jimmydewar

Surprise!

2011-11-21T20:28:00.000-08:00

This is the first time in months that I have been able to log in to this account -I don't know why I couldn't before, and was surprised this time when it let me in. More posts to follow!

:)

2011-07-12T13:22:00.000-07:00

Hail

2011-06-18T12:10:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago, a big storm moved through and dumped a lot of hail on Highlands. It looked like it had been snowing, and that evening when we drove into town, it was 56 degrees.

William had fun scooping it up, and at last count, we have seven cups of the icy marbles in our freezer.

Camp Dewar

2011-06-17T12:00:00.000-07:00

Jimmy and I had our 6-year-old grandson William staying with us for a week while he attended the day camp at Highlands Country Club. We had a ball, but caring for a small child for that long can be rigorous if you're not used to it: after Rosey and Pat picked him up yesterday, we crashed, and Jimmy slept for thirteen hours.

Yay Max and Liz!

2011-05-01T08:02:00.000-07:00

Our children Max and Elizabeth Oliver went to the Cabarat dance last night, and won first place for best costume. The theme was "college days."

Trophy fish

2011-04-28T14:06:00.001-07:00

While other kids watch cartoons, our fishing-obsessed four-year-old Jake stays glued to the fishing channel. A few weeks ago, at my brother Mac's farm near Hahira, he caught his first bass: he baited the hook, cast it, caught the fish and reeled it in, and got it onto the dock, all by himself.

He wanted to take it home and eat it, but Jimmy talked him into letting him get it mounted. We picked it up at the taxidermist's yesterday, and it is a beauty. An enraptured Jake told us on the way home,"When I'm grown up, I can tell everybody I caught this fish all by myself, when I was just a little kid."

Easter at Mac and Susan's farm

2011-04-25T17:16:00.000-07:00

At Caroline's 3rd birthday party

2011-04-23T20:21:00.000-07:00

Kindergarten, revisited

2011-04-22T18:27:00.000-07:00

It's a shame the resolution of this photo is so grainy because it's a wonderful shot: Buddy Coleman and his grandson Coleman Call and Jimmy with grandson William Kerns. I took it today when we attended Grandparents' Day at Valwood School kindergarten. In 1948, Buddy and Jimmy were classmates in First Methodist Church Kindergarten, and here they are, 62 years later, sitting in those little bitty chairs with their grandsons.

4

2011-03-23T08:41:00.000-07:00

It was four years ago today that, while playing golf, one of Jimmy's vertebrae collapsed. A few weeks later, we learned that this was caused by multiple myeloma, the rarest of the three blood cancers. Treatable but not yet curable, it is a cancer of the bone marrow, that destroys the bones. Four years ago, the average time a person lived after diagnosis was forty-four months.

We passed that marker four months ago, and not only is Jimmy alive and kicking, but with the help of oral chemotherapy, the cancer is in remission and we are living relatively normal lives. It's still an uphill battle, but we are enjoying every day, hopeful that the grace of God and the advancement of medical science will grant us many more.

Lapping it up

2011-03-10T18:37:00.000-08:00

Buddies

2011-02-22T13:15:00.000-08:00

Jimmy enjoys some down time on the sofa, reading his Kindel. Check out Andy's little face, peeking over Jimmy's leg.

Emory check-up

2011-02-16T17:06:00.000-08:00

We've been to Emory this week for our routine tests. As usual, we won't know the results of Jimmy's paraprotein test for another week, but it appears that the Revlimid, the oral chemotherapy he's been taking for the last six months is working well: so well that he is discontinuing it until he gets another CBC in two weeks. All of his blood counts are way too low (RBC 2.91, WBC 3.2, platelets 49) and they want to get them back up before he restarts his medication. He will also go on a lower dosage, 10 mg instead of 15.

My preliminary PET scan was great: no sign of cancer seen. My jaw problem and shoulder tendonosis continue to be annoyances, my RBC is a tad low and my darned platelets still won't come up (79; normal is 150-400). BUT this was my first Three-Month Check-up since completing treatment, and Jimmy and I are so pleased and thankful for my ongoing recovery.

UPDATE!! 6:45. We just got a call from Melanie,the triage nurse at Emory: she was all excited and wanted to tell us that Jimmy's paraprotein level has dropped to ZERO. That good ol' Revlimid knocked the stew out of his blood counts, but it also has put him back into COMPLETE REMISSION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some great news

2011-01-12T14:26:00.000-08:00

Jimmy's paraprotein level decreased last month from .21 to .14 - a significant drop. He went back on a low dose of the chemotherapy drug Revlimid in August when signs of the disease reappeared in his blood tests. We were hoping that the drug would stabilize things, but this is even better. Hallelujah!

1-1-11: an auspicious beginning for a new year

2011-01-02T17:28:00.000-08:00

We are at Amelia, and have had a very pleasant but quiet few days here. For the most part.

It rained intermittently today, and with Jimmy happily ensconced on the sofa watching the Falcons, I decided to take Andy for a walk during a lull in the weather. We ended up walking way down the beach. It was deserted, and I let Andy off his leash so he could run off some of his pent-up energy.

He ran ahead of me, chasing gulls, and when he disappeared into the dunes, I wasn't too worried because he never strays far and comes back when I call. This time though, there was no sign of him, and when the rain started again, I began to panic.

For a good thirty minutes I ran up and down the beach, soaked to the skin, screaming, "ANDY, ANDY!!" while water poured off my wig into my eyes. Finally, distraught and in tears, I headed back to enlist Jimmy's help and to tell him I'd lost our dog.

