Of vampire bites and another bad trip

I've been telling people that the three raised, irritated spots on my neck are a vampire bite. At my last dermatologist visit, Dr. Lieu froze multiple spots, including these, that she said were actinic keratoses, potentially precancerous. These three did not go away. On Thursday when I bumped into Dr. Marty, my friend the infectious disease specialist, on my way to my checkup, I asked what he thought they were. "Vampire bites," he said. I guess I'll have to buy some garlic and wooden crosses.

Actually I will apply Efudex twice a day for four weeks. Dr. Lin, my primary dermatologist, said to do this after I emailed a skin selfie to her yesterday morning. So yes, I spent a relaxing early Sunday morning trying to get a good closeup of little bumps on my neck. She gave me her home email so I sent it there, with a copy to work. I'm a little hesitant to bother her, but the spots were hurting and a cause of concern. I have to admit they hurt because I pick and pull when the chemotherapy cream starts to irritate them to the point where they flake off. Reminder to self: Go get a bunch of little bandaids.

MEANWHILE, Last week's two-day Boston trip, with the light therapy on my skin one day and checkup the next, went well medically but ended up being a logistical nightmare that I imagine had medical consequences in terms of rising blood pressure. 

I wrote some of this Wednesday when I was waiting for my 3:30 p.m. ride home:

While waiting for a ride that is already an hour and a half late, after a conversation with an idiotic dispatcher, I'm back on the ride complaint tangent. My checkup with Dr. Alyea was at 1:30. Knowing the wait, I had called MART, the ride provider to medical appointments, to schedule the ride home at 3:30. They said I could always call if I got out earlier. I got a text from a Mark, confirming the pickup. I asked if he could pick me up earlier if I was done sooner, and he texted back, earlier than what? I replied, earlier than the 3:30 pickup. He said no.

I was done earlier, so I went across the street to Starbucks, then went to the pickup location at the designated time and called to ask Mark when the driver would arrive. He said, not until way past 3:30. I said I had to get home. He said, they told me after 3:30, and since it's one-way, it's a discharge, and when it's a discharge, it's always later. I said it's not a discharge, I'm at a medical offices, not a hospital, and he said he didn't know where I was, he was just the dispatcher. Say what?

Well, I often have one-ways when I do a back-to-back. Yesterday I came for ECP, slept at Diane and David's, then got a ride to Dana-Farber for the checkup, and then scheduled the ride home for today. I said, I've been doing this for nine years and I know that it is not a hospital discharge. He said we could keep going back and forth or he could contact the driver to find out when he could get here.

I miraculously got through to MART's complaint line. The woman placed me on hold and said she would investigate. When she got back to me, she said it was a new contractor, they did not understand how it works, that sometimes patients want to go home from an appointment, not necessarily from the hospital. ALSO there was a bad accident, he was stuck in traffic, and patients waiting to be picked up were calling from all over the place.

I didn't think it was unreasonable to have a 1:30 appointment and get home by 6:30. My friend Ken Ross, who would be reviewing The Royal Danish Ballet at Jacob's Pillow, had asked me to go with him. He was going to pick me up for the approximately one-hour trip to bucolic Becket. It hadn't been a great day at ECP, and I was looking forward to it. The nurse had missed the vein, leading to pain and a geyser of blood. A different nurse got it into the right place on the second try, but once the arm has been disturbed, a remnant of pain lingers.

Ken and I texted back and forth. When it appeared I would not be home by 6:30, I suggested going home, jumping into my car, and meeting him for the second act. We agreed on that plan. When the driver finally arrived, he said the dispatcher had sent him too far away to possibly pick me up at 3:30. I did my Facebook Live version of his dialogue, typing onto as he complained that the boss knew he didn't like driving in Boston but sent him anyway, that he has anxiety and phobias and is on several high-potency drugs and is on disability, that the boss actually gave him no exact time for my pickup, that he might not get paid, but he has to pay his bills... 

