oatmeal (160 calories) and one Activia (80) calories, total of 240 calories. That still leaves me 60 calories, which will be a little of the left-over fruit salad (cantaloupe, blueberries, apples, oranges, and pears). I will probably end up at about 330 calories, and I think that will be a good start. All my meals today will be at home, so I should be able to control them well. Now if I can only keep from going to the fridge or pantry while I watch TV tonight. OY! That's a daily struggle!

PS It's now 3 p.m. We enjoyed the synagogue service because there was a young Rabbi-in-training here from NYC. He will be back in April, so we'll see him then. We came home and I ate an excellent lunch: big plate of green salad with 3 T of grated Parmesan, 1 T of Bacos, and 1 can of tuna in water, big bowl of the rest of the fruit salad. Lunch calories were 390. Dinner will be one griller burger on a low-cal bagel, spinach, and salad, 430 calories. This gives me a total for the day of 1150, so I can have 2 more yogurts and a banana tonight for a snack, ending the day with 1440 calories. I went to the gym and did my four arm machines, 8 minutes on the bike, and then walked 32 minutes outside with Mark (1.2 miles). It wasn't fast, but I was worn out. Still this is turning out to be a day when I feel in control. Maybe the fear of the Arimidex weight gain will work as well as the fear Dr. Falcao put in me nearly two years ago!

Good News

As you could tell from yesterday's blog, I was concerned about what I would hear today regarding my PET scan since Dr. Vijay's office was so adamant that I come in right away. Well, I did not need to worry. The PET scan showed NO CANCER!! YAY!!

She had one concern, which for me was not a concern at all. The CT scan showed the nodules in my right lung that have been there for years. In fact, when they were first picked up on a CT scan, my family doctor referred me to a lung doctor, who monitored them for two and a half years. They never changed, so she dismissed me. Dr. Vijay would like to see a radiologist's report from the previous scans, but I can get that. I might even have it in the house. We were also pleased that the nodules did NOT show up on the PET scan, which means they are not actively growing. All good!

The reason for the urgency about bringing me in today is that she wants me to start the five years of Arimidex today. She felt that it was a month after chemo, so it was time to start. I can definitely take the pills while I'm on radiation. I had not realized that because I thought I had to wait until radiation was over. I took the prescription and will start the Arimidex tonight. There are four main side effects that I must consider. One is the potential for osteoporosis, so that's why I had the bone density scan. Those results were not back yet. She will monitor for that, but I now have a baseline. In the meantime, she was pleased that I already take calcium and vitamin D regularly, so she said just continue those. Two other side effects are frequent hot flashes and joint pain. There's nothing you can do about the hot flashes except endure them. She has had a few patients who hated them so much that they refused the Arimidex and went on Tamoxifen instead, which apparently gives milder hot flashes. The joint pain can range from nothing to severe in different women. She gave me a prescription for more oxycodone, and I can take Advil. Most women's bodies adjust after six months, so then there are no pains. It sounds like it could be a lot like the Taxol pains, but I hope they are milder since they could potentially last six months. I could have chosen Tamoxifen instead, but it comes with the potential for uterine cancer. Also, the Arimidex is shown to have somewhat better results, meaning less chance for recurrence. So, I chose the Arimidex, and I hope I am OK with it. The fourth side effect is weight gain. OY! I didn't need to hear that. She said that it is almost unavoidable, but if I eat right and exercise, I should be able to maintain my weight. ARG! I don't LIKE the weight I am right now. This morning on their scale, I hit a new high, 250. I was 242 at home Tuesday morning, and I always weigh more with clothes and later in the day on a doctor's scale, still I was only 248 on their scale last week. Not good. She also said don't pay any attention to what I eat on the ship, just relax, have fun, and eat what I want. I would like this doctor's advice more if I weighed 40 or 50 pounds less right now. Having gained fifteen pounds on the seven week vacation last spring and another 25 pounds in the last six months fighting BC, I'm not at a weight I want to maintain. Still, maintenance would be better than gaining for five years on these pills. If I don't watch myself, I'll be over 300 again in the next five years. That's a scary thought!

