Day 34 and Day 35

Greetings from rainy White Rock,

How are all my favorite bald eagles doing today? I'm sure there is a run on hats and bandanas in Prince George this week. Still can't get over the sheer(ed) numbers of participants. My hat is off to all of you, and Sam's hair is falling for you too.

Sam's steroid is wearing off I have seen in incline in napping, he's more tired, and a slight decline in ravenousness. (Is there even such a word?) At least the night feedings have stopped, and the constant food conversations have abated somewhat. His joints and bones have been less achy the past couple days and he walked the furthest yesterday than he has in 6 1/2 weeks. This may not seem like much to you but it causes much joy for me. Positive changes, no matter how little, are worth being thankful for.

We drove down to Burnaby, stopped in at the new Costco to pick up a few items, and spent some time visiting with friends and cousins. We were excited to attend my nieces special Aboriginal Award Ceremony, where she would be receiving a well deserved award. We were so disappointed when the Micheal J. Fox auditorium in South Burnaby High was packed and standing room only. After a few minutes it was apparent we could not stay...it was too hot, too crowded, and too full of "germs." The traffic home was heavy so we stopped at a new shopping area close to the off ramp. I'm getting very brave about driving around in this mega city...pretty good for this small town girl! It happened to be an outlet area so I wheeled Sam around and we had fun looking at a lot great stuff, but only window shopped! We found our new favorite store...Home Outfitters! I don't think you could ever guess why, so I'll just tell ya! We found an area where they have all these massage chairs. We sat in them for 45 minutes and oohed and aahed as it soothed and kneaded our sore muscles. We didn't even know we had such sore muscles until the chair started working on us. Sam had lots of fun programming MY chair and making it do all these weird things on me while he sat by and laughed!

When we arrived home we had 3 messages from Oncology. We were prepared to start his next round of chemo today and then on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Sam's appointments were cancelled and rescheduled for next week instead. His white blood cell, red blood cells and hemoglobin were ok. His platelet count was excellent but his neutrophils had plummeted. He was not ready for chemo again. I was totally deflated and so disappointed. We both had planned for the treatment days and were hoping to stay on schedule. Sam, at the same time, was somewhat relieved, it postpones the inevitable treatments. So more blood tests next week on Tuesday, with the hope that he can restart treatment on Wednesday. So now we have some unplanned free time and no one to play with. Does anyone want to come do something with us today? If you have any favorite things you do here that and don't include crowds and are reasonable priced please let us know...we need some ideas.

Uncle Mel and Auntie LaDonna came over for awhile to visit this morning on their way to LaDonna's conference in Whistler. That was great! Sam's back napping and I'm catching up on correspondence and house jobs! Enjoy your day!

Debbie signing out for now.