I had not given Andy credit for having enough sense to find his way home, but there he was, sitting at the door, waiting for me. And he wasn't even wet.

He has a rabies tag on his collar, but when we get home, I'm going to get one of those tags with names and addresses and phone numbers on it; I may look into having him microchipped. I love my dog.

2010-12-19T20:37:00.000-08:00

At the Christmas parade

2010-12-04T20:04:00.000-08:00

Jake: Jimmy's little clone

2010-11-28T10:48:00.000-08:00

Happy 60th, Mac!

2010-11-23T10:44:00.000-08:00

It makes you feel old when your younger brother turns 60.

The unexpected joys in life

2010-11-21T19:08:00.000-08:00

I had expected today to be miserable, but it turned into something wonderful that I will cherish in my mental file of happy memories. The latest splinter of bone that has been plaguing me recently managed to work its way out of the gum during the night, to my profound relief, and I ended up going to Ocean Pond fishing with Jimmy, Rosey, the children, and Susan Kerns, Rosey's mother-in-law.

It was one of those picture-perfect fall afternoons: the fish were biting, the excited children beyond delightful, and we all had a marvelous time. It was the first time I'd been with the children since I got sick, and I didn't realize how much I had missed them. And to heck with germs.

Jimmy, unloading his gear in front of the beautiful old Ocean Pond clubhouse

***********************************************

When I woke up this morning, there was something sharp on my tongue, and when I fished it out, it was this piece of bone. It's the jagged little white thing to the right of the dime. It's called a sequestering bone fragment, or something like that, and don't ask me to explain this, because I can't. It is bizarre.

Update

2010-11-14T18:42:00.000-08:00

I'm doing a lot better and my mouth is healing, although there's still some discomfort. That was SO not fun. I'm just surprised that it happened now, three months after chemo.

Jimmy caught a cold last week, and was getting worse, so he started on Levaquin Friday and we've kept the vaporizer running at night. He seems much improved today. I fret about his getting pneumonia again.

In August, his paraprotein level showed a slight movement, and Dr. Lonial put him back on a low dose of Revlimid, a chemotherapy drug. He's tolerating it well, although it has lowered his blood counts and made him more susceptible to infection. He loves the grandbabies more than anything, but small children ARE little germ factories, and we'd both like to get out more, but flu season IS starting. What does one do?

Pure Love

2010-11-07T19:38:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling much better today and my foul disposition is sweetening. Jimmy and I were talking about it last night, and decided that in a lot of ways, our situation was easier when we were in Medical Land in Atlanta: we had a goal and a mission and were focused on that. You EXPECT to feel poorly in Medical Land. Now, we are so happy to be home in the Real World, and these medical annoyances don't have any place here.

Although I have been ailing a bit, Jimmy has had a fine time seeing the grandchildren often: they've been fishing at Ocean Pond, to the Halloween Carnival, to a football game at Valwood, and have had lots of lunches together.

Today when they met for lunch, four-year-old Jake handed Jimmy his favorite truck and said,"Here, Papa. I brought this truck for you."

"Oh, no," said Jimmy. "That's your Spiderman truck - I can't take your Spiderman truck."

"But I want YOU to have it, Papa."

"Ok. I'll take it home with me and play with it for a few days, then you can come get it and you can keep it for a while. We'll share."

That solution pleased Jake, and when Jimmy came home this afternoon carrying his new Spiderman truck, he was smiling like somebody had just given him a million dollars.

Ouch

2010-11-06T18:08:00.000-07:00

It has not been a pleasant week - for me, anyway. Jimmy's doing fine. I think that the bottom line is that I'm having a hard time rebounding from all my cancer treatments, and that I'm just rundown.

The most bothersome problem has been mouth sores - ulcers, I thought, but it turned out to be small areas of exposed bone. At some point I injured my gum - maybe doing something like eating pita chips- and it couldn't heal properly because my of debilitated condition.

A week ago Fernando Alvarado removed a sliver of bone from an ulcer, using local anaesthesia, and we hoped it would heal but the pain kept getting worse and worse. Jimmy took me back yesterday, and Fernando put me to sleep with general anaesthesia, and cleaned out another piece of bone and some infection and sewed it up. I'm on penicillin and pain pills and feel better.

Fernando has strongly assured us that this is NOT osteonecrosis. The jaw looks very healthy and the tissue is healing.

Hair update

2010-10-29T12:57:00.000-07:00

I have now entered the Sinead O'Conner stage in hair regrowth, only with a lot more gray and a lot more mileage.

What would Sigmund Freud think?

2010-10-25T12:02:00.000-07:00

I know when people start telling you about their dreams, you probably say to yourself, "Yeah, yeah, yeah...ho hum," but Jimmy was describing the one he had last night to me, and it was a doozie. This is what he said:

"I was quail hunting, and the three bird dogs I was hunting with strayed off. I happened to be hunting that day with Steve Spurrier, and he said he'd go look for Suzy, the best pointer, if I'd search for the other two. There was a shopping mall across the road and so I went in and found my two dogs going down the escalator. I rounded them up and went back to see if Spurrier had had any luck finding Suzy. He was waiting, sitting on the tailgate of his truck, and said he'd located Suzy in a bar down the road; he'd fed her a bowl of bar cherries, and she had left. I was furious with Spurrier for losing my favorite dog, the maddest I've been in decades of not liking Spurrier."

Now, was that one weird dream, or what?