I also had my radiation simulation and tattooing this morning. They walked me through the whole procedure, where to wait, where to change, how to lie on the table, etc. Then they took another ultrasound, which will happen prior to each radiation session. This helps them see inside the body and get the radiation machine lined up properly. They took several more CT scans again (boy they love to do that here!), and finally I was tattooed in three places. I barely felt the first one on the right side, but the two on the left were a bit more painful. The last one bled enough that he put a band-aid on it. I was marked up with a lot of long lines which supposedly come off with alcohol. He washed a few off before I left the table and gave me four alcohol pads to wash some more off in the dressing room. There are still a LOT of marks left, so I am going to go see if I have any alcohol in the house. I might have to get some at Wal-Mart later when I go to pick up my Arimidex and oxycodone.

It has been a busy morning! Now I can finally focus on the cruise. We leave Sunday. Although I am taking my computer, I do not plan to blog during the cruise. That means no blogs from the time we get on the ship on Valentine's Day until the time we get home on March 5. I know that for some of you readers it will be hard to go that long without anything to read. LOL!! I guess you'll just have to go back and re-read the old ones. Ha Ha!!

Has the other shoe fallen?

(I am starting with the good news. If you can't wait, scroll down to the fourth to the last paragraph then come back to the top.)

Yesterday was warm and sunny all day, and we had a full day of chores and fun planned. In the morning, Mark went out grocery shopping and comic book shopping (every Wednesday), so he was gone nearly three hours. While he was gone, I did some treatment-related chores: filed papers in my notebook, looked up claim status from two different insurance companies, called St. Agnes one last time for an itemized bill. I also cleaned out my purse. OMG that was a big chore! I don't think I had done that for a year, and it was looking like a cross between a trash can and a file cabinet. I'm happy to report that it is squeaky clean now, but there is a big pile of papers on my dresser that I don't know what to do with. LOL

I also called my new cleaning lady, Carol. She is coming this afternoon, and I'm hoping to meet her. I don't know if I will or not because I'm also supposed to get that call from the cancer center about when to come in for the tattooing. I thought they would call yesterday, but they didn't. Carol is coming around 1 in the afternoon, so I still don't know if I'll be here or not. At least by talking to her on the phone, she knows where I left her check and where I'll be if I'm not here to meet her finally.

Once Mark got home and ate lunch, the fun started. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are our weight-lifting days, so off we went to the Palms to do our exercise. Since I can't lift more than 10 pounds on my left side for the rest of my life, I have the four arm machines set at 10 pounds. I started off with two sets of 10 reps, but I was curious about the best way to increase that. Fortunately I have a certified Athletic Trainer in the family, Evey. She said it was better to increase to three sets of 10 first. Then when that started to seem easy, drop back to two sets but increase to 15 reps. Then go to three sets of that before dropping to two sets of 20. That will take me awhile, so I'm good for that. The cruise will interrupt that for three weeks, so I basically will start over when we get back.

Then we went to the pool. I thought that Wednesday would finally be my day to swim because the two week restriction from the port removal surgery was up, but NO! Now I'm restricted because of the temporary marks on my chest for the tattooing. DOH! I sat on a chaise lounge and snoozed while Mark did his 20 minute water aerobics routine.

Finally it was OFF to DISNEY!! We went to the Magic Kingdom for dinner and a show. I love that we can do that. We arrived about 6 p.m. while the day was still warm enough to be in short-sleeves, but we carried jackets for later when it was dark. The Snow White ride is going to close down to make way for a new attraction, so we headed to Fantasyland right away to ride it. In the summer the wait is always very long, but today it was just 5 minutes. We really enjoyed it, and I feel sad that they are doing away with one of the original rides. Then we walked to the Pooh ride. It used to be Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, and I was outraged when they shut that down to turn it into Pooh. Pooh is nice, but it's no Mr. Toad. The ride is still the same Pooh ride, but the waiting area through the line has been enhanced with fun things for kids to do to pass the time. We went through the line to see those new things and then ditched out through the Fast Pass entrance way. Dinner at Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe in Tomorrowland was our next stop. It is a counter-service food court with kosher meals available. Mark and I love the corned beef dinner, so that's what we ordered. We were shocked when we saw it had been changed to a pocket sandwich. It turned out to be a good change. The sandwich was excellent and the carrot/broccoli medley was steamed instead of swimming in a sweet glaze. There were fewer potato puffs, but they tasted better than I remembered. All in all, we thought it was an improvement. It was also so uncrowded that we did not need to lurk around waiting for someone to leave to snag a table. In fact, I waited with Mark until we got our food, which in the summer I would never do because I'd be lurking around trying to snag a table, and then we chose the front table so we could actually hear Sunny Eclipse as he performed for us!

