|
The Weekly Newsletter for March 19-March 23, 2012 |
Home sweet home!
|
|
| My office home |
|
yes. This is really me, this morning, sitting at my desk at work. Heather came to my house and picked me up and took me in for a couple of hours, enough to say hi to everyone who was there and to do a tiny bit of work.
It will be a slow re-entry process, but it has started. 2 hours on Day 1. |
|
|
|
|
|
Flowers on my front stoop |
| All sorts of things happened here while I was gone, Martha and Lito and Rolando came and distributed a truckload of mulch on the upper garden beds. Someone dropped off some pansies. Someone came in a vacuumed all the pup hair and dusted. I had cleaned before I left but not completely. What a huge gift! |
|
|
|
|
| Dinners for the week |
|
We make dinners to go Monday through Friday.
Call 252-1500 by noon or so and then come pick up your dinners between 3 and 7, when we close. Add a salad for 3.25 or bread for 1.25.
Monday March 19
Pistachio Roasted Chicken with Spinach Sauté 8.25
Tuesday March 20
Chickpea Cakes, Tatziki Sauce and Lemon Sesame Tabouleh 7.95
Wednesday March 21
Local Lamb Ragu with braised greens 9.25
Thursday March 22
Spareribs with Butternut Squash and Kale 7.95 (GF)
Friday March 23
Shrimp Risotto with Local Greens 8.50 |
|
Laurey's |
|
|
| |
Casserole and Lasagna for the Week |
Call by noon and then come pick up between 4 and 7 that day!
Wednesday, March 21
Beef Bourguignon with Potatoes
Full: 60 Half: 30
Friday, March 23
Lemon-Ricotta with Zucchini Lasagna
Full: 38 Half: 19 |
|
|
|
|
| My new ocean friend |
|
| I told you that Heather and I got to visit friends at Bald Head Island. What a beautiful place it is! Chilly, yes, but huge and open and clear and brisk and also just the right thing for me, for us, as we headed into surgery. I don't have that much familiarity with ocean places here but this was a marvelous place and we both felt that part of us will always want to go back. |
|
|
|
|
|
Let ME eat cake! |
One thing about home is remembering things like Lemon Layer Cake. Barbara made this a couple of weeks ago. Sheesh! Tangy and fresh frosting and cut with a feather cake.
This was one of things I missed. |
|
|
|
|
| In Carl's "picture thingy" |
|
| Here's a close-up of the board in Carl Jones' front yard, the one where you stick you head through. The watermelon is a cart tire, sliced, shaved, and painted. Is this what you see when you find some old junk tires? Me neither but I sure do feel like I have a new friend in him. |
|
|
|
|
|
In Carl's yard |
| And then of course there are the regular appearances of herons for me, talismans, reminders that things are all right. This one appeared the day before my surgery. The other one bracketed my hospital venture on a fly-over the day Heather and I headed home. |
|
|
|
|
| A word or two from Laurey |
|
March 17, 2012
Oh my. What an extraordinary time this year has been. I am now home from the last surgery in Chapel Hill and still am having trouble saying my doctor’s words out loud.
“No evidence of disease.”
“Clear scans”
“Clear pathology of the tumor that was removed" (but proof that it had really been there.)
Confirmation that all the chemotherapy treatments worked.
Confirmation that all of the surgical procedures for this situation worked well, were needed and gave us the information needed to make huge decisions.
I am home and I do not have cancer.
I am exhausted with relief. Thrilled with this report. I don’t have to go back to Chapel Hill for 3 months. And once I get my chemotherapy port removed, my body will consist of only me, no extra parts. And that’ll happen pretty soon.
This started, when we first met, with my doctor saying, “well you need to know you are not our ideal candidate for this,” to him saying, "You’ve done really well. You look great. You’re going to be fine. You have a very strong immune system and you have a lot of time to do a lot of things. You're fit and young and healthy and you'll be fine."
I sure do hope so. I have known of people being told they are cancer free only to have a recurrence. I’m going to be careful. Do all the follow ups. Do everything I am supposed to do. And maybe I’ll get sick again. But my doctors don’t feel that way so why should I, the patient, make up stories. I like theirs well enough thank you very much.
So celebrate with me this wonderful news on this spring night. I think I’m going to okay. I really do. |
|
|
|
|
|
Jumping for joy |
| This is how I feel inside my heart. My body says, well, maybe in a few weeks. I'm very very sore, and feel beaten up, but am also full of such good news and of such relief and gratitude that this is all over that I'm daring enough to show the snap. At some point I will take this picture again - just to prove I can. But I already know I'll be able to - once it is time. |
|
|
|
