Travels on the Pike, busy week at home

First of all, thanks to everyone who gave advice and support about my work and insurance situation. (Explained at the bottom of this post.) I did fill out the COBRA paperwork, which I got a few days later. I have questions about the ways, unfair I believe, that they are treating me differently from the other laid-off employees, but I don't think I should go into that now. Sigh.

My friend Barry drove me to and from my appointment yesterday. At 5, my platelets were low again. On Monday, they didn't have the matched platelets I usually get, so they gave me the freshest available from the general pool. I haven't gotten much of what they call a "bump" from the general platelets, but I had to have something because they were so low. In the meantime Diane donated the platelets that more closely match my typing, and so I went back yesterday to get them.

I didn't need blood (WBC was 30), and my white count was good, too, at 5.8. Diane had actually produced two bags of platelets, but Dr. Alyea ordered one. (Usually if two are available, they give me both and say to come back in a week.) Barry was sitting with me when my infusion room nurse said that Dr. Alyea wanted me to come back Monday and have my counts rechecked and get the other bag if I need it.

Barry must have seen that look come into my eyes. "Don't make anything of it," he said.

Later, back home, I mumbled, "Why would he want me to come back so soon? Maybe he found something in my blood work and he wants to see if it's still there on Monday and he'll tell me then." Katie was the voice of reason. "Mom, we've been through this before," she said. "If he had something to tell you, he'd tell you right then." Oh, OK. New thoughts: He wants to recheck the platelets earlier than usual so he can get an idea of when they start to fall, or, he was doing something else and the nurse asked him over the phone what he wanted to do and he said, "Oh, just tell her to come back Monday," without it meaning anything.

Gotta love that Masspike (formally known as Massachusetts Turnpike, the highway that we take to Boston.)

Well at least I'm not spending all of my time driving back and forth. Erin, my yoga teacher and now friend, came over for tea Tuesday morning. She brought a delicious pineapple which she cut up in no time. (My habit is to wait until I think they're ripe, then realize they're overripe, then put them in the fridge and then throw them out...well, not all of the time.) I told Erin that I was trying some standing poses, such as triangle pose, but having trouble keeping my balance. She showed me how to do some of these poses using a chair so I don't have to worry about toppling over.

On Tuesday night, Deb, Charlotte and their black lab puppy, Mary Margaret, came over for our annual Fourth of July cookout, three days late, but who cares. Joe cooked hamburgers, chicken and kielbasa on the grill, and we had salad, fruit salad and potato chips (delicious and nutritious) plus chocolate sour cream cake for dessert. 

The puppy is now four months old and quite feisty. She and Maddie ran around and around, tumbling over each other and at times playing tug-of-war with Maddie's new rope toy. I think Maddie had enough – sometimes she pinned the puppy and held her down – but she doesn't really know how to put her in her place. I'm not sure she wanted to.

Today my neighbor, Susan, and I (with dog) went to Deb's for four-o'clock tea. It wasn't really tea because we all drank Deb's good strong coffee, but it was fun to call it that. Deb arranged a platefull of goodies, and we ate and talked while the dogs played in the fenced-in yard. Maddie has been zonked since we came home. Meanwhile I'm trying to walk a little farther, maybe a mile and a half or so, which I did before going to "tea." So I should sleep well too.