More on weaving and Harrisville

I wanted to put in some text besides photo captions, but blogger doesn't seem to want me to tonight. 

So, here are pictures:

After one runs 3.4 miles in a hilly terrain when it is 88 degrees, one can make any sort of face one wants for the selfie. In the background is the bed and breakfast I stayed at--The Harrisville Inn. I couldn't get their sign in the background. There are five rooms, they grow their own vegetables and eggs and organize the community garden that is just up the road. The other people who stayed there were very congenial and we sat around in their front room, chatting almost every night. The bed and breakfast put out a bottle of wine and a plate of cookies every night. "Something for everyone" must be their motto.

The general store is in the background. The town owns the building and rents it out. It has a really great grill in it and they make delicious prepared foods. Kale salad, asparagus and mozarella paninis, etc. Also some nice little cakes. The ice cream is subpar and kind of expensive besides. The iced coffee is perfectly acceptable and--a nice touch--you fetch your plastic cup and lid pre-filled with ice out of the cooler.

This is the view back into town from the general store. The buildings sit over the stream which used to power the mills as it lost elevation on its way through town. There is a plan to re-harness the river and produce small scale power again for the 125 (!) residents of town. 

Day 289 - it's a big circle

Now that it's getting around to nine months since I was diagnosed, I am starting to do things that I associate with my diagnosis. I remember when I was being induced (that is doctor talk for the month long admission that started the treatment off), I was being a tester for the ABIM board exam. They asked again this year and I said 'yes.' I remember the doctors (especially the residents) thinking it was funny that I was doing that test last year while I was getting chemo. I must admit I thought it was pretty funny too. I did a couple of the questions tonight and it was very odd because I remember clearly the last time I did those questions was in room thirteen (113,  think). As I reflected on that, I realized that everyone is a year further along in their lives. My cute little intern who saw me as her first patient of her first day in residency is almost a second year. My fabulous third years who were so kind and knowlegeable are almost graduated. I feel sort of like when you see your friend's kids that you haven't seen in years and you expect them to still be little.
I am getting close to the time I have to really panic about boards, too. I could have taken them last year, but really did not have the heart, stomach or bone marrow to do the necessary studying. I can't leave it to the last year possible because if I fail, I can't work. I guess I better get planning how I'm going to study; I have to pass the test by the end of 2015.

Here is a picture of the windows weaving hanging next to a painting Ellie did a while ago. I am very pleased with how it came out. I don't know if you can tell, but the colors going up and down are crossed against the same colors going left to right so that the top row is blue and the left most column is blue, the next column is white, then blue-green, then pink, etc. The diagonal from the topleft to the bottomright is the "pure" colors where both the warp and weft are the same. I really love it. I hope you like it too. My loom is back together, but I have done zip zero weaving in weeks.

I am thankful for the chance to do another year's worth of everything. I am hopeful for lots more years and the same for you.

Day 259 - the loom whisperer

The roof with just a little snow. I would like to figure out how to depict this in woven form.

My loom is called a Jane Louet. The person who designed it is named Jane Stafford and she runs a nice little weaving shop in BC. Or, in the interest of internet honesty, what appears from the pictures to be a nice little weaving shop. I sent her email and learned a bunch of interesting stuff. My loom was bought in the first year of manufacture of these looms and many (most?) people who own this loom use it as a second loom because it is portable. She thinks mine may be one of the harder used Jane looms as well as one of the longest used ones. On top of that, what do I favor? Non-elastic closely set cotton yarn. The windows piece is set at 32 ends/inch. That means that each harness has 4 ends / inch across 14 inches. That's a lot of pulling. I was surprised to have a cord break and even more surprised when I looked and saw a few others fraying. Jane said that it was not a known problem, but for the reasons above, I might be a pioneer. At any rate, she is sending a replacement set of eight cords as well as the elastic things that provide the counter tension. She also suggested not tightening it quite so much next time. Good advice. I did take the windows piece off the loom and like it quite well. It's not done being finished yet so I'll wait a day or two to post it here.

In other exciting news, I took a nap on the couch today. The sun was at just the right angle to come in the window and shine on my face. I sure hope it's right that house window glass takes the ultraviolet out of sun because it shone the heck out of my pre-skin cancer spot.


In further edifying news, the 2/19/13 Annals has a nice article about "Assessing Bias in Studies of Prognostic Factors." Using that article, I would not have been misled in my review of the article where I was so enamored of a negative study that I totally missed the boat on how it was super biased. Ah, well, live and learn. I doubt Annals will ever let me near another article to review, but maybe someone else will and now I've got a nice checklist for bias.

Additionally, there is a great article about "Acupuncture in Patients with Seasonal Allergic Rhinitis." The net is that real acupuncture helps more than sham acupuncture and rescue medicine alone, but it may not be enough of a decline to be noticeable clinically. I'll have to take their word on the significance of the scale they used, but they said that a decline of 1 point was about what you get out of 10 mg of zyrtec. Sham vs real acupuncture was 0.5 points different and real vs rescue meds only was 0.7 points difference. It seems to me that almost as effective as the usual dose of zyrtec would be clinically significant. The real reason I am drawing your attention, however, is the editorial. They talk about how very few surgical procedures have been subjected to trials where patients have a "sham" version of the procedure done. They then note that many other trials have been shown acupuncture to be more effective than no acupuncture but not sham acupuncture. In those cases, the answer to the question of whether acupuncture is effective depends in large part on whether one considers a procedural-based intervention to be effective relative to the absence of that intervention, or relative to an artificial course of treatment that would never be administered in clinical practice and may not be physiologically intert." They discuss how trials of acupuncture vs nothing are of interest to insurers, patients and doctors, but trials of sham acupuncture are intended to tease out the placebo effects. The Harvard Medical School offers a $4,000 (last time I checked) CME course in learning to do acupuncture. I bet the CME course in sham acupuncture is a lot cheaper. A funny thing about this topic and me is that I do have an opinion about good acupuncture practitioners in the area. You need a referral? Gimme a call.

A long time ago (when Emily was a baby), I kept getting "sinus infections." I went to see an acupuncturist in Berkeley, CA where we lived at the time and she did her thing a few times. I ended up with an ear infection x 1 right after the course of acupuncture and then no more sinus or ear trouble for a lot of years. N = 1. If people have the ability to get to my favorite acupuncturist and nothing else has worked well enough, I do suggest trying acupuncture for lots of things. (not metastatic cancer, however, but yes to pain from metastatic cancer) Sometimes it's helpful and sometimes it's not, just like lots of things I recommend from the pharmacy.