I felt worse for him than I did for me and gave him a nice tip.

 I probably should have stayed home once I got there around 8, but I was determined. So I drove the hour to Becket and got in for the second part. It was beautiful but very short! Afterwards we sat outside and had a drink and talked. (Mine was only a wine spritzer.) We go way back and have a lot in common and a lot to talk about. That news "thing" clicked right in. I remarked that you couldn't sit down with any old person and have a lively discussion about SEO.

It was after midnight when I got home. By that point I was wired and couldn't go to bed. I made the mistake of going on line and catching up on the latest disastrous news from the border. Note to self: Next time read a book.

I was glad I ended up going, but the next day I could barely move, and it took a couple of days to recover.

How to not fall off a bike, and other observations

Friend watches me read outside Airbnb, Wellfleet

I took a little break, this time on another getaway, not as exotic as Costa Rica, but beautiful, and according to a friend who has traveled around the world, one of the most exotic places he's seen.

He was referring to Race Point, in Provincetown, and the bike ride we took through the dunes. Savoring the spring blooms still out, the beach flowers fragrant, the distinctive smell of the sea...we stayed for a while after finishing the loop. (Detouring here: Did you ever wonder how to describe that ocean smell? I looked it up and found that from poets to biologists, people had plenty to say. Why does the sea smell like the sea?, from Popular Science, takes the romance out of it but is an interesting read.)

I'd only been biking a little, and for some reason, though I went to a lot of spinning classes at the Y last year, it didn't speak to me this year. I do something most every day, so I think I filled those slots with yoga and a little more tennis because I joined an extra group.

(Tennis detour: I'm more relaxed as a "fun" player and during my outdoor summer league season with the Holyoke Dolls than in the regular leagues.  My record is pretty good with the Dolls and not so good anymore during indoor league tennis. Yesterday I played twice, first with my Monday morning group, and last night at Forest Park for the team. I was worried that I would be tired, but despite the heat and humidity, I was energized and played really well, getting balls out of range, I think  surprising the other players and also surprising myself. My excellent, fun, partner and I were a good team; I set some up and she smashed them. It was very convivial, more so than indoors, with chit chat on the side changes and laughter between two courts. We won, 6-1, 6-3. I wish this and other summer scores counted in my rating; scores in this league don't count. But, rating, shmating, it's like a test score that might not reflect what you do. I kind of understand why I didn't get asked to play this year on a senior team for which I didn't earn a win, but still, despite the "maturity" of advancing age, it's hard to always separate self-worth from tennis-worth. That's why last night was great, and it's also great that George says I'm playing my best tennis ever. It must have something to do with the light therapy on my blood, the extracorporeal photopheresis, although to be honest I can't exactly explain it except for saying it's loosened up my skin and made me more flexible.)

Therefore if I had fallen off my bike tottering in granny gear going up one of the Race Point hills, I might have had a better fall than my past crashes. But maturity overcame my desire to prove a point  when I was going so slowly up a steep hill that I could have lost my balance and fallen off. I GOT off and walked to the top, congratulating myself on knowing when I had reached a limit. I can't think of other times when I've gotten off; I didn't love doing it, but it was better than falling.

Another unusual thing for me was talking to a cat. That's Fiddle, the dog-like cat who hangs out at the sweet Airbnb where we stayed in Wellfleet, a short walk to town. Besides my cousin's (late) cat, Chloe, she's the only dog-like cat I ever knew. She sat with me when I read. I didn't do much reading, though, because I was either doing some work or doing outdoor activities with the friend who wishes to remain anonymous. Highlights included a hike around Great Island and walks along the beach and a last-day bike ride starting on the bike path in Wellfleet and then turning left for a ride to Coast Guard Beach.

We watched a couple playing with their grandson on the beach. It made me wonder how I can be a grandmother now, while, just the other day, I was in high school, riding around these beaches in a jeep with that first love who creeps into my thoughts in places that are connected to him. The beach can do that to you. I'm pretty sure that when we walked along the beach separately, me walking through the shallow water and him on the harder sand, that he was having his own thoughts too.