After dinner it was time for the main event. Prior to "Wishes", the evening fireworks display over the castle, there is a 10 minute show called "The Magic, The Memories, and You." Over 500 pictures (of the thousands taken) of guests from that very day in the park are projected onto the castle. At least that's what the promos said. It was so much more than that. There was music, colorful displays, animation, and so much more I can barely describe it. You can hardly realize you are looking at the castle because it has been well-disguised by the lighting effects. Everyone really needs to go see it.

We did a little shopping on the way out, which I do NOT recommend. It's super crowded in the stores on Main Street on the way out because everyone waits to shop until the last minute. Sigh. We did it anyway. Mark was on a hunt to buy me a Valentine's Day gift, and since he was carrying a small bag, I think he was successful. I was sent to the Emporium to buy a Mickey head shaped ice cube tray. Our ice machine does not work, so we are tired of having no ice. Now we'll have Mickey ice cubes. I also found a box of Mickey-head shaped, chocolate covered Rice Krispie treats. I did not need that, but it found it's way into my hands anyway. There are only 4 in the box, so I ate one while I was waiting for Mark to finish his shopping. I put the other three in the pantry for a much later date. We got home shortly after 10 p.m., very tired but very happy.

Well, here's the other shoe dropping, maybe. I got a call at 8:30 this morning from my new medical oncologist. I was excited when the phone rang because I was expecting the radiation department to call with that tattooing appointment. Still waiting. Instead, it was Dr. Vijay's office asking me to make an appointment to come in and discuss my PET scan results from Monday. I was surprised about two things. First, I didn't think those results were even going to be back until next week, so I expected to hear about them after the cruise. Second, if there is nothing bad in them, why couldn't they wait until after the cruise or just tell me all was well on the phone. I asked for an appointment the week of March 7 when we are back, but she said, NO, I needed to come in tomorrow. Sigh. So I'm going up there at 11:30 a.m. tomorrow for an appointment to go over those results. Is this a bad thing? Am I feeling depressed and upset for no reason? Is it just standard procedure to bring you in immediately to tell you there is nothing in the scan? Is this place money-grubby and just wants money from CIGNA for another office visit? Hm...that could have happened in March in my book. I don't like this, and neither does Mark. Now I'm sitting on pins and needles waiting for tomorrow morning.

In Baltimore, PET scans were never in the picture, never mentioned as an option. My oncologist said there was no way to tell if the chemo worked. I believed her. She said one-third of the women got chemo when they didn't need it; one third got chemo, needed it, and were cured; one third got chemo, needed it, but didn't get cured. She said there was no way to tell which woman was in which third until many years went by. Now I have had a PET scan, and I've been told that it will show if the chemo worked or didn't. Who should I believe? This could be a good thing if there is something else there that needs to be addressed. Isn't that better than waiting for years to go by when some new cancer or a recurrence has grown so large that it causes symptoms? So tomorrow I will find out, and of course, I will share that information with all of my loyal readers. Please continue to keep me in your prayers.

Well, I took so long writing this blog and uploading all of the Disney photos, that I have now set that appointment at the radiation office. I'm going in tomorrow at 9:15. It's more than just tattooing apparently; it's the simulation. I thought that was what I had on Tuesday, but he said no. The radiation "plan" could not be made until they read the results of my CT scan and ultrasound from Tuesday. Now they have done that, so I'll have a simulation session and tattooing on Friday in the morning for about a 45 to 60 minute session. Then I'll see Dr. Vijay at 11:30 to learn what showed up in the Bone Density scan and the PET scan. I'll wait until I get home from all of that tomorrow before writing another blog, so be patient.