Well, that's a cheery, non-controversial end to today's post. I am hoping for tomorrow to see this virus in my rear view mirror. For you, too, I hope you do not get any new viruses and that you get over any you have picked up very quickly.

Day 246 - a contrary day

The theme for today is evidently little disappointments. I was supposed to go to brunch today with Tommie, but the snowstorm made her reluctant to drive far (probably a wise decision, just one I don't like). I had to sop my sadness by going to the Green Bean with Ellie and one of her friends.

As all grilling fans know, vegetables grilled during a snowstorm are particularly tasty and I just happened to have red and yellow beets, potatoes, parsnips and mushrooms. After I started up the grill and arranged them on the tray, I discovered the only thing lacking was more than five minutes of propane. We certainly weren't going out in this weather to fill the propane tank so--to the oven. Very inferior solution. Of course, if I'd set my mind on oven roasted vegetables from the beginning, I would have been very happy with them. As it is, I'll probably make them like this again and then if the power fails and I have to grill them, I'll complain about that! I never really noticed before, but cooked beet flesh is translucent when cut thinly. Exquisite.

I did a little weaving--work on setting up the warp. With how many things have gone in unexpected directions today, I'm not sure I should be touching it. One of the many good things about weaving however, is there is very little of it that is not undoable. If one is using a hammer to make a metal vessel, one can never take back a hammer blow. If the metal cracks or the dab of paint ends up in the wrong place, too bad. With weaving, it may be a lot of work, but you can unweave almost anything without harming the materials so I shouldn't worry too much. If something goes wrong, most likely it's just time that will be needed to fix it. Ha!

Tomorrow,  I have nothing out of the ordinary planned. I'll hope for an anti-contrarian day for all of us.

Day 245 - more usual than usual

Aside from schlepping Ellie or myself to or from Music Man Jr performance, cast party and cast party shopping, I did very little during the day today. It's astonishing how much effort these things take and if one is driving some place at 12, 1, 2:30 and 4, it is difficult to do much else in the day. Early on Terry and I went to Kittery and had breakfast from the Beach Pea in his studio. This haiku presented itself to me while I was there.
Watching the snow fall
A curtain of live bamboo
What a world I see.

Here are the pictures of my last project which I took off the loom a while ago. They do not seem as ugly to me off the loom as they did on, somehow, although I'm still not in love with them.

The last one I made. I like the difference between the last two checkerboard rows and the two before them. The left side is checkerboard, too, but won't show up except under bright light.

This one seems a little psychodelic to me. Most people like this one the least.

This one looks kind of cool off the loom, but I notice that the two sides have wildly different fringe lengths.

I did manage to start warping the next project a little bit and to have dinner with our friends Patrick and Mary Beth which was delightful. We went to the Blue Moon where they had never been before and had a delicious dinner and great conversation.  I feel like Patrick and Mary Beth like to eat as much as I do and that makes it a lot of fun to eat with them because not everyone finds food as interesting as I do.
For me, for tomorrow, I am hoping for safety from the winter storm and will hope for that for you as well.

Day 240 - just the usual, ma'am

Today was a fairly normal day. The census in the Hospice House is down so I actually didn't work as long as I had planned today. I used the extra time to go to Planet Fitness and ride the elliptical. I am happy to report that I can now tolerate exercising to the official heart rate limit for my age. Remember how after I first got out I'd be only able to tolerate the 70 year olds' limit? Yeah, for the passage of time! I have been turning over in my head learning how to use the weight machines as I am still down in upper body strength for sure. I think my lower body might be back to normal.

I called my fellow AML patient in Lebanon today. He's doing well, about three weeks out, getting a little return of marrow activity. He said he was reading the Agnes Day piece when I called. The nurses put it on a bulletin board on the station which is awfully nice. He said he could really relate to the fevers and chills part, but it didn't feel right to ask him if he had been visited by any spirit animals.

Other excitement for today is I started my new warp. Weavers in general have to say to themselves a lot of things like "I need twelve which is really six" or "There are four which is sixteen" and double weave doubles the number of times one has to add in multiples of two or sometimes divide by two. I did the first three stripes of my new warp and realized that I made them twice as wide as I wanted. I will get the rest correct and when I put it on the loom, I'll just have to throw out half of the first three stripes. It is much better than having done it too narrow at which point, I'd have to unwarp and rewind all that yarn. And, don't forget, when you unwrap 600 inches of yarn, be careful how you wind it so it doesn't snarl!

This is the warp in question. The black, blue and black stripes closest to the bottom are the problem ones.

The rest of the warp colors are lined up and waiting patiently for their turns.

I was listening to a description of the new USPSTF preliminary recommendations about screening for intimate partner violence (the new name for "domestic violence"). It discussed the adults who they feel are at risk: women of childbearing age and the elderly. This means that the only age women are not felt to be at high risk is roughly fifty to seventy. I guess this is something else that (temporarily) gets better with the passage of time. What exactly does this say about our society that over half of the citizens are felt to be at high risk of violence for almost all of their life? I am not entirely sure, but I don't think it's a good thing.

I'm still reading "What have you lost?" One of the poems I read today is about domestic violence (parent/child; I'm pretty sure autobiographical). The poet says in her biography at the back, "Like everyone, she has lost many things, but believes there is one thing that can't be lost. The thing that makes us who we are. The one thing that is different for each of us." I was talking with one of the nurses today at the Hospice House about how the terrible experiences in our lives make us who we are as we learn from them (in her case, compassion). We were talking about how we wouldn't want to undo those experiences because they have made us who we are. It also makes me think of how very demented people sometimes go back to a prior traumatic experience and relive it over and over again. It would be a literal demonstration of not being able to lose the experience that makes them who they are.

Tomorrow, I am going to visit the dentist and then go to CMC and do some chart reviews for the cancer committee. Attending cancer committee was one of the last things I did before my diagnosis so I am expecting the experience to be a bit of a touchstone for me. I think the actual committee is later this week, but conflicts with IDG at the Hospice House so I will wait another couple of months for that touchstone.

For me, for tomorrow, I will hope for  happy touchstones and no cavities. For you, I'll hope for good dental hygiene but perhaps also a reminder of how far you've come.