Entrance to Coast Guard Beach, Eastham

When we were exiting up the path, the grandpa was walking down with the lunch that he had gotten out of the car. I asked (jokingly) if we could have some. We got to doing the "where are you from" thing. He said he lives in Munson. I said I used to work for the newspaper (The Republican) that covered that area. He asked if I knew Jim Gillen. I said of course! He was an editor at the paper. The grandpa (Andre, I think, said he is a lifelong friend of Jim's and was staying in Jim's Cape house. He asked if he could take my photo and text it to Jim. I said of course; when he sent it I wrote a cutline saying "could I please have an extra inch?" That's how it used to go at the paper, with space getting smaller and reporters begging for more space.

It was the last week before the crowds arrive. The bike path can get crazy in season, but we had it almost to ourselves. It made me more relaxed because my concern on crowded bike paths is not so much falling, as it would be on a hill on the road, but bumping into kids or having kids bump into me.

I'm looking forward to going back in a couple of weeks, this time to Diane and David's, with my three (plus one grandchild). It took a lot of engineering to try to get everyone together, but I think that, with different cars, we'll manage at least one dinner and part of a day together. A friend took everyone on a cruise to accomplish a similar feat, but I'm not quite up that.

Fingernails, toenails, have stories to tell

This morning, when doing my nails, I thought about how my fingernails have stayed strong while the rest of me was falling apart. People have noticed. One of my healthcare providers pointed it out during cancer treatment.

I don't know why they're strong. I don't mess with them much...except when I occasionally go crazy and pull the skin off the side of a fingernail or tug on a dangling cuticle. As for the nails themselves, maybe, like a plant that is not overwatered, they are happy with benign neglect. I let them get a little too long, notice they don't look so great, cut off the tops, and file them into a curved shape.

When I did them, I had a flashback to when I was so weak that I couldn't do them. That was during my three and a half month residence in Brigham and Women's Hospital after my fourth bone marrow transplant. Diane did them for me. She knew that I liked them curved. She knew a lot of things.

Only occasionally do I get a manicure. The longer lasting gels don't seem to me to be good for your nails, plus you have to return to get the gel off, and the regular polish wears off so quickly.

When I go out to the garden with gloves on, I somehow end up with them off. The underside of my fingernails looks gross. The late Jean O'Connell, who when I knew her was the food writer at the Union-News, had a thing or two to say about dirty nails. They showed the type of person a person was. Also, their shoes.

I'll never be a hand model. I'm not happy about the way that little skin cancers and pre-cancers have messed my hands up. But my nails have not let me down.

Pedicures are welcome but not a regular indulgence. At one of our local places, they said that if you run around a lot, like I do, you should get them as part of good foot care. Maybe. Sometimes I do my own toes. I'm not bad at it. And I can even reach.  I do this more often than not, because of the money, or I keep the nail polish on so long that it is a half moon on the top of the nail.

But the whole pedicure experience is pretty relaxing. I'm half proud and half embarrassed about my partially blackened right big toenail. It definitely looks better when covered up. It got damaged during the 10-mile run I did in preparation for the Hartford half marathon. That was in October 2002, so, five months before my AML diagnosis.

Pulling the toenail off when it was loose enough, I felt like I was collecting my runner's badge of honor. (No, I didn't keep it.) A strip along the toe bed seems to be permanently damaged. As in, black. So if I'm going to wear sandals, I really need to cover that toe up. The rest look OK, but doing one would look silly.

It also is affected by the remnants of a toenail fungus. One time, a podiatrist gave me a medication for it. I had to have my liver checked. Looking back, I realized that probably wasn't a necessary drug to take.

At a recent pedicure, the woman cutting my toenails noticed from the shape that I had had ingrown toenails surgically removed. This was no fun, but it fixed the painful problem. They never grew back. She said I was lucky, because that's not always the case.