Meanwhile this afternoon, we have decided to take ourselves up to the Solivita pizza parlor, the Upper Crust, for lunch. Today they have tomato basil soup in a bread bowl and salad bar for their lunch special between 11 and 2. I'll probably not meet Carol today because of this, but I don't care. We are also going to walk the inside track for some exercise and to to the Lifestyles office to turn in our checks to join the Travel Club and make our donation to join the Walk for the Cure in March for Breast Cancer. It's a two mile walk and we get T-shirts! I'm planning to work up to that two mile walk on the cruise, but we'll start today in the indoor track. I had said I would do a public walk for breast cancer eventually, so this seems like a good goal. The walk is on March 18 in the early morning. Tonight is free wine dinner at the Lakeside restaurant and the free movie in the ballroom. Tonight our movie is "The Other Guys." We will also be buying tickets for the Solivita Theater group's spring performance on Sunday, March 6. This place has so many activities going on that it would be impossible to do them all! That's why we love it here.

Good Times

I weighed in first this morning, and I was very happy. It was 242. That would have been a horrible number before, but now it represents a loss over the last two weeks of 3.6 pounds. I think I'll take that. I have not really restricted my calories, but the increased activity has helped.

This morning I had the bone density scan, which only took a few minutes. It scanned my back and my right hip. This will be a baseline for bone loss because the Arimidex, which I'll take for five years, can cause osteoporosis. Then I went to the cancer center for the radiation simulation. It took about 45 minutes. I had magic marker and stickers placed in four places, a CT scan, and an ultrasound. Funny, but I just had a CT scan yesterday in the same place by the same tech as part of the PET scan. Oh, well... Results of everything should be back in a few days. I also need to go back on Thursday or Friday for the permanent tattooing of the four dots which will line up the beams. Then I'll finally be free to swim or hot tub on the cruise before going into radiation and a no swimming restriction again.

We left the house at 8:30 a.m. and got home at 1:20 p.m. No sooner had we got in the house than the phone rang. It was the main guard house letting us know that our friends Walter and Lore had arrived at the gate and were on the way. Mark and I scurried around and got the luncheon things laid out just in the time it took them to drive down from the main gate, which is admittedly a slow four mile drive. We had a fabulous time eating lunch on the lanai and catching up on all our news. We have known Walter and Lore for about 11 or 12 years now and always have a great time with them. It was also fun to show off our house. They are now our first official house guests! We took them through the Village Center and had dinner at the Stonegate Grille. It was relaxed and delicious. Then they had a long drive ahead of them back to the Miami area. I hope they had a safe and uneventful trip back down south. We had a great time and will miss them.

PET scan

I had my PET scan this morning. It was fine. I had to be there at 8 a.m., so it was an early morning. Nothing to eat, but all the water I wanted to drink was allowed. First the cheery tech lady injected me through an IV with radioactive glucose. Then she left me alone in a darkened room in a comfy recliner with a warm blanket. I snoozed while the glucose percolated through my system. After an hour of that, I was put on the scanning table. I was shocked at how narrow it was. Even a thin person would hang over the edges. She propped my knees up a little and there was a pillow for my head, but my arms were dangling over the sides. The tech put another warm blanket over me and tucked it in under me so my arms were trapped inside against my sides. Of course as soon as she did that, my nose itched! LOL

I am big, so when I went into the machine my arms were rubbing up against the sides and felt squashed. It wasn't terrible, and she said it didn't matter for the scan if I touched the sides. The scan took an hour. About every 8 or 9 minutes, the machine inched me a little farther into the tube. I tried to snooze again so as not to think about how much time was passing, but it was impossible. After awhile my back was hurting from lying still on the hard table. My arms and hands started to go to sleep from being squashed, and eventually my feet and legs started to go to sleep, too. Just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, it was over and I was brought out of the machine. It hurt a little to sit up because I was so stiff.

Then I had to go to another room for a regular CT scan. At least that only took about 3 minutes, but I had to lay on another hard table. My back wasn't too happy about that!