Day 198 - work and weaving

This morning was a work day, more chart reviews and then this afternoon, I came home and hung out with my girls. Ellie is finally over her cold so she came downstairs and interacted more than she has in the last several days. I missed her and am glad to remake her acquaintance. Emily and I went out for coffee to D2 in downtown Exeter. Earlier today, I think some one made a mistake and gave me regular instead of the decaf I usually drink so I stuck to apple cider at D2, hoping to be able to sleep tonight.

Later I did some weaving and used my new Christmas reed for the first time. (A reed is the stiff thing that you pull forward to push the yarn down into the fabric.) My old one had ten little divisions per inch which is nice, but means that I can't use any very large or soft or lumpy yarn in the warp. The new one has six per inch which gives me some new options. Of course, the first time I use it, am I taking advantage of that and making a fluffy, open weave something or other? No, I am warping at 18 threads per inch, three very fine little cotton and linen threads per dent (each little opening is a dent). I am working more on learning double weave, but can probably use the results as coasters.

Tomorrow, I have no specific plans except hanging out with my family for a pleasant start to a hopefully happy 2013. For me, I will wish for time with my family for tomorrow. For you, I will wish a safe, healthy and happy New Year's Eve and, if I can have a stretch wish, the whole New Year.

Day 191 - Christmas Eve

Today really started yesterday evening. I finished weaving the towel, but needed to finish it which requires two hems, washing and ironing.  The sewing machine is on the third floor so I trucked upstairs, discovered the only thread we had was black. Back down the stairs, search through the storage room. None anywhere, but I did find another spool of black. Those of you who have been to my house and seen my kitchen table will not be surprised to hear that just as I was giving up, I saw a spool of white out of the corner of my eye. Right next to the pile of Ellie's school books, the WD-40 and the bottle of maples syrup we're planning to send to some friends abroad. Our table organizational scheme is completely impenetrable.

Back up the stairs, wind a bobbin, thread the machine, hemstitch one edge, pin it (a nuisance is that I only own three pins. I'm not sure what happened to the other 97 in the package, but I only go to Joanne Fabrics 2 or 3 times/year and never remember when I'm there!), iron it, fold it over again, pin it, iron it, sew it. Same thing on the other side, except about three inches shy of the last hem, the machine jammed. Usually when this happens, it is because I have mis-threaded it, but it turned out that the spool of thread had--somehow--been wound so that it had two ends, one of which eventually wound under the other so that there was no way to continue unwinding it and the other which I didn't notice until I was forced to by the jammed up thread. Problem eventually solved and off to bed for me. 

It's somewhat odd because for the big things, I am good at getting myself quality. I have a pretty nice sewing machine, a great iron and a first rate pair of sewing scissors.. However, I do not have a full collection of thread or more than three pins. When someone understands how this makes any sense at all, could they explain me to me, please? 

Here it is, all folded, ironed, etc. you can see a little of the hem in the left lower corner. Not bad, right?

The next morning, I washed the towel while I got ready for work, laid it out to dry after carefully arranging it in a rectangle (this is where you can compensate for the flaws if the edges are not quite straight). I was the provider at the hospice house. It is really fun to do patient care and to be back there with my friends. In describing my day, I told Emily everyone survived and she said she thought that was kind of unusual in a hospice house. I get no respect. 

When I got home, I ironed it and yes! it was done in time to take to Patrick's 2-5 open house as a present which had been my goal. Clearly, just in under the wire. 

Patrick's open house was very fun. His to-be daughter in law made cheese puffs as we watched (I had made them the previous night at home by coincidence and I am not ashamed to say hers were way better, but I picked up some tips) and there were oysters and pate and delicious wine and cookies and lots of people to meet. I am always astonished to be in a group of people in the seacoast and not to know anyone, but it happened tonight. I always like that. Many of the people there knew a lot about traveling in France so we were able to get some tips on where we might like to go besides Paris. It seems people really recommend Provence. 

The day was not done yet. We went to Tommie's for Christmas Eve dinner, starring shrimp and scallops from the Ipswich Fish Market. I helped Ellie finish wrapping her presents on Tommie's big craft table and off to bed. I must admit that I was tired after yesterday, but I figure anyone would be, right? I really don't think it's because I've gone back to work too early. And--I did leave after four hours on the nose. I was up too late the night before but that was because of the stupid thread. 

My computer seems to have been hijacked:

hello my name is ellie i am cute. i am talented. i am amazing. my mother is wierd. 

back to its rightful master.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I am writing this as though I were writing it on Christmas Eve, but I was such a social butterfly, I didn't get to it until Christmas Day. I don't feel right making a wish for a day that has already started somehow for myself. But, for you, I hope you have and are having a wonderful Christmas Day if it's something you celebrate. If it is not a holiday you celebrate, I hope you are having a wonderful day anyway. 

Day 189 - reading recs

It's a good thing I've been reading lots of interesting things because my life has been beautifully dull today. Terry and I did our pre-leukemia normal thing to do on Saturday morning which is to visit the Beach Pea, then his studio. I spent most of the day doing crossword puzzles, reading and weaving. You can see the tea towel starting to look like something that could be a present rather than a snarly mess. Hopefully, I'll finish it in time!

A couple of days ago, the NYT ran a huge story with all kinds of cool graphics about a free-skiing episode (free-skiing, for the horribly out of touch, like me, is skiing on the ungroomed, unmaintained sides of mountains). This happened in the Cascades and 16 experienced skiers started at the top and three of them died in an avalanche by the time they got to the bottom. What was interesting to me about it besides how fast an avalanche can go--this one topped out at 65 mph!--was to think about how this could happen to a bunch of experts in free-skiing. As you read the article, you think about how it sure sounded like the avalanche conditions were too unstable to make skiing safe, but they go out anyway. Then there are sixteen people at the top of a huge mountain and no one says, "Gosh, the conditions are ripe for an avalanche and the more of us that ski, the more likely we are to trigger one. Maybe we should think about plan B." I can imagine being in a similar situation (not an extreme sports situation because that is not my bag), but a situation where there is a group of people and we've planned to do something that may not be a great idea, but I think "Well, everyone here knows so much and if it were a bad idea, surely some one else would have said something." So, I don't say anything and everyone else is probably thinking exactly the same thing so we do something that is a less than stellar idea. It's interesting how groups of people do not act like individual people multiplied by N.