I liked the dark blue-gray color I got in Costa Rica. It stayed on for a long time.

When I was in Boston this week, Diane had the fun idea to get a pedicure together. I would have gotten the Costa Rica color, but the salon had a lighter version for spring. We both got the same color. Kind of when we used to wear the same outfits, only this time it was just our toenails dressed up.

I feel special, oh so special

My optometrist friend says I'm special.

This might sound like a compliment. But in my case I think it means that my system has been messed with so many times that I'm an oddity, that maybe all the chemotherapy skewed some test results that would be more clearcut with a "normal" person.

In particular he was referring to the visual field test that a glaucoma specialist gave me. The one where you click when you see a small oval light come on the screen. You do it one eye at a time. It is nerve-wracking, difficult to keep up. Last year when I went for the followup, she said I was fine. I was scheduled for a followup this second time in December but got so busy I had to reschedule. I forgot about it, and by the time another appointment became available, it was for next month.

When I saw my optometrist last week for an eye exam, I mentioned that I didn't have that appointment yet. He looked up the results and said there was a change. My pressure is good, but, he said, that doesn't mean I do not have glaucoma. See if you can follow that. This is when he said I was special. Meaning, it's unclear what the results mean. Chemotherapy has done such a number on my system that it could mean I have Martians living behind my eyes! (No, he didn't say that, it just came to me.) But he said to make sure to keep that appointment. And, then, mysteriously and unnervingly, he said, "You do yoga, right?" I said yes I did. "She might tell you not to do any more down dogs," he said.

For a little while after that I fretted. In the order of, first, no down dog? And second, glaucoma?

My mother had glaucoma, misdiagnosed by an ophthalmologist (and family friend) who said she had cataracts. By the time it was caught, she had lost some peripheral vision. And, especially since she was an artist, she was upset, angry and nervous. Drops kept it at bay, but she remained anxious about it. I have let it go for now, figuring that if I had badly flunked the test, they wouldn't keep me waiting for a July appointment.

In any case I am falling prey to fashion trends and getting larger glasses. I should have kept my old ones. Along with half of my old clothes. Those, however, would not fit...not because I have gained weight, but due to what graft vs. host disease has done to my skin. It is not actually my skin – it is my fascia. But the damage that occurred in that layer before I started ECP has pushed out the skin on my abdomen and, as previously stated, created ripples and bubbles that have stayed on despite the benefits of the light therapy for my overall movement and sense of well being.

Today at my appointment with the specialist in subcutaneous dermatology, I learned that I will keep on the every other week schedule for the foreseeable future. My skin has gotten softer, and they don't want to risk cutting back; when I tried every three weeks, I could feel that my skin was getting tighter. One of my compadres at the Kraft Family Blood Donor Center said it had made her muscles weaken, and I don't want that.

I showed her the divot that mysteriously appeared on my right thigh a few months ago. She prescribed an ointment to put into the middle. It will not work, however, without occlusion, meaning I will have to try to wrap my thigh in plastic wrap or some such thing.

My suspicion that I either had vampire bites or new squamous cell cancers of the skin proved wrong. I do have multiple hypertrophic actinic keratoses.  These come from sun exposure and, surprise, are another after effect of chemotherapy. The doctor did not seem concerned. She had a resident zap them, in other words, perform cryosurgery. I told my zapper that it's a good distraction when my regular dermatologist chats with me while she does freezes. So she told me about coming from her native Chicago for a Boston program that allows her to study and work at most of the area hospitals. I told her about my visit to Chicago, and before I knew it, we were done.

Neck, arms and face now have a red polka-dot effect. This should add interest to my appearance tonight when I attend the Dana-Farber volunteer appreciation dinner. It's my twelfth year with the One-to-One program, through which survivors who've been there provide support (on the phone) to those about to go through it. I figure it's the least I can do, and I enjoy doing it.

Driving around in cars with ex on our anniversary

On this day 35 years ago...

