One thing at a time …

I’ve had a good week …

For the last month I’ve been going to chemo with various friends/family so Gerry could have a break from the grind of working full time and taking me to the cancer center on his days off. But this week he came with me to my appointments.

As much as I love my friends/family … there is nothing like being with your husband while you endure uncomfortable stuff.

For some reason my pre-chemo blood appointment was early in the morning so by 10:30am we realized we had the ENTIRE day to ourselves. No more appointments! Woot!

We drove out to screen-capture-5Goldstream Park to see if the salmon have started spawning yet. We are a little early yet but we did get lucky and see one salmon doing his thing. In a couple of weeks there will be hundreds.

Every time I go to Goldstream Park I hear a voice say… “this is where you belong“.

Remember last year when I went for a massage with Prince the horse up at Mary’s Farm and Sanctuary. The farm is located up the road from Goldstream and when I was there I heard a voice say “You are doing it wrong. This is where you should be…”

Well … What the hell? Now I have to figure out what all this means.

screen-capture-4Goldstream Park is near the Harley Davidson store so Gerry and I popped in there so he could look for stuff for his bike. As we were driving down the road Gerry hit the breaks and said “Look! A frog in the middle of the road!

A big truck drove by and almost squished him so as soon as the street cleared I jumped out of the car and scooped up the frog and took him to safety.

It was kind of a comedy of errors at first. The frog obviously didn’t want to be picked up so he kept jumping away and I ALMOST had him to the sidewalk when he started jumping back into the street. I finally managed to grab him and took him over to a bog. I’m sure he’ll be quite happy there. 🙂

I got back in the car and started crying. #1. I wish I had spent more time with the frog. Frogs are so cool. #2. It reminded me of when Shoshana and I were kids.

One summer we stayed at my Dad’s friends farm for a week or so. David & Catherine live in this adorable house on a big piece of land near Saskatoon and Shoshana and I would spend our time wandering around looking at stuff. There were horses to look at. We read. Sometimes we got to throw bottles into the bottle pit (early recycling). We helped with gardening. We mostly played outside – One time we found a bunch of toads in the creek and we carefully scooped up as many as we could and took them back to the house.

Why? I don’t know … because we could?

We left them in the bathtub thinking they would be safe in there and went to bed. The next morning the ENTIRE BATHROOM was covered in toads.

They. Were. Everywhere. Ha ha. Idiots.

Saving that frog in the road made me think of Shoshana which made me miss her immensely. Like I felt like my heart was breaking kind of feeling. Sometimes I think about moving to Toronto just to be closer … Do they have a Goldstream Park in Toronto?

screen-capture-6This week I also went for dinner with some friends to the new sister restaurant of Bliss Cafe called Be Love.

It’s beautiful. They did such a nice job with it and the menu is really exciting. So much to choose from (both cooked and raw).

My only complaint is that they use honey in some of their dishes. If they just nixed the honey the restaurant would be 100% vegan. I don’t get why they still use honey when there are so many other things they could use. Anyway … small complaint. 🙂 The food was excellent and it’s wonderful to have another vegan friendly place to eat in Victoria. Wahooo!

screen-capture-3Also this week my dear sweet friends at Moo Shoes sent me this FAB pair of shoes.

I saved wearing them till Wed so I could wear them to chemo and they were a hit!  🙂

The staff at the cancer center must think I’m such a nut with all my different outfits/shoes. I don’t think I’ve slummed it to chemo once.

Thank you MOO SHOES! You guys are amazing. Hey. If I moved to Toronto I would be even closer to Moo Shoes … hmmmm.

Other then everyone fawning over my shoes – chemo was uneventful. My dear sweet Gerry husband was there beside me. There is nothing better then taking a drug induced nap with your husband sitting beside you keeping watch.

So … I have ONE MORE CHEMO to go.

But don’t get too excited. It’s not all over once the chemo is over. I mean … we can celebrate the end of this milestone but I still have 5 weeks of daily radiation to do.

We also met with the genetic councilor to talk about doing testing to see if I have the breast cancer gene. If I test positive then we have to decide if I go with another mastectomy and also remove my ovaries. So there’s still lots to do …

One thing at a time. For now we focus on my last chemo.

Jesus… what should I wear?

 

 

 

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8 Responses to One thing at a time …

  1. Okay, here I go again with answering to pretty much everything you wrote:

    Goldstream: Between the log cabin you wrote about recently (on FB) and Goldstream, it seems you’re being drawn to a more rural environment. I feel that oftentimes, too, but being raised in the city, I get totally conflicted. LOVE French Beach—just went there recently for the first time.

    Be Love: I’m excited to read about Be Love. I need these options! I’m not *quite* all the way vegan yet (still learning), but between your books, online info, Café Bliss, Green Cuisine, and the vegan menu at Sizzling Tandoor, I’m getting there and have made great progress over the last month.

    Wardrobe action: Your pics of your chemo outfits is a brilliant example of what it means to “do life”. I absolutely love that you’ve done this and I bet the nurses are loving it, too.

    Last chemo: Please, please wear the most amazingly glittery outfit ever for your last chemo. Please include leopard print, too!

    Toronto: Ah, I was born and raised there. I miss it often, especially in the fall, but not enough to move back. I love the island. I’m considering some sort of house swap thing where I get to be there for a few months at a time, though, but I have to have an empty nest first.

  2. First. I love you. Don’t make me come out there with a bucket full of frogs just so you know how much I love you.
    B., You and Gerry could do the house swap thing! That’s an amazing idea and would really work for me. Plus, there are loads of beautiful places to be outside of the big smoke. I get that feeling all the time.
    And third, I love you. Last chemo is next week which just means you are closer to the end but also that you have done so so so much already. My hero.

  3. David Miller says:

    Good morning Sarah (and hi, Shoshana),

    The “adorable house” is still standing near Saskatoon (and still in need of constant repairs to keep it from falling down completely) and your visits are an indelible part of its history (although we haven’t thought about the Great Plague of Bathroom Toads for quite awhile).

    You’re in our hearts always,
    with love,
    ~ David and Cathryn

  4. nova says:

    THOSE SHOES AND THAT FROG <3 <3 <3

    Last chemo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    I love this post. 🙂

  5. Lizz says:

    Sarah! I’m so glad you’re done with chemo. I enjoyed your frog story immensely. I wasn’t ever a nature lover as a kid. I had cats my whole life, but everything outdoors kind of creeped me out. When I grew up, I would hear stories about people saving birds and turtles and feral cats, oh and dogs on the highway, and I thought to myself, “Why the hell aren’t I doing stuff like that??” So whenever I see something that I think I can help I make a point of doing it. I pulled a large turtle from the road while at the LBJ Ranch (I doubted the Texans on the road tour after us would care enough to go around) and when we moved into our apartment this past spring, we started taking care of a feral cat that chose to live on our porch. She was preggos and we brought her to a rescue group with the goal of finding all of them a home. Well, she was given shots and fixed after the fact, but after she was brought to a feral colony she came all the way back to our porch. We aren’t allowed to have any more pets per our lease, but we feed her twice per day and have given her blankets and things. So, yeah, that’s my story. I wish I had started being helpful toward wild non human animals a long time ago!

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