The other interesting thing I have been reading is this week's NEJM. I may have more to say about the rest of the journal, but I was astonished to learn that currently, for uncompensated care, NH gets reimbursed an average of $629 per patient-day. The next closest state is Louisiana at $400, then Maine at $308. Whoa! I wonder what the formula is that favors NH so much and I wonder how it was established so or maybe our uninsured people are just that much sicker than they are anywhere else in the country. The article was actually about how if states do not opt in to expand Medicaid, their hospitals that serve the uninsured (who would have been insured if the state had expanded Medicaid) are really going to be squeezed. The internet says that NH is in the states "leaning toward" expanding Medicaid. I don't know if this is a reliable site or not. I am surprised that whether we are expanding or not is not more widely known, but it seems to be an issue flying completely under the news radar.

I was perfectly happy with a non-newsworthy day for me and will wish to have a second relaxing, quiet day tomorrow. How about you? I hope you are not making yourself crazy with holiday frenzy and will hope for relaxation for you, too.

Day 188 - a visit to CMC

And, thus concludes our heroine's first week back at work.  I cannot believe that I failed to take a picture of myself on all three days, gussied up for work, but here is what I looked like at 6 pm on Friday.

I had had a full day at that point so I think things are going pretty well. This morning I went to work and did my work thing. That went fine. At the end of my day, I had to sign some paperwork at CMC and after I finished, I thought I would go visit some of my pals. No one was going to be all that productive on Friday before Christmas anyway so I wouldn't be disturbing productivity too much. I stopped in to see the pathologist who diagnosed me. He saw me at cancer committee the day I was diagnosed and tells me that I look much better now. I'm sure my peripheral blood smear looks better too. Next, I stopped up to see one of the administrators and it turned out his secretary did not know I had been out. The admin she works with knew the whole story so I had assumed she did, too. She said she just figured that I stop up from time to time and that I just hadn't had a need to stop up in six months. She was glad to hear that I was well and almost started crying when I told her I had leukemia even though she could see I was quite well now. She said it was good she hadn't known I was ill until I was better as she would have been so sad. I had only been at CMC as a patient in the past few months. It is nice to be resuming my old roles.

I am definitely more tired than I am on the average day I don't work, but still I feel it's not out of control tired. I told Dr Hill that I was not sure that I really understood that I had been sick, despite being in the hospital, having fevers, having no platelets, etc. I'm not really sure that the knowledge totally penetrated my skull.

After CMC, I came home and we did the NYT crossword, followed by a little weaving. Look! It no longer looks like a snarly mess! It almost looks like it could turn into a nice Christmas present, doesn't it? It better do so, on the double, as Christmas is only four days away now.

For me, for tomorrow, I will wish for happy family together time. For you, I will wish for relaxing time with those you love.

Day 183 - Snow

Don't you think everyone on my list would like a snarly mess for Christmas?

 I would have to say that the highlight of today was going for a walk in the snow. About 1 inch stuck and it was still snowing lightly when we went out. Maggie was so exhilarated by the cold and snow, she could barely keep herself from running, rolling, tearing around the whole time we were out. Ellie was similarly effected and spun around on her feet, ran and rolled in the snow. On the football field by our house, Ellie ran to one end and Maggie chased after her, then we called her back and forth as Ellie came back. It was a real life demonstration of that stupid algebra one problem everyone has to do, but it was beautiful in the falling snow. Maggie enjoys running full tilt right at you and then at the very last second, veers off by a tiny bit so she doesn't run into you.

Emily and I did the Saturday NYT puzzle pretty handily and then became backers of the new American Values Club crossword puzzle and did our first one. It's made by the people who used to do the crossword in The Onion so you know to expect puns and a little (or more) raunchiness. The first puzzle delivered. It promises to be a very clever weekly crossword and is not very expensive. If there is a crossword lover on your list, this might be just the thing. Emily is getting it for Christmas.

I finally got the warp for my next project on the loom today as can be seen above. There was quite a while where the whole thing was a snarly mess, but it all sorted itself out. Speaking of messes, the hose leading from the wall to the shower head burst this morning while Terry was taking a shower. Normally, we just call our landlords, but as we had already altered the shower head once, we felt this one was our problem. Nothing starts one's Sunday morning off like a trip to the hardware store. Later, a trip to Starbuck's and Stop and Shop rounded out the day.

Like everyone else, I don't know what to say about the horror in Connecticut. I hope it gets us moving towards taking semi-automatic weapons out of circulation.

For all of our wishes tonight, I am going to wish for whatever measure of comfort can be felt by the folks involved in or affected by the shooting.

Day 181 - six months out

Today makes exactly six months since my diagnosis. At this time on June 15 (tomorrow will be six months by dates, today by days), Terry and I were driving up to Lebanon, feeling shell shocked. I had had my bone marrow earlier in the day and just gotten my hair cut. In another couple of hours, I'd be meeting Dr. Hill. What a scary, overwhelming, numbing day it was. To make it even worse, it was the day after Terry's birthday and Ellie's first day of summer vacation.

I had stayed home from work that day and called the people who really needed to know right away to tell them I might have leukemia (mostly my various bosses and office manager). It looked at first like the problem may have been bone marrow suppression and I remember googling and seeing that almost everything I was taking could cause bone marrow suppression (zyrtec, singulair). When Dr. Reem Shafeh, my PCP, called to tell me that the initial confirmatory tests were consistent with leukemia, I was quite surprised. I had myself totally convinced it was all medication side effect. Terry drove back from his studio and then we went to Manchester where I had my first bone marrow biopsy. He talks about how everything had changed in the time from when he drove up to Kittery and when he drove back home. The people at the Norris Cotton were so kind, whisking me into a back room, doing the procedure very sensitively, freeing a lab tech to run the slides over to CMC, distracting me for ages while we waited for Dr. Sanford to read the slides. I'm not sure we had any sensible questions to ask after we got the diagnosis; the whole thing was such a fast forward blur. The only thing I remember asking was if I would lose my hair. I really felt like I didn't want to lose my hair to leukemia; I was going to get it cut before the leukemia could take it. On the way home, Terry called his hair cutter and she actually called her last appointment and explained the situation and asked her to come in half an hour later so she could cut my hair. We told the girls, packed me up and then we all rushed off to the haircut. Afterwards, Terry and I left the girls home while we went to Lebanon. Long ride to stew about what the heck was going on. I was perfectly healthy and had been sure that the cancer I would end up with was breast cancer. What was I doing with a blood disease that old people get? that I knew next to nothing about? in my forties? when I was so busy and had lots of other plans?