Tomorrow I have the bone density scan at 9:30 a.m. followed by the radiation planning session at 11 a.m. Usually the radiation tech puts sharpie markings on me, and then in a week when the actual radiation starts, he would do permanent tattooing. I reminded him today that I'm going on a cruise for three weeks, and I want to swim and hot tub while on the ship. He said the markings would be gone by then, so now they are trying to figure out how to get the permanent tattooing done by the end of this week. It will either be tomorrow or Thursday. Fun times ahead.

We left the cancer center at 11:30 a.m. It was a long morning in there, but then we had some fun! We drove to the Old Key West resort in Disney World for lunch at Olivia's. Mark had recently read a great review of the place. I had the half tuna sandwich and bowl of creamy tomato soup. It came with a little salad on the side. I also indulged in a delicious Rum Runner cocktail and the Key Lime Tart with coffee for dessert. Everything was just spectacular. Mark had grilled tuna steak with fried yellow tomatoes and french fries. He also said it was truly delicious. This is a restaurant we would totally go back to and recommend to anyone.

After lunch, we went home, changed our clothes, and headed to the Palms for our exercise. Mark did his water aerobics as well, but I can't get my surgical area wet until Wednesday. I went in the pool up to my waist and walked in the water for 20 minutes while he did his aerobics. We also had time to go the farmer's market on the Solivita property. Everything looked so fresh and delicious. I bought a pear, an orange, and a cantaloupe. We walked all the way up and down the main village area of Solivita for some exercise, too.

Now we're home and Mark is busily doing some household repairs and cleaning up chores. I'm impressed with his industriousness! We are having our first guests come tomorrow afternoon, so I guess that spurred him on. The house is clearly still a work in progress with many boxes all around yet. Our friends will understand, though. We are going to have a nice visit with them and then take them to dinner at our Solivita restaurant, the Stonegate Grille. I'm excited to show off our house and community to our longtime friends from WV, Walter and Lore.

I will weigh myself tomorrow morning and report the results. Stay tuned!

Super Bowl

We really enjoyed seeing The King's Speech this morning at the Downtown Disney AMC theaters. It had been getting great reviews from all of our friends who saw it, and it's nominated for a lot of Academy Awards. I hope it wins a few because it was excellent.

After the movie, we managed to find Cohen's Butcher and Deli. It's not too far from Disney World, near Clermont. It's a small restaurant with a pretty extensive menu. There was a small case of kosher meat and some sides, so we bought some skinless, boneless chicken breasts for dinner tonight. I had a hot pastrami sandwich on rye bread. Oh, it was delicious. We also learned that they have a deal with the nearby show, Arabian Nights. The man who owns that show is Jewish! If you tell them you want a kosher meal, Cohen's brings it to the show. Choice of grilled salmon, veggie burger, grilled steak, or baked chicken with mashed potatoes, steamed veggies, and dessert, plus all the beer and wine you want. Amazing! We are seriously going to that!

My PET scan is at 8 a.m. tomorrow, and the diet for it is high protein, super low carb. I was allowed the two slices of rye bread, but other than that the only carbs are the little bit in a green salad and some broccoli that I ate with the chicken for dinner. I bought some cheddar and Swiss cheese blocks to eat as a snack later tonight while I watch TV. We were going to go to a Super Bowl party in the neighborhood, but we lost interest when I realized I couldn't eat or drink anything there. I can only have water and non-caffeine diet soda all day. Not even decaf coffee is allowed. Also there was to be no strenuous exercise. I was amused that "mopping the floor" was listed as strenuous.

I have never had a PET scan. It sounds like it will be OK, but it's long and tedious. I'll be injected with a radioactive glucose, which takes an hour or so to circulate through the body. Cancer cells pick up glucose more than regular cells, so that's how they find them on the scan. Other than that, it's just laying in a tube for an hour. I don't think it will find any cancerous tumors, but I guess you never really know. I will be interested in the results, and I'll let you know the results.

