The places I went: Canoe Club and dentist

Canoe Club courts

I couldn't decide if I was going to go running or go to tennis on Wednesday so I did what we used to do in the newsroom: shout out a question and take the advice of the person nearest you. In this case it was the construction guys. I had my running shoes and my tennis shoes and they said to go to tennis. So off I went.

Seriously though I had asked my nurse practitioner and she said it is unlikely that the virus will travel on a tennis ball. Still, the USTA guidelines from May say to: "Use your racquet/foot to pick up balls and hit them to your opponent. Avoid using your hands to pick up the balls." I said that to George and he said you don't have to touch a ball. Guess what? It's really hard to not touch a ball. I was never good at that move where you pick the ball up with your foot and racquet by bouncing it on the ground. I touched balls but didn't touch my face and used hand sanitizer in breaks. I think those guidelines came from the period when people were more worried about the virus sticking to a surface.

Canoe Club

There were five of us plus George. It was good to see friends that I had missed. I think it was OK. We stayed far enough apart from each other. You're not really supposed to congregate. In breaks, though, everyone just drifted to the usual spots in chairs around a table. I started to sit down but pulled a chair out. At one point, when we were doing a three on three drill, someone on my side rushed to the net and told the other two to come on up. I said I would just stay back, remembering the distance idea. She said we would still be far enough apart. I stayed back.

I had my third visit to the dentist. This time, unlike the previous times, there were people in the waiting room. Alternate seats were blocked off, and people were wearing masks...so I think it was OK, but afterwards I had a little freakout. Not a good time to have OCD.

I got there on time and expected to go in on time so as to minimize time around others. Later I talked to other people who said their dentist had them wait in the car until it was time. I would have left and gone outside except that I kept expecting to get called in. I waited 20 minutes.  I don't have any upcoming appointments, but for my next one, I'll ask to wait outside.

Still, routine care is going to continue happening, and not all offices are going to be able to have people wait outside. Later in the month, I'm going back to Dana-Farber, for a checkup and to meet my new doctor. I'm going to need to get blood work. They are not going to tell a whole bunch of people, some of them sick, to go wait on the street.

House work

My dentist has opinions. Actually, I think since he has been with me through everything, he cares about me. He said that I have lost too much muscle mass and I should go eat some protein! He said to go eat a steak. I don't do that very often. I don't weigh myself often, either, but I do think I have lost weight, due to the running. I am doing weight-lifting classes through the Y, especially the Livestrong classes twice a week, plus yoga, so I thought I was taking care of my upper body. It's not something I have been great at over the years during times when I've been running a lot.


 I went to Boyfriend's house and asked for protein. He made me some eggs. At home I tried making a smoothie with green stuff, protein powder, and fruit. It doesn't sound that hard, but for some reason I mess up my smoothies.

Here's something I wrote about all the side effects of my transplants. They actually call these after effects because side effects are talked about more in terms of more immediate reactions.

I'm happy to say that work is finally continuing on the house.

Local strawberries are here. Yay! I remember when they were one of the last things I was allowed to eat, after my transplants. Of course I had to write about it. I don't know if they are going to do strawberry picking this year. I have sweet memories of doing it with the kids. I think I might have liked it more than they did...but they seemed to be having a good time.

And to think this guy is a father now

Playing tennis, tasting wine, standing on chairs

Tennis friends at Black Birch Vineyard

Last night I stood up on a chair to get a bud vase for a pink rose that a tennis friend gave us to mark the year anniversary of her mother's death. We all raised a rose to our mothers, on this earth or not, but always with us.

For a moment I considered whether I should do it but then realized that I could. Normally this would not be a big deal, but I thought back to my progression from hardly being able to stand up and sit down in a chair, to in no way having the strength or balance to climb up on one, to now having strong enough leg muscles to be able to do it.

I put the rose on the table next to the zinnias I picked from the garden. I can't believe how tall they got. One is almost as tall as I am. When I cut them I could hear my mother say, "Don't be afraid to cut them," meaning make sure to bring them in so you can enjoy them. At the beach, she had flowers everywhere. She was especially proud of her roses.

The rose-giving happened yesterday at Black Birch Vineyard in Southampton. It was our second year going to this beautiful place. We brought a picnic to have along with wine: either a glass or a wine tasting. I remembered the wine I liked from last year but did the wine tasting anyway. I'm not a wine connoisseur but had fun learning the proper way of tasting. I did two of the whites twice because I didn't want the reds and played a game of turning my back and guessing when I sipped. I got the Epic White right (pear tastes and other fruity nuances but not too sweet), yay, and went ahead and bought a bottle. Or two.