Today is my wedding anniversary. I spent some of it with Jim (that would be my ex, if you don't know), driving around doing some business involving Katie's car. I drove it down to Enfield and followed him to the Ford dealership, where he left it for a transmission repair that is under warranty.

Then he drove me home. And we argued the whole way.

HA, not really, that is a flashback.

Actually we had a nice drive talking about this and that. We have a lot in common, of course starting with our three wonderful children, but also including love of newspapers (though not all that they have become) and admiration for good writing and annoyance with bad grammar specifically and bad writing and general. Back in the day when we lived in sin in Florence, we would go down to Jake's for breakfast, spread our Sunday newspapers out, and talk about interesting stories for as long as we saw fit to sit there.

Today while Jim was in the dealership, I looked at my phone and saw a tweet that inspired me to ask, when he came out, if he edits everything he reads. He nodded.

Someone was tweeting about myelodysplastic syndrome, or MDS. The writer said, "Here are the symptoms." Instead of following through, he listed the functions of red and white cells and platelets. It was just a tweet, but still, I wanted to reply, hey, if you're going to tell us about symptoms, let's hear them.

(According to the Mayo Clinic, "Myelodysplastic syndromes are a group of disorders caused by poorly formed blood cells or ones that don't work properly." In the beginning there are no symptoms, but later there is a long list of symptoms, such as fatigue, similar to leukemia's. )

I reminded Jim why I'm interested in MDS. It is what the brilliant jazz saxophonist Michael Brecker had before he got the acute myeloid leukemia that led to his death. The drive to find a bone marrow donor for him is how I got my donor, Denise. I wrote about it for the Philadelphia Inquirer, the late musician's hometown newspaper.

So, talking about a pet peeve led to talk about life and death.

We had talked on the phone early in the morning about another kid-related project: getting the old lawnmower serviced so that Joe can use it. About to leave for tennis, I told Jim that he could go into the kitchen and get the garage door opener so he could get the lawnmower out. He was going to put it in the back of my Subaru to get it serviced while I drove Katie's car to tennis.

True confessions: I scurried around the kitchen trying to clean up quickly. It didn't look that bad. But compared to the way he lives, it is a big mess, and I didn't want him to see it. If you asked me why, I wouldn't know exactly what to answer.

Last year I wrote an intense post about my memories of our wedding day. One of Michael Gordon's photos illustrated it. Facebook kindly offered it up today as one of those memories "we care about," so I thought I'd use it again.

I got weepy thinking about all the people from that day who are no longer with us. Notably, of course, my parents. I talked to Katie about the car and other stuff and then we started laughing about a bunch of things and then I forgot to be sad.

On a bumpy ride, might as well write

I am writing this in the back of a speeding car with bad shock absorbers, to see how it goes, on my way home from Dana-Farber. Rap music blares, and hot turnpike air blows onto my face from the driver’s open window.

Healing Garden at Dana-Farber

On the way there, I asked her to turn it down. She did so, infinitesimally. I asked her again. "I did," she said. Her boyfriend, sitting next to her, turned slightly and looked at me out of the corner of his eye. Her move reminded me of when my parents asked me to pass the salt to my sister and I moved it so slightly across the table that she would have needed an extension arm to get it.

Aha, I thought, I remembered to bring headphones. I pulled them out and put them in my  iPhone. Only one side worked; the other was pure static. I blasted Dear Evan Hansen. Anybody have a map?

She opened her window. My throat hurt. I must have picked something up over the weekend at The American Association of Journalists and Authors conference in New York. It was successful but exhausting. In my second year as a member, I knew more editors and writers with whom to schmooze. They are a friendly bunch, more than willing to share information and tips. 

The part that might have started my throat hurting was a “speed dating” event with editors, Client Connections. You have nine minutes to make your case, and then you’re up and out and a new batch floods in. It is a lottery. You can get zero or five. I got five. By the last one, with a sweet editor from WebMd, I couldn’t get out a full sentence without coughing. I apologized and asked if she could talk, to tell me what they need. 