I have not been writing down my food or counting my calories since I got home. I am much more active than I was in MD, but I probably eat enough to compensate for that. Since I am now almost four weeks out of chemo, it's amazing to me how much healthier I feel. I really feel every bit my old self, but I don't have the endurance or strength back yet. I didn't weigh in on Tuesday because I was at the hotel in Savannah, GA that morning. I will definitely weigh in this Tuesday morning. I am sure I have not gained any more, but I'm also not expecting a loss since the last posted weight. Both my new oncologists said that my 25 pound gain on chemo is not atypical and that I should not worry about it. I worry about it anyway.

My new radiation oncologist said that I must never lift more than 10 pounds with my left arm the rest of my life. That seriously dampens the use of the weight lifting machines. Mark and I went to the Palms yesterday and did some machines. He was excited to get back on them because he also has lost strength and muscle mass while we were in MD. I did the four machines for arms that I had done before, but I put the weight at 10 pounds. Since I can never increase this weight, I can only work on increasing reps and sets. Yesterday I did two sets of 10 on each machine. I also rode 5 minutes on the recumbent bicycle. I find that machine quite comfortable, so I hope to work up to a lot more time on it little by little. Today my leg muscles were sore from just those five minutes.

We have to leave at 7 a.m. to head to the PET scan, and I think we'll be out by 11 a.m. If the weather is nice, we are going to spend the day at the Magic Kingdom. If it's raining, and it probably will be, we will put it off until Wednesday. If we don't go to MK, then I'll go home and try to get some work done in the house. We really haven't done much to get anything else unpacked yet. I will also go back to the Palms for more exercise tomorrow afternoon.

Meanwhile the Super Bowl half time show is on. Quite a spectacle, I must say.

Back to shul and pool

This morning we went to our new shul. We haven't officially joined yet, but we will soon. It is a lot like Mishkan Torah in size and friendliness. Unfortunately it's a 26 mile, 50 minute drive one way. Mark found out about their Sunday morning study sessions, which he wants to join. I was invited to join a group that is going to put on a show. They were looking for someone who could teach parts. I had planned to keep my mouth shut about my skills, but I couldn't resist jumping right in. Joining these groups is the best way to meet people and make new friends, so it looks like Mark and I will get busy with these activities when we get back from the cruise.

Currently we are in our house having lunch and watching some TV. When lunch is over, we are heading up to the Palms for exercise, walking, and laying about the pool. It's quite beautiful outside today, warm but with a slight breeze. I see a nap on a chaise lounge in my immediate future.

We also have plans to head out tomorrow to search for kosher meat. I need to eat only protein for 24 hours starting with breakfast tomorrow. Unless I find some meat, I'll be eating only cheese and eggs. I guess there are worse things, but I was thinking some deli meat would be fun to have. I'm actually allowed two pieces of rye bread for lunch and small amounts of certain green veggies: broccoli, green beans, and asparagus. I like those, but I don't have any in the house. We plan to go to the Disney theaters in the morning to see The King's Speech and then go find the kosher deli for lunch and meat shopping. We'll watch the Super Bowl at home by ourselves with a giant tray of meat in front of me! Hope everyone else is having a great day.

So much to write about!

Everything about our day in China yesterday was spectacular! We enjoyed a leisurely afternoon and did absolutely everything there was to do in the China pavilion at Epcot. We also had time to go to the Mexican pavilion and even ride Spaceship Earth on the way out. We went straight to dinner from there and then on to the free movie. Inception was fast paced and interesting, but it was a bit hard to follow. It is not a movie that you can watch and think about something else at the same time!

We were not able to go to Bartow for the tax exemption yesterday though. It took so long to get all the paperwork together, including calling the voter registration place and the tax place to get information, that we ran out of time to go there before Epcot. No worries. We did it all today.

This morning we went back to the Cancer Center to meet the medical oncologist. She is an extremely petite Indian lady named Dr. Vijay, short for a much longer name. Like Dr. Halili on Wednesday, she had thoroughly studied my information from the St. Agnes center. She was quite familiar with everything I had already done. This impressed both me and Mark.

She took blood and ordered a bone density scan (next Tuesday) and PET scan (Monday). The PET scan will identify any stray cancer, hopefully. The bone scan is a baseline for when I start the pills, which will be Arimidex unless the bone scan is poor. I will be on them for five years, beginning after the radiation ends. She examined me thoroughly and we talked for quite a long while. Just like in the radiation department, everyone on the chemo side was very friendly and helpful. I feel like I'm in good hands down here.