That day in some ways feels so recent, some of its details seem sharp and clear, but most are completely fuzzy. Last summer was supposed to be the summer that Ellie and I had a really good time. In fact, I had scheduled a lot (for me) of time off and we had reservations to go kayakking the Tuesday I got my last dose of donarubicin. Needless to say, we didn't go. I think I missed my window for kayakking with Ellie. I hope we can find something fun to do together this summer.

From the past to the future and now, to the present. It was CHH Christmas party day today. I went and had a marvelous time, scoring a pair of fabulous tatted stars. Don't know what tatting is? Follow the link; it's super cool. As always, it's so fun to go by the hospice house and see everyone.  I always feel recharged. I had a classic middle aged experience while I was there. I met the new priest who is three years out of seminary and I thought, "there is no way he is old enough to be a priest." It is very odd he is "Father" Chris--Father? He could almost be my son. It has been a while since I had that experience. There used to be a doctor in Exeter about whom one of my patients said, "Don't you have to be old enough to shave to go to med school?" I was reminded about how I cultivated my first gray hairs when they showed up a few years ago. Now I no longer need my gray hair to avoid looking like a pipsqueak.

Next stop: the administrative office of home health and hospice to say hi. Then, I visited Tanya and helped her with her loom. An observation: I was willing to just sit next to her and stare into space while she pulled 24 threads through the heddles and then again while she pulled them through their dents. Prior to the leukemia, I would not have been able to do that. I would have jumped up and wandered through the building or taken Tanya up on the offer to show me how to make a centerpiece. Now, I can sit quietly and wait. It wasn't even like I had anything in particular to think about. Being a patient has evidently made me (ahem) more patient. On the way out, her landlord said hi and somehow got to telling us about his brother, "I once had a brother who didn't do anything but complain. I used to tell him that we are living in the most wonderful time and place ever and how could he be anything but happy?" He also told us that the mill building in which Tanya has her studio is essentially unchanged "since Lincoln was shot." Two old New Englanders in one week. A recent record for me. When I was a PCP in Exeter, I would see at least one old New Englander in each half day. I miss that part of practicing in Exeter. The final bit of today's news is that Emily is home for the next month or so. We are very happy to see her, Maggie included.

Here is a really beautiful six minute video about memory loss. It is embedded in a blog post by Robert Krulwich, a science journalist whose work I admire.

For me, for tomorrow, I will wish for some happy, relaxed family time. No crises, no surprise hair cuts, just a Christmas tree and a celebratory dinner. For you, I will wish a happy day without unpleasant surprises.

a weaving update

Here is the partially finished shawl on the loom. You can see the pattern which involves zigzags and diamonds pretty well on the bottom photo. The colors are more accurate on the top photo. I am probably going to be able to take it off the loom tomorrow. Just in time to get started on my next Christmas gift!

Day 177 - Ana and Accountability

The original plan for today was a visit to Ana with Maggie so we could all go on a walk and then the humans could go to lunch. When I woke up this morning and saw the rain, I immediately began backpedalling. We decided to still have lunch which was delicious at Golden Bowl, a Vietnamese restaurant that Ana had been introduced to by a Vietnamese doc at Dartmouth. I had vegetarian pho which I thought was delicious. Ana had these crispy noodles with chicken and vegetables in a light sauce that somehow had been infused with just a slight hint of a smokey flavor. I enjoyed mine, but maybe wish I had gotten the noodles. Next time.

After grocery shopping, there was not a whole lot of time left for interesting activities besides a little more weaving and some reading, still Marty Makary's "Unaccountable." I was thinking about what I read yesterday in the setting of the hypothetical procedure of toe reversal. My patients don't need this done very often; I have sent one patient to get a toe reversed, to Dr. A and have had patients get toes reversed with Dr. B, C and D before I met them. None of these patients have had problems with their toes since I've known them so I conclude that probably Dr B, C and D all do a good job.

I have had a couple of patients who have had their toes reversed by Dr. F in the past or who have had the related procedure of toe inversion by Dr. F. Dr. F works in a hospital a few towns over from me. I have never actually even seen the hospital he works in. I have seen maybe three instances of his work. In one instance, the reversed toe, spontaneously re-reversed itself; in another the inverted toe, partially de-inverted and was left as a huge mess and in the third, the toe became infected and had scarred in a not very pretty fashion. Toe inversion is a tough operation, however, with a high fail rate for anyone, although I have not seen any complications with Drs B through D. Remember, however, that my sample size is very small. I have seen probably less than 1% of Dr. F's work and maybe I just got a skewed sample. Dr. F is in a different hospital than me, perhaps the patients who have bad experiences with him get so frustrated they leave that hospital and come to me whereas the happy ones stay there. Maybe it's just random chance and the next patient of his I see will have a perfectly reversed toe or maybe a whole foot of them. Alternatively, maybe Dr F really is not a good toe reverser.

What should I do in this situation? If a patient were to tell me they wanted Dr. F to do their toe reversal, what should I do? Dr F certainly has a right to be free from being slandered by me and with so little evidence. I could not tell a patient to avoid Dr F and to potentially harm Dr F's reputation. I would be speaking based on three bad toes. And yet, I don't really want my patient to go to Dr F. People don't get their toes reversed unless their feet are in desperate straights and no one who is considering toe reversal would be able to use the foot afterwards if it goes wrong. There is not room for a "margin of error" and I want to spare my patients the possibility of a nonusable foot after surgery if I can. How can I balance my need to help keep my patients safe with my need not to libel Dr F? If my husband told me he was considering Dr F for toe reversal, I would say, "please don't." My patients deserve this same level of information from me, don't they? If a patient thought that I let them go to someone I felt was a substandard specialist, they would not be happy with me. I wouldn't be happy with myself under that circumstance.

OTOH, maybe it's not my job to keep patients away from Dr F. He has privileges at a hospital that is supposed to be monitoring his skill level, that has access to all his outcomes, not just three. Maybe I should just relax and trust that the system is working.

If I were at a conference, would I raise my hand saying that Dr F was a "menace"? Certainly, his results are much worse than anyone else I've seen, but I have seen such a small set of his results, maybe what I've seen is not representative. I don't think it's fair to say "menace," but exactly where would one draw the line? What if I had seen six of his toe jobs and they all had complications? What if I had seen one with a really really bad complication--a "never" event, like reversing the wrong toe? Or what if I thought he reversed toes that didn't really need reversing, that he did procedures that didn't need to be done?

