We awakened Monday morning to a light dusting of snow on the ground; but it didn't last long since the ground was not cold enough and the air temperature was too high. But it looked nice for a short time. Sandy's ministering sister visited her in the morning and brought her some chocolate chip cookies. Because she is trying not to eat much sugar, I am forced to eat all this type of goodies she receives. And that is not necessarily a blessing to my waistline.
Tuesday morning Sandy had lab work done prior to a later in the week scheduled infusion. In the afternoon she returned for a followup with the dermatologist about her cracked and swollen lips and itchy skin. The meds he had previously prescribed had done their job well and she is recovering well.
The elders quorum was scheduled to unload a U-Haul truck on Thursday, then on Wednesday evening and then first thing Wednesday morning, when the temperature was in the 20's. A sister was moving from Arizona and her brother, who lives locally, was there to assist the four of us and the driver to offload a 26 foot van into a 20 foot storage shed. The driver had packed the U-Haul and must have had super natural packing powers; there wasn't any extra space. And when he was done packing the storage shed, it was much the same. I was able to help until 9:30 since Sandy had a 10 am appointment with the wound healing center. They always change out her bag, which had been on several days this time. The smaller wound seems to be healed over and not draining. The larger one is healing nicely, showing good color. We asked the doctor several questions, such as: what happens to the drainage if the wound heals over? Will she always be on an ostomy bag? Turns out that Sandy is an anomaly; neither she (with 20+ years medical experience) nor the surgeon (over 30 years experience) have ever seen this type of wound before and don't know what to expect. So for now they are tracking her progress (which has been very good), ensuring the cleanliness of the wound and surrounding skin area, and seeing her every two weeks. Home health comes once a week and only changes the bags if there is a leak.
Thursday morning Sandy met with Clifford for his treatment and then right after had the infusion therapy. The latter takes up to three hours; first she sees the doctor who reviews her lab results from earlier that week, then they order the meds and the actual infusion only takes about an hour. There was good news: her red blood count was 10.1 two weeks ago. This time it was 10.9. She had a lot of energy this day; in fact at her normal bedtime she didn't feel like going to bed and stayed up another hour or more.
While she was busy doing her thing, six of us drove out to a member's home about an hour away to cut firewood. My original thought was to cut wood for this member and then anyone else in need. This brother turned down the offer of wood, but he did arrange with the owner of neighboring land that had been logged, to cut any downed timber. We found plenty of oak to cut and split. I had taken the trailer and we had it mostly loaded when someone else showed up. Turns out that while we had permission to cut the wood from the owner, he had just sold the wood to this guy to cut for firewood. Not a problem, we were just about ready to stop anyway. On the way home we dropped off a rick or two of wood at a member's house and brought the rest back to our house for future dispersal.
Friday Sandy was still feeling good. Miranda, Dan and children arrived about 6 pm; we had also invited the sister missionaries for dinner. I made Mexican chicken casserole (my first time) and it was pronounced tasty. The purpose of our gathering was to review the next day's race strategy. The White River Marathon/half marathon/5K was the next day and Miranda, Dan, one of the sisters (with mission president approval) and I were running the 5K. The non running sister needed a female companion and they found a young family that was willing to be up early to keep her company and then get her to the finish line while the other four of us headed to Cotter for the race. I especially like this race; this is the 14th year for this event (my 3rd year to participate) and proceeds go to support a community in Kenya. With about 700 runners participating in the three different running events it is a massive undertaking, but they have all sorts of volunteers that support them. Because it is a Boston Marathon qualifier, it is a chipped race and they have your race results available immediately after the race. Runners like this marathon route because it is flat! I like it because in the first mile, 3/4s of that is downhill. And they give each finisher a nice medallion. And they have food! in the building where the awards are handed out. Dan took 1st in his age group, 23rd of 150 runners. The sister missionary was 2nd in her age group and I was first in the over 70 male group (53rd of 150). I should mention, there were only two in that category.
It was in the high 30's when the race started.
Dan finishing 24th overall for the 5K.
Miranda is on the left and the sister missionary to the right, nearing the finish line...and just before she passed me at the finish.
Here is your fearless leader at the finish line.
The awesome foursome after the race.
The shirt the sister missionaries made for the event.
I still had about two or three rick of wood in the trailer and put my work force to work stacking it.
Today we are a little stiff and sore. And at church today, there was a family of seven from Dallas; they had come up so the Mom could participate in the marathon. When pressed, she admitted to being the 4th female to finish the marathon. Not bad for a mother of five children!
We look forward to traveling to Jonathan and Kristy's for Thanksgiving, with a brief shopping trip in Branson this week. We hope all of you have an enjoyable Thanksgiving!
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