It was a 90 minute drive to Bartow from the cancer center, but it was an interesting drive. We had no trouble at either the voter place or the tax place. The people here always seem super friendly and helpful. There were no lines in either place. We drove 60 minutes back home at "rush hour," and there was no significant traffic. Gotta love that! There were, however, beautiful orange groves all along the way with the trees full of ripe oranges. Many oranges were laying on the ground around the trees. I SO wanted to stop and pick up a few, but we guessed that was not really legal. I hope all those fallen oranges don't go to waste. That would be sad.

We were home only about half an hour when we got a knock on the door. It was another neighbor introducing herself and handing me a big ziplok bag of homemade oatmeal raisin cookies. OH, my, they lasted about 30 minutes or less after she left. She lives two doors down on the right, AND she hosts low-key, non-betting, non-eating Mah Jongg in her house EVERY Monday at 1 p.m. Oh, I am in HEAVEN!! I told Mark not to schedule anything else for Monday afternoons! She said they always have between 3 and 12 people drop in. They are a congenial group that decided to have only bottled water because they were all eating too much when they brought food. So perfect for me! Did I pick the right street or what????

I am now on the lanai typing this blog, and Mark is in the kitchen making grilled tuna steaks for Shabbat dinner. He brought me a shot of whiskey for happy hour. The weather is still warm. We are truly living in paradise!

Busy Day Ahead

Yesterday went very well. We did laundry and some little tidying up chores around the house in the morning. Then Mark headed out to do the grocery shopping. While he was gone, I got a call from my neighbors, Luanne and Ken. They had bought us some fresh strawberries, so I went over to their house to get them. I enjoyed sitting in their living room VERY MUCH having a chat about cruises and health issues. They have a beautifully decorated home. Mine is not beautifully decorated, but I still love it just as much!! I really love having great neighbors who invited me over for a little while. In Laurel we had GREAT neighbors on the one side, but we were younger and working and raising kids. No time for casual chatting in the living room mid-morning. Still, we had great talks out in the yard! I love having good neighbors.

Then we drove about half an hour north to the Osceola Cancer Center, across the street from the Osceola Hospital. Luanne told me the facility was very new, maybe only a year old. I had not known that, but it was evident when we got there. It is a beautiful building dedicated to chemo and radiation with several doctors in each department. I had an appointment that lasted over two hours with my new radiation oncologist, Dr. Halili. He was very thorough, explained everything in great detail, did a good physical, answered any and all questions patiently and completely. What more could we want? He is recommending only 33 treatments, whereas the St. Agnes doctor would have done 36. That's fine with me. He also said that waiting 7 weeks is a bit long between chemo and rads, but he understands what I'm doing. He said 4 is recommended but 6 is the average, so 7 is just a bit beyond. Like my doctors in Baltimore, though, he said not a day later! So they were very accommodating about setting up my next appointment for next Tuesday at 1:30 to get the angles set with CT scans and the marking and tattooing done. I will start the radiation on Monday, March 7. Once I start the actual radiation, I will meet with him for a checkup once a week also.

Mark and I were both very impressed by everyone there. The receptionist seemed extremely busy but was just so nice and cheerful. She handled everyone with a smile. Then we met a tech and a nurse, both wonderfully warm people. I am pleased with my new cancer center, so far, and tomorrow I will meet my new medical oncologist. I bet I like her just as much.

After the appointment, we had lunch at Subway, went to Mark's big new comic book store, Coliseum of Comics, finished grocery shopping, and took a 15 minute walk in the neighborhood. Mark made us a nice spaghetti dinner and we watched some TV to relax before bedtime. Great day!

Today we are going to try to file for our Homestead Exemption to lower our real estate taxes for next year. In Maryland you can do that online. Down here you have to show up in person, and they want the world from you down here to do it. They want car registration, driver's license, social security card, proof of ownership of the house, and voter registration card. That's the problem right now. We applied to vote; we were able to vote by absentee ballot; yet we never received cards. So now we have to find out where to go to get the voter card first before we can go apply for the exemption. We don't know where that is yet, but we have a choice of three cities to go to for the tax exemption, Lakeland, Bartow, or Winter Haven. The first two are an hour away from here, but Winter Haven is only about 40 to 45 minutes. I guess we'll go there today. Polk County is HUGE, and we are on the eastern edge of it.