Fortunately, it is hypothetical, as I hope was emphasized by the crazy procedure I made up. The next few chapters of the book describe what happened in New York after they made hospital's mortality rates for CABG public as well as some horror stories from Dr. Makary's own training years. It is good reading, thought provoking and I'd encourage you to pick it up. When I'm done, I'll lend it to you if you'd like.

For tonight, for me, I'm going to wish for continued good fortune in excellent colleagues. For you, I'll wish that you are able to get high quality medical care when you need it.

Day 174 - updated, tired, but happy

It's unclear to me why I'm so tired tonight, and it's also unclear why I haven't had a chance to blog yet today, but both are true and I'm going to bed now. I wanted you to know I'm fine.
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update:
I spent the morning being errand central, not much fun, but these things have to be done and it's best to get them done before one goes back to work. Then, our landlords came over because about two years ago the heat in the bathroom stopped working. It never really bothered us until just recently when Ellie started complaining of being cold in there. They determined that the problem is that the bathroom heat is plumbed with the second story heat even though our bathroom is on the first floor. When Emily (largely) moved out two years ago, we stopped needing the heat on the second floor so the bathroom heat stopped going on. It didn't bother us--in fact, we barely noticed) until this month and Monday Gary is going to re-plumb the heating so the bathroom is on the first floor where it belongs. It is funny how Ellie spending more time arranging her hair has led to Gary needing to re-plumb the heating system.

Later in the afternoon, Tanya and I went on a field trip to see the looms in "A Loom with a View" in Newburyport. The last time I was there, they had a big room with about six or eight looms in it. Tanya's loom needs a little refurbishing and we thought we'd go look at their looms and see how they were done so we could copy. As long as we were in Newburyport, we had to stop for delicious Indian food. I had Goa shrimp curry which is one of my favorite dishes to eat. I ate a lot, lot, lot of it when I was pregnant with Emily and when she was little at our favorite Indian restaurant in Berkeley, Ajanta. (Look at that! They're still open and thriving! One of my favorite memories of there is that Emily's favorite vegetable when she was three was cauliflower. We used to order her vegetable curry, but just made with cauliflower.) OK, back to the present and Newburyport. After lunch, we went to Loom with a View and they had moved to a smaller storefront and no longer had looms. So, we went on a field trip to Newburyport for Indian food. Totally worth it.

Tommie came over later in the evening to learn how to do credit cards on her iPhone. You need a special piece of equipment (square something or other which she had, but didn't know how to set it up or something). She needs to do know how to do this because she is having a show on Sunday. I have been remiss and not linked to it sooner, but if you are looking for something to do on Sunday and still need to buy presents for people, this might be a good way to solve both of those problems. Tommie will be at RollingGreen Nursery in Greenland with 22 other artists. She doesn't have a website yet, but if you look at the third of the pictures at the top of the page, it's Tommie's. Afterwards, since it is almost up to Maine, you could go to Kittery Trading Post and finish your shopping or to The Beach Pea and just relax or to Byrnes and Carlson and finish your shopping, depending on who you have to shop for.

I did want to report (in the spirit of long chains of events) a closing of a loop of sorts. You may recall that I told you (or you may not recall if I didn't include it in the blog--I thought I did) that when I was taking my boards, I mentioned it to a patient and she said she would hold her thumbs for me instead of the usual crossing  fingers. I really liked that and told many of my patients when they needed luck that I would hold my thumbs for them and I would tell them about this really wonderful lady who introduced me to the phrase. I liked it because it was cute and interesting and because it helped me to remember this woman I was very fond of. One of my patients got a kidney transplant when I was out with my leukemia and sent me a photo of himself in his hospital bed, holding his thumbs for me. I thought that was incredibly sweet and touching (and one of the hundreds reminders of why primary care is so rewarding). Last week, I happened to see the daughter of the original thumb holding patient and was able to tell her the story. She loved it, too. Who will we be holding our thumbs for next?

You may recall how in July-ish I ran into the mother of one of Ellie's chums from kindergarten in the grocery store and she sort of stared at the small part of bald head you could see under my hat and I just didn't feel like telling her I had leukemia so I didn't. Friday, I ran into the mom of a different kindergarten chum of Ellie's and she said to me, "Gosh, I didn't recognize you at first because of your hair cut. It looks nice." I thought to myself, "I don't feel like going into leukemia, chemo, neutropenic fever, second opinion, etc. right now." I said, "Thank you. I like it too." We both went on with our days and it was all good. I must be getting better. It's weird to think that there will be lots of people in my life who never know about this whole experience because I will meet them in the future when it's just like "o, I had a burst appendix in 1982. It was a tough couple of months recovering, but now I don't really think about it." (I still have my appendix, but as an example.)

For myself, I will wish a relaxing and fun day (we're going to Cambridge for one of Terry's friend's openings).  For you, I will wish the same.

(speaking of chains, I started thinking about Terry's friend's opening's poster's lettering's color. how many 's can one stack up?)

Day 151 - a dinner talk

I am sorry for any confusion about the time of Patrick's talk yesterday. It was 7 and, Tommie says, went very well.

As for me, I got back at about 9 o'clock, greeted Ellie and Maggie and went to bed. Today I napped and finished the other side of Ellie's blanket. Tommie and I had lunch at the Green Bean. I drove to the drugstore to get my meds and to the grocery store to get yogurt.

Today's big excitement, however, is that I am going to go to the NHHPCO dinner talk tonight. Sadly, there are no more tickets to the event tomorrow because then people would have to sit on the floor and the fire marshall would not like that (probably the people on the floor wouldn't either). I didn't really know until today if I was going to be up for it, but in retrospect I should have just bought the tickets and let them resell mine if I couldn't go. Ah, well. Life lesson #48k.

I hope I can continue to learn from my experiences and keep getting smarter. I think I'll hope that for you, too.

Day 143 - the fever returns?

I have felt febrile on and off all day today and when I checked, my temperature was never above 100.3. I called Dr. Hill's nurse and she was really clear that I need not go in for anything less than 100.5 so I keep checking and hoping it goes down. I don't feel too bad, overall and this morning I felt great. I feel like I have a virus coming on which would not be surprising given that Ellie is in sixth grade at a school with (I think) a couple thousand kids at it. She seems well, however.

