Winding Up, Winding Down

Well, certainly a lot has happened in the 4+ months since my last post.  Deb has indeed found an oncologist in Knoxville and has been receiving her tri-weekly (i.e., once every three weeks) infusions of Herceptin here (I say “here” now) in the oncology center in West Knoxville.  In fact, Deb has been in Knoxville since January 2^nd and I only joined her in mid-February after our Seattle house went under contract and the movers came and took all of our stuff away.

Sadly, we don’t yet have a house in Knoxville to move it (all that stuff) into, so it is all in moving-company storage and we can’t really get to it.  We are under contract on a house, but we don’t close on it until the end of March.  In the meantime we are living in a small apartment outside of the city with only as much clothing as we were each able to carry with us when we left Seattle, plus our computers, the dog, and - most importantly – my espresso machine (at least it’s the most important thing every morning when I get up).  We have a few other things (emphasis on few) that we’ve bought at CostCo or Target, but those are small items and consist mostly of cleaning products and a new electric toothbrush.

I think the continuing upheaval of the drawn-out relocation process is having an effect on Deb’s psyche (not to mention my own, but I suppress it by getting out in the sunshine).  Still, we have something to look forward to coming up soon, and it ties into the subject of this post.

We are returning to Seattle for 10 or so days in a couple of weeks.  Deb will spend some of that time working with one of her people who has the Seattle area under their territorial purview, and then she will return to Dr. Paige for her final (we hope) encounter with a scalpel.

Dr. Paige, of course, performed her restoration surgery back in September.  This time around is a final touch-up to clean up the margins a little and probably close off Deb’s navel for good.  They tried to reconstruct it, and it looked like it would work for quite a while, but over the last couple of months it has been constricting and thus it would likely be better to close it in the operating theater rather than let it close by itself (perhaps trapping debris in there which could lead to infection).

I will be going along to hold her hand throughout the process (except when they understandably kick me out of the surgery suite), though I will also get the opportunity to go to the Seattle Sounders FC home opener – have I said “Go Sounders” before? Consider it said – and we will also try to visit as many of our Seattle friends as we can while we are there.  We will probably try to see more before rather than after the surgery since, while it’s a relatively minor surgery this time, there will still be a bit of a recovery period for Deb.  In fact, that recovery period will keep us in Seattle for a little while until Deb will be allowed to fly at all.  She’s going to be on travel restriction for over a month post-surgery, but Dr. Paige will allow her to fly back to Knoxville after a week or so only because I will be there to carry any and all luggage and she won’t have to lift anything overhead, or anywhere else for that matter.  Dr. Paige understands that I take my role of porter/pack-mule seriously and that Deb will be severely chastised should she even look like she’s considering try to pick up anything.  Anything.  Hear me Deb?  Anything.

So that’s all for now.  I will post again when we are headed to Seattle if I can, but certainly after Deb’s brief pre-surgery visit with the surgeon early in the week.

I’m really looking forward to being able to wind this blog down once and for all … and never have a reason to start it up again.