Flowers keeping company

Before we went, we played tennis at the Rogers Field next to Holyoke High School. It was the sister teams, Holyoke's Paper Dolls and Valley Dolls from the summer league. I'm not playing as much team tennis as I used to, but I still like playing some because otherwise I would miss the camarederie and little outings like these.

But informal tennis like we played is in many ways more fun.

For example, when an opponent lost a game on a double fault, I made up a rule: no double-faulting to lose the game.

Similarly when we play at the Canoe Club, we occasionally ask for another chance if we do something really stupid. You wouldn't do this all the time or else we would never finish. But on Wednesday the wind totally took a ball that was coming towards my backhand. Since I had been working on that shot (no bent elbow), I asked for another, moved up closer, and made the shot.

This would be a week off from going to Boston, but this morning I have a dermatology appointment. I have some new spots, and I would be pleasantly surprised if at least one or two were not squamous cells.

Holy cow, I'm glad I checked

I just started taking two prescriptions for the same gastrointestinal disorder I had about four months ago: metronidazole (flagyl), and ciprofloxacin. The combination worked the last time this happened, so I am hoping for the best. If it doesn't work, I might have to up the prednisone.

I hardly ever drink, but I am going out tonight and thought I might have one beer. It says on the flagyl bottle not to drink alcohol, but I didn't know if it just reduced the efficacy or if it was something worse.

I started to look up in google,  "What happens when you drink alcohol with metronidazole," and as soon as I got to the word "with," it filled the rest in for me. Obviously this question has been asked before.

I'm glad I checked.

All sorts of horrible things will happen.

According to Healthline, combining alcohol with this medicine can cause:

abdominal pain
cramps
nausea and vomiting
face redness
headaches

And, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drinking alcohol within 24 hours of taking metronidazole increases your risk of side effects. Potential life-threatening side effects from this combination include blood pressure changes, rapid heart rate, and liver damage.

As for the other drug, cipro, it's hard to figure out when to take it. You take one tablet twice a day, with plenty of water.

It says on the label, "Do not take antacids, iron, vitamin/mineral supplements within 6 hours before or  2 hours after this medicine. It also says, "May cause dizziness" and "avoid prolonged or excessive exposure to sunlight while taking this medicine."

The latter presents a quandary. Next week is supposed to be nice, and Wednesday will probably be the last chance to go to George's clinic at the Canoe Club.

Should I stay or should I go?

Great expectations, anxiety dreams

Last night I woke up every hour because I was so excited about seeing "Waitress the Musical" at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge tonight with twins Wendy and Lisa and my "twin" Margaret. I am lucky to have a prescient daughter who tells me when shows are going to be very hot. She clued me in, and I got the tickets when it was in previews, before the announcement of its Broadway run.

That is not exactly the point of this post. The point is that while having this great thing to look forward to, and coming from a fabulous dinner last night with my new friends from The Canoe Club, my dreams reveal the anxiety that lurks beneath the surface. For example, in real life, I have two scratches on my thigh, courtesy of an over exuberant dog. In my dream, Dr. Alyea, when giving me a checkup, noticed little dots in that area. He was worried that they were petechiae, those tiny dots that at one point in the thankfully distant past signaled low platelets. (As low as two. Hard to believe.) No they're not, I said, realizing that they were allergic reactions to a pill.

I guess it might be a sign of healing in your psyche when you dream of something potentially horrible and then realize it's not going to do you in.

In the rest of the dream, I had just returned from a great trip with friends, and when Dr. Alyea asked me where I had gone, I couldn't remember. I tried to call Emily, but couldn't remember her whole number and couldn't figure out how to access it in my contacts. When I finally reached her, she said we had gone to Paris and some Arabic countries, and I couldn't remember any of it.

I was grungy from the trip and had to take a bath, and when I got out and was wrapped only in a towel, Dr. Alyea said he might as well examine me then. He set up an exam table in a hotel room. Or maybe it was a school, because little kids were coming in there. I asked if they had to be in there, and he said yes, they had no place else to go.

Maybe this part of the dream was all about all those "little kids," i.e. the doctors so young they look children. And about the exposure.

But the sun is coming up, and a new day is drawing, with tennis at The Canoe Club, a dog to walk, and hopefully a nap before I make myself presentable, or as my mother used to say, get gussied up.