Beforehand, client connections veterans said that is probably the best approach with publications like this anyway. I did speak long enough to tell her one idea and give her my spiel. (Four bone marrow transplants, knowledgeable about cancer survivorship and about health writing, a valuable combination, knowing both sides, newspaper training…)

Back to my car ride.

I texted Katie. She said to think happy thoughts.

Did I say my throat hurt? I skipped tennis this morning. I also skipped yoga. If I skip both of those, you know I'm under the weather. Maddie and I walked around the lower lake. Dragging, I found it hard to believe I was the same person who hiked 12 miles less than a month ago. It didn’t depress me , just reminded me of days when I was dragging due to being really sick.

On the ride to Boston, I took an oxycodone. The bottle is in my purse on my ECP days. I don’t automatically take it anymore; I have not had serious pain so it is not necessary. I hardly ever take it so that I figure when I do, it is OK. 

When I arrived, I told the story to my funny nurse, Mark. It cracked him up. He called over another nurse, Diane, and had me tell her the story. A pathology fellow came around. We talked about my high blood pressure issue. I remembered that the last time I saw him, he had told me he used to be a monk. The discussion turned towards meditation for blood pressure control. (Mark is all for it.) I asked the doctor how he did it. He said he used to focus either on the feeling of air around his nostrils or on his discomfort when sitting on a hard rock and meditating for 13 hours a day. Then we drifted into ayahuasca territory and a brief exploration of the Amazonian plant mixture that can induce altered states of consciousness. We talked about heaven, reincarnation, the after life, and nirvana. I said I wanted to be myself, playing tennis up in heaven. Mark said that judging from experiences described in certain books, it is possible. I need to remind him to give me the list.

(Now she has turned on the AC and  is talking on the phone. The hot air was better; my neck is getting cold. )

I mentioned the lodge that we passed in the forest in Costa Rica. We looked it up; in the photos it looked like a resort while in person it was more of a shack. Then we took a virtual trip to the other retreats and came to the conclusion that it is a veritable industry. There is even a Trip Advisor-like guide. They all seem to have one thing in common: You will puke your brains out (not my words) before seeing God.

Mark and I were spelling it wrong. The patient in the bed next to me corrected us. He knew because his sister, sitting with him, said her son was moving to Costa Rica. The patient was a newbie. We both had two arms going. The sister told us her son, a firefighter, was retiring early so he could move to Costa Rica and build a house. She would get to visit once a year. Lucky her. Her brother was scheduled for a second bone marrow biopsy. He has Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia  and didn't know what to expect. 

I said a lot of weird things happened to me, and they figured out what to do. 

This made me think of my nurse Vytas, whom I miss very much. Wherever I was, he turned up. He would stand by my bed or plop down in my chair and call me Nervous Nellie. 

"They'll figure it out," he would say.

I told my neighbor patient that the first time was the hardest but then it got so routine that I don’t even think about it.  And with two arms it goes much more quickly than in the beginning when they used one. (Down from three hours to two or a little longer.)

“It’s all good except for the nurses,” I said. (I almost wrote, I quipped, but then I almost gagged.)

That Diane, I said, pointing to his sweet nurse, who had covered me with a warm blanket when I came in, “if you ask her for a blanket, she’ll give you a lump of coal."

“Or a block of ice,” Mark quipped back.

Because I fiished early, I walked over to the platelet donor side, looked at the row of them to check if any were immersed in something, and walked over to a woman with pretty white hair.

“Thank you for donating,” I said.

A nurse talking to the donor next to my person said to me, “I know you..”

I answered, “I’m a frequent flyer.”

He said, “You’re also a frequent thanker.”

“Well I don’t want to disturb them,” I said.

“This one is already disturbed,” he said, looking at the donor. She rolled her eyes.