In addition, it's Chinese New Year! To honor that we decided to go to Epcot for lunch at the Chinese pavilion. We made reservations for 1:30 at the Nine Dragons restaurant. We've eaten there twice before, but it's been a very long time ago. It will be fun to be "in China" for Chinese New Year. After that we are going to have dinner out at our local restaurant that gives free wine with dinner on Thursdays, followed by the Solivita Thursday night free movie in the Starlight Ballroom. Tonight's movie is Inception. Free wine dinner and free movie is going to be our usual Thursday night routine! We did it twice in August when we were down here, so I'm really looking forward to starting that up again.

BTW, the pictures at the top show the hog damage. We did not know there were wild hogs roaming the area when we bought. They came up out of the conservation area during the fall while we were in MD. Our neighbors called in the damage, and the landscaping company came and put down some straw. According to the neighbors, the hogs returned about two days before we got home and tore it up a bit more. I took a picture out of the screened lanai this morning. That's why it looks a little dark and grainy; that's the screen. Also the day is overcast and gray, but still, it shows how rumpled up the yard is. There is also some vegetation near the back of the yard that is gone. I don't know if that was the hogs or just normal from colder than usual winter temperatures. Many of the plants look a little sad or brown now. Hopefully, the hogs will all get trapped and removed soon!

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggidy Jig

We had a fabulously easy drive from Savannah, GA to Florida yesterday. The traffic was light, although we saw a lot of RVers. We also noticed that most everyone we saw at restaurants, gas stations, or rest stops was a senior citizen. Ha Ha! I'm a senior citizen, too. In fact, Mark read an article in the paper that called these folks "Silver Surfers," seniors who are traveling around. I love that phrase, and I'm referring to us that way all the time now. Mark and I ARE Silver Surfers.

It was exciting to stop at the Florida Welcome Center just over the border from Georgia. We always stop there for a bathroom break and some free OJ. It really felt differently yesterday though. Every other time that we came down here, we knew we were going to turn around and drive back up north within a week or two. Not this time! We are here until May, except for the three weeks when we are on the cruise. Oh, Gee...that's a hardship! LOL!!

As we were turning off I-95 and on to I-4, I got a wonderful feeling. That's the last stretch heading into Orlando, and we always see billboards for Disney and Universal. We feel happy on that stretch of highway. Yesterday was no exception. It gave us the idea to stop at Downtown Disney Marketplace for lunch at the Earl of Sandwich. We had vegetable soup and tuna melts. So delicious. Also it was fun to get out of the car and take our jackets off. It was nearly 80 degrees! We slowly strolled from the parking lot to the restaurant, looking at people in shorts, t-shirts, and flip flops. I realized then that I had not just driven from the north to south; I had driven from winter to summer!

After lunch, we drove the last 45 minutes, 24.5 miles, from Disney Marketplace to our driveway. It was overwhelming. When I went in the house, I broke into tears. I walked all around the house, touching my furniture and things. I don't have great furniture or valuable things, and yes, there are plenty of unpacked boxes cluttering the floors, but it all looked beautiful to me. I couldn't stop crying for joy. In August, I was depressed leaving here. It didn't seem like I would ever get back here, and I was sad thinking about all the horrors of surgery and chemo that I had ahead of me. Now look at me! It's all behind me, and I'm HOME. Dorothy was right! There's no place like home.

This morning Mark has to go out to shop since we have virtually no food in the house. Then at noon we are heading up to the Osceola Cancer Center where I will meet my new radiation oncologist. I hope this all goes well. It's been nice not thinking about cancer for a week, but now I have to go back to reality. At least this reality is in a warm place. Ha Ha!! I'll let you know tomorrow what I thought of the new doctor.

To everyone who reads this from the north, I hope you stay safe and warm as the big monster storm passes through your neighborhoods. Let me know how it goes for you.