Otherwise, today's big activity was finishing the blanket (I am hoping Ellie will cut it off the loom for me this evening and I can post a picture), driving to Newburyport with Tommie to check out the T commuter rail station, laundry by the ton (mostly mine), and misc paperwork. I signed up for my benefits (Dartmouth employees, you only have until Friday to do it) and filled out my long term disability which will take effect in mid-Dec for (hopefully) just a short while as I get ramped back up to full time.

Other exciting news, if you are in Lebanon on Monday, Nov 12, come to a poetry reading sponsored by the palliative care department. I will be reading a version (very helpfully editted by Patrick) of Agnes Day. And, if you are or can get to Exeter on Tuesday, Nov 13, come to Water Street Books and hear Patrick read from "Dying for Beginners" and maybe other stuff. It is not every day one can hear a nationally known poet (impressed? I am.) reading his own work in an intimate setting, all without travelling super far. Here is a link to the Water Street Books' website where you can get directions and read about it.

I am sorry that today's post is really not even remotely interesting, but worrying that I am headed back to Lebanon with fevers puts a damper on my ability to think well. This is not a bad lesson for today: one would think that a fever of 99.8 is nothing and that I could just set it aside as I have had fevers of 99.8 many many times without needing to go to the hospital. However, my last fever episode was so unpleasant that it makes it extremely difficult for me to take my attention away from it and put it on something more pleasant or interesting. I am not even thinking specific thoughts like "I hope I don't get as sore this time from rigoring as I did last time" or "what if Dr Hill decides I can't have any more chemo because I had fevers with two of three cycles?" It is really just a big amorphous bundle of "O, please, let's not do this again" hanging over my head. Just the thing deep breathing exercises were made for, right?

I will try to update and let you know if the fever declares itself or just sits around at sub 100.5 so you know which direction to broadcast your good thoughts and wishes for me. (Last check was 100.4 so it's not looking good.) It does not come as a surprise that my wish for myself is that I stay without fever. If I could have a second wish, or maybe a co-wish, it would be that my fellow countryfolk choose with wisdom and compassion today. For you, if it is healthy for you, I will wish that you are able to avoid unpleasant things you wish to avoid. If it is not healthy for you, I will wish you the strength to deal with them.

Day 137 - journals and possible chemo brains

Today I spent as usual: weaving, napping, reading. Diane came over with a huge bowl of delicious spaghetti sauce and meatballs and a package of noodles. It turns out that both Ellie and I feel John is a good spaghetti sauce chef. I sat down and ate two delcious bowls right away. Ellie may have had three. That good cook gene has clearly been transmitted to the next generation.

Ellie's blanket is coming along nicely. I am not sure how much yardage is finished yet, but I've been working on it long enough to have a warp thread break so that's a while. It looks really good; I am very proud of it.

The dogs were very silly today. Kita went with Barbara and Maggie and the rest of the crew today and both dogs came back even more exhausted than usual. Kita, smaller by half, but dominant by full, got to sleep in Maggie's warm, soft doggie bed. Maggie slept in the kitchen where she could keep a half awake eye on the meatballs. Kate came by to say hi and it turns out that one of her dogs has bilateral trigeminal neuritis. Who knew? Sort of like dog Bell palsy. I am waiting for some one with cattle to tell me their cow has it too.

I am matching the dogs well and am pretty tired myself. I have runs of energy and then lie around doing nothing. I did walk downtown twice in search of the perfect get well present for Shelley which I ultimately found. It's nice to put my newly and dearly earned knowledge of being a patient to use.

This week's NEJM has two articles that are well worth most people's time. There is an excellent review of irritable bowel syndrome. It is really the best thing I have seen written on IBS anywhere, ever (granted, I am not up to date on the IBS literature). If you are even marginally interested in the syndrome, read the article.

The other article has been in the news a lot and is really interesting: "Patients' Expectations about Effect of Chemotherapy for Advanced Cancer." What the researchers did is ask a whole bunch of people with metastatic lung or colon cancer if they thought they chemo they had decided to take was very likely, somewhat likely, a little likely, not at all likely or unlikely to "cure" their cancer. Using the usual definition of "cure," in this case, the correct answer is "unlikely," and around 30% of patients with advanced lung cancer and 20% of patients with advanced colon cancer got it right. 25% of patients with advanced lung cancer and 35% of patients with advanced colon cancer thought palliative chemo was very likely to cure them with another 25 and 35% thinking "somewhat likely." There is a very nice editorial which lays everything out very nicely, but I think the whole question really boils down to "if you ask a dying person what they believe will be the outcome of a treatment they have already decided to take, what do you think they will say?"

I imagine that people would have reframed their expectations at that point and hope for a "cure," like "more time" or "the spots will get smaller for a while" and, of course, they believe that the chemo can deliver that "cure" to them (the rest of the statistics support that patients understand they can expect symptom relief and life extension from palliative chemo). OTOH, the editorialist points out that 25% of Medicare's spending is in the last year of life. If patients are accepting palliative chemo hoping for a chance at eradication without return, who would not accept it for life prolongation/symptom relief, this is a problem.

The authors reference a study showing that patients with advanced cancer would accept toxic treatment for even a 1% chance of cure but would be unwilling to accept the same treatment for a substantial increase in life expectancy without cure. When I read that, I tried to imagine how I would feel if I were in that study. It would depend on what "substantial increase in life expectancy" meant and if there were some other potentially better option I was giving up, but if "substantial increase" was substantial, I'm in. (Luckily, I have available and am getting treatment with a much better chance of a cure that is not toxic.) Of course, I'm in the biz and I understand statistics so my view is not typical. But--if patients are really valuing "cure" as medically defined so highly, what are they thinking when they agree to palliative chemotherapy? (which is mostly not toxic so it's not apples to apples, but I think you get my drift).

If you are finding my train of thought a little hard to follow tonight, don't despair. Terry feels like I'm not quite thinking perfectly. It is actually really hard to hear that someone thinks you are not thinking well; how can you defend yourself? I felt that I had been thinking pretty normally; what other perceptions about myself/my thinking/the entire universe were suspect now? There were tears (a lot of tears), but after Terry told me he felt my reasoning and thoughts were ok, that I just didn't seem to have the usual level of vigilance/alertness and his faith in my ability to carry out automatic tasks was marred, I felt better. He always knows how to flatter a girl.

Tomorrow I am going to get labs. I am hoping this time that there will be something to fix in my labs that makes me feel more energetic and helps out my brain. For you, I hope a solution you have been seeking will start to appear. If you are not seeking a solution to some interesting problem, I hope you get to get busy soon because I think solution seeking is one of the funnest things we humans get to do.