I told the white haired woman about the anonymous donor who saved my life by going in  to donate for me the night I needed platelets so that I could get the tube for dialysis. It was the night that Diane sat in my room, crying, because she had taken Advil (or something like that) and could not donate.

The woman thanked me for the story. A Dana-Farer pharmacist, she said she would stop by and see me next time. I couldn't thank the anonymous donor, so when I'm up to it, I like to thank the donors sitting on the other side of the donor center from us ECP-ers.

On the way out, I stopped in the Healing Garden. It is so peaceful in there. But it didn't last long. A television crew came in to set up for a commercial. I had seen them before, rolling their equipment carts and cameras at a good clip along the corridor. I jumped back a little to get out of their path on my way to the Kraft Family Blood Donor Center.

When the music is not too loud, I am trying to make friends with the driver. She is on the phone (yes, while driving) scolding her son for being out with a friend when he is supposed to be at her mom's. She has two boys and wants a girl but had her tubes tied. I ask can it be reversed. She says no, she could get in vitro but it is too expensive. Between her and her boyfriend, there are three boys. She fantasizes about having a miracle baby girl. Her name will be Miracle. I think that talking to her is an advance over past rides when the craziness made me crazy. I give her a bag of chocolate chip cookies. 

Back at the ASJA conference,  I attended sessions on essay writing and how to write for the New York Times and attended a women’s magazine pitch slam.

I definitely have a lot of material.

This overlong blog post took me all the way home from around Framingham. The sun is going down. I am going to go into the house and put my legs up the wall.

Good Mother's Day and a walk down memory lane

Family selfie with Ben, Katie and Joe

On Sunday, Katie and I took out our bikes for my first ride of the season, going for just about an hour on the bike trail from Hadley to Amherst.

We wanted to get back on time for Ben and Joe to come for a Mother's Day cookout.

As is the case when discussing running distances, "just" can be a relative word.

As in, one person saying she had just run eight miles, meaning not a lot for that person, when you had run five and it was enough.

Brigham and Women's Hospital, 2003

I was thinking about how "just" an hour is relatively a lot considering what I could do on a Mother's Day fifteen years ago. That's when I had gotten out of the hospital for Mother's Day after my induction chemotherapy. I would have thought that even a few minutes on a beautiful bike path would have been a big accomplishment. Those days are coming vividly into focus as I revisit them and dig out photos to go with my posts on Health-Union.com.

My post about how I developed skin cancer is on the skin cancer site, but my leukemia posts are still in the queue; blood.cancer.com  is a new addition to the platforms of content on various illnesses and conditions.

The photos are in a mess of papers, pictures and newspaper clips in a box next to my bed. Some of it is in chapter form from my so-called memoir, which I shelved, or rather boxed, after getting polite rejections from editors. They liked my writing but said I would have had to be famous for them to want another cancer book.

Without getting out of bed, yesterday I rolled over, leaned down, and started digging around.

It was kind of strange but not too bad to pull out a photo of me riding a bike in my hospital room after my first round of chemo in April, 2003. It's going to illustrate a post about hospital exercising. My mother took the photo. She got a kick out of seeing me up on the bike with my IV pole. Much better to be untethered.

The tennis bear will illustrate a post about hospital room decorating, about how important it was to make my room a homey place. It revolved around Diane's brilliant idea of getting a lamp. It ended up going everywhere with me, including trips to the emergency room when I suspected I would be hospitalized.

My guy friends from our mixed doubles team sent me the Ronni bear that occupies a place of honor in my bedroom. In the photo in my hospital room, she sits on a handmade quilt  with blank squares where co-workers wrote me notes. I remember how touched I was when I pulled that bear out of the box. I particularly liked the little tennis racquet. It made me smile.

But back to the present, it was a great Mother's Day. Having all three together was a special gift. Ben brought the food. Katie set the table. Joe cooked.

When they were getting ready to leave and we took a few photos in the driveway, I said, "I can't believe you all use to live in this house."

Now that Katie is closer, it should be easier to get everyone together.