Chapter 15

Date: Fri, Sep 18, 2020 at 2:28 PM
Subject: Chapter 15

Over 3 months since I last wrote.
Initially there was nothing to report as we were in a holding pattern. Then things got really busy and my focus was elsewhere.

What a year!!!

My daughter had to move as her landlord decided he needed to "use her apartment for a friend/pseudo-relative". With no eviction orders in place, rental listings were close to non-existent. Port Townsend is going through its own gentrification process and homes are selling rather than renting. The only place she could find was 40 minutes away from her clients but it’s better than being homeless. It does however, include a garage. Space that she has never before had included in her rent. So we not only moved her stuff from PT to Sequim but also took advantage of the opportunity to empty out a 10×10 storage unit – which included some 16 ft of 2ft deep shelving made of 2×4’s 4 ft off the floor, not to mention more conventional shelving and furniture. This had allowed us to stack stuff up higher than usual. It was mostly her stuff, but Dave and I had a bunch of stuff in there as well rather than rent 2 units.
It took a trip with a U-haul truck for the furniture plus 5 or 6 trips with the RV full of boxes to get everything moved. Dave helped on a couple of the trips but the u-haul trip and other RV trips I did, quite proudly, all by my little self! She did most of the current move from PT with her van – I just dealt mostly with the storage unit. It was a lot of work and I am SO pleased that I was up to it. Made me feel far younger. I actually handled it better than I could have several times in the past when my hips were giving me trouble. NO problems since Taya got me fixed up in 2015 or 2016.

At the same time I have been investigating the possibility of buying a business! Learning how to do due diligence and evaluate a business has been invigorating. I don’t want to go into details on that process at this time but it is certainly taking a lot of my time.

Meanwhile Dave went in for another round of Nelaribine and we got taken by surprise with the news that although the malignancy was down to <0.01 which is as low as they can detect it instead of the hoped for undetectable, they were giving up on that Chemo AND the transplant and recommended maintenance Chemo. They said that the transplant was off the table due to the atrial flutter back in November. This didn’t really make sense to us since they have known about that for the half year they were pushing the idea of transplant. Ah well, we both felt a sense of relief rather than disappointment, so we didn’t press the issue.

Since we were now on maintenance it seemed an appropriate time to see what we could do about restoring health and hence the body’s ability to deal with any remaining malignancy on its own. We had submitted a list of supplements that Dave wanted to take but many of them were contra-indicated due to being on a blood ’thinner’- since the supplements can also ’thin’ the blood. Well, was there a good reason to be on the blood thinner when there was no further indication of atrial flutter? We contacted a cardiologist who had him wear a monitor for a week and reported back that everything was great. No problems. Stay on the drugs! Now, wait a minute. WHY stay on the drugs? “Because.” But they make taking supplements contra-indicated. Oh, okay, you can quit.

Well, unfortunately, we quit the thinner without adding the supplements and it turned out that, without anything to keep the anticoagulation under control, he did, indeed, have a problem. Once again he landed in hospital with pulmonary embolisms and I reckon we won’t try again to get off the thinner.

But the next time we saw the doctor, they again talked about maybe getting back on the transplant list since there had been no sign of the atrial flutter. Dave said to go ahead and inquire.
The visit after that they said, no, if the chemo regiment was hard enough on him to cause the flutter, then no getting back on the list. Again, no disappointment at that news. But an unfortunate sense that it is the bean counters that are deciding whether to recommend such measures depending on the financial numbers rather than on what’s best for the patient. Perhaps just our cynicism showing.
At any rate, he remains on maintenance chemo and I continue to look at business options.

Given my personality, strengths and weaknesses, I am looking for an established service business where there is no need for marketing other than word of mouth and visibility. A laundromat. A print shop. A mailbox/ shipping/ copy/ notary type place. Maybe an internet cafe if they are still in demand. Nothing to do with food or chemicals (laundry soap and ink are okay, just don’t want to swim in the stuff!) If you are aware of any such options or have other ideas, speak up!