Day 136 - this n that

This morning when Barbara came to pick up Maggie she had a brie baker for me. I have never made baked brie and I don't really think I'd ever had baked brie before today, but now I have and it's pretty tasty. I exulted so much in eating brie in yesterday's post that Barbara felt I needed a brie baker. It probably turns out that today is my last for sure day of non-neutropenia so I will transition myself to the neutropenic diet in the morning and I really had to eat the rest of the brie today. What I did was cook it as the baker suggested and then took it to Tommie's. We called up Barbara and she joined us eating brie and watching the sun set on the river. It was nicely relaxing.

Other activities for today include weaving some of Ellie's blanket. I am getting the challenges worked out and it is growing pretty quickly. It is so fuzzy and warm looking that I think it will be tough to hand over to her.

I also spent some time on the CAPC forum websites, imagining my professional life out there waiting quietly for me. I'm getting excited for being done with all of my various poisons and on to regular life again--mid December or so. I still do not know the specific next poison that Dr Hill has planned for me, but will keep you updated when I do.

Other activities for today were a little walk through downtown which was totally gorgeous today--the sun was out, a gentle, fresh breeze was blowing,  there were constant clumps of people out walking and enjoying the day (perhaps because there was no school?). I took this nice picture of the dam and this out of focus picture of a crazy bird that was hanging out in the river. There were two and I was not able to get either in focus. This is an example of the kind of thing the iphone camera is not that great at. I could carry around my point and shoot in addition to my iphone for just such situations.

All the overflow is coming out the sides; the dam wall is dry. There is strong consideration being given to getting rid of the dam as it serves no purpose any more.

Our photogenic river, taken from the String Bridge, looking upstream.

The weird bird. It's quite thick looking with a white chest and brown other parts and a waterfowl kind of beak.

More photogenic Exeter. It's hard to believe that this was the day we were all so worried about with Sandy. We were so lucky in the seacoast of New Hampshire. That's the public library behind the island. The children's room has a window that is right out over the river and worth a visit, especially in the spring melt.

This consolidation has been so much better than either of the others. I feel really quite good: easily fatigued, but energetic between rests. My mood and thinking seem to be fairly normal. My mucous membranes are intact. Hopefully, things will stay good this time. Tomorrow, Diane is coming for a visit and I have no other plans planned. Thursday will be my next set of labs.

I hope for myself for tomorrow a day of recovery. I hope for all the folks who are submerged or still damp, a quick recovery. For you, I hope a peaceful day with recovery if needed.

Day 135 - yummy!

I feel badly because I really enjoyed today and I know it was a miserable day for a lot of other people. My day started with Tommie and a trip to Manch for labs. I ran into a couple of people I knew which was nice and had my labs drawn without complication (or pain/discomfort). My labs were great: ANC 1,130, hgb 8.7, platelets 152. This means I do not need a transfusion and I can still eat a regular diet.

Once they called me to let me know, we decided to celebrate by having lunch at the Green Bean. Since I will not be able to have brie soon (too much fungus), I had a grilled brie sandwich with tomato and took home a salad for dinner. Ellie always gets the same: french roll, provolone, ham, potato chips so she is never disappointed. Tommie and Terry looked pretty happy too.

Terry and I continued to look at the surf (bad, citizen, bad, bad! "Avoid parks, beaches and low lying areas") which was incredible. I didn't really get any good pictures of it, but here's what I got.

Lots of churning surf and gawkers like us

Jenness beach which is usually very wide and the water which is usually pretty flat

There were times when you could look out to sea and see that the surf was higher than the top of the car. Going out to look at the surf was probably not our smartest move, but beautiful and fortunately we lived to tell the tale. It made me think of what it's like on a summer day when the waves get going a little and the ocean sucks the sand out from under your toes while at the same time the waves push forward. Except it was doing it at a huge scale. The whole of the ocean in the zone closest to the beach where you sometimes see surfers was filled with white foam. When you looked out further, it looked like a crazed cake froster had thrown vanilla frosting at a canvas in a not particularly artistic pattern. There were huge drops in height of the water at times and spray going over onto the road.

Next, since again I can eat brie for a couple of days, we stopped at Nancy's for cheese. Nancy's theory about why I've done so well with my chemo is because I am not afraid to eat anything. I have to think that there is some wisdom in that. Surely brie, Matt's locally grown produce and all the salmon have been good for my marrow. If nothing else, they've been good for my psyche. I *would* like to take this opportunity to point out that this doesn't mean I don't do the (hated, much maligned) neutropenic diet, because I think I do adhere pretty well to it.

On our way home, we stopped at Matt's and he had one basket of my favorite variety of raspberries. I am not quite sure of their name; it's similar to Polonia. They are huge, not as sweet as most raspberries and have a mild floral taste. They are late in the season so if there is an early frost, you don't get them. I think Matt does not really favor them because of this, but with global warming, we have had them the past three years. I have not really had raspberries this year because it just hasn't worked out: when I've had cells, Matt hasn't had berries or vice versa and, well, I only like the raspberries varieties that I like, but today was my payoff. I took a picture of them with a little gold pin so you can see their size and texture. 

Queen of fall produce

Then we came home and I had a three hour (!) nap from which I woke refreshed and ready to take on the world. Sadly, all that I needed to do was a little email and then it was dinner time. Again, taking advantage of my white cells, I had the gorgonzola salad from the Green Bean (mold, lettuce that may or may not be washed appropriately, have the walnuts been thouroughly toasted? otherwise, fully neutropenic compliant--i.e., totally and completely wrong). Then Terry and I lay on the couch and watched the big trees between our house and Doug's get tossed around. Our house is 140 years old or so and it is nice to think of all the people it has sheltered over the years just like it was sheltering us tonight.

I think I'll do a little weaving tonight. I remember one time reading where a woman said it took her nine months and nine days to make a huge dining room table cloth. Nine months to be intimidated by the size of the warp she had to deal with and procrastinate, then nine days to do the actual weaving. I think I am responding similarly to Ellie's blanket.

Tomorrow, I will not, not, not be getting any blood components which makes me happy. I hope I will be cozy in my little house and that you will be too. If you are in an area where you are not affected by the storm or you do not wish for a cozy day, I wish you something that fills you with as much happiness as late season, huge raspberries did me today. Otherwise, may we all be safe and cozy.