Living in the South

Well, it's been a while and life has moved on.  Rebecca is still fighting the monster growing in her head, but we are still ten steps ahead.  Although she had to withdraw from SCAD, she remains as sweet as ever and is not tired of treatment.  Hospice has starting coming to the house and helping with bathing, giving IV fluids etc.  She eats very well if we prepare food, snacks, beverages for her, but doesn't have an appetite to motivate her to fix herself anything.  The doctor added a drug called CPT11 to the IV infusion along with the Avastin and it really kicked her butt this last time.  We are hoping for less side effects this coming week. I made the decision in late 2012 to move my office from the old, dusty, musty, molding old house in which I had worked for Glenn.  I incorporated and moved into a small office, still staying in Holly Hill.  We (mostly Frank) put a lot of work into making it the pleasingly bright place to work we hope it would be.  We made it through anoth

This summer is especially brutal it seems.  Some days we can hardly catch our breath the humidity is so high.  The stress of the heat makes it difficult to deal with other stresses in our lives.  The news that my beautiful grandaughter has a recurrence of infiltrating cancer cells in her brain has hit me like a ton of bricks.  We have hope because she can return to taking the Temodar in a lower dose and hope that it takes care of these little monsters.  We hope.  She has the best doctors for which we could hope.  She has the most wonderful mother in the world who has nurtured her and helped her grow into a strong wonderful young woman.  But I ask myself many times why does it have to be my beautiful girls that have gotten hit with this rotten disease.  It's easy for me to wish it could have happened to me or to some low-life ditch dweller who doesn't give a shit about his/her life.  But wishes will not make this go away.  Rebecca feels numb and puzzled because she feels abs

I don't want to give myself a kenahorah, but so far 2011 is looking up. Julianne finally found a job. So, let me state first that not all attorneys are bad or fit the stereotype. The attorney who hired Julianne seems to be a fine young man. I haven't met him yet, but he is opening his own practice and has hired her to be his "right hand" and paralegal. She tells me he is very nice and a very kind person. Well, he is a better human being than anyone else with whom she has worked or interviewed. He knows all about Rebecca's cancer and the trips to NIH for the clinical trial studies and he hired her anyway. Now THAT'S a mensch. A gitte neshomah. A good soul. Yes, he's Jewish, and that tickles me no end. And it sound like he's had a good upbringing and respects family. December 2nd she and Rebecca were in a terrible accident. I was in Atlanta at Sulky Teacher Certification classes when I got the call from Jools as they were in the ambulance on

Too much is changing. My Mother is losing her memory. My little dog, Gizmo, is getting very old and has obvious pain from arthritis. I'm getting Social Security. My beautiful grandaughter is grown up. My beautiful grandaughter is in love. My beautiful grandaughter has brain cancer. See - I wasn't kidding. But on the other hand, it's autumn and the leaves are changing. The world around me remains as beautiful as ever. I found a hard-working woman who cleans my house with lightening speed. My husband has finished all his hard work painting the porches, doors etc. The holidays are upon us. My beautiful daughter is coping with her daughter's illness and still has her head above water. My beautiful daughter and I are so close that I feel her pain on a daily basis. Change is good, sometimes. But the only constant in life is change. I've changed from a high speed go-getter working in the corporate world to a woman who loves dogs, raises two, has a cat and rai

Last year (2009) at this time we were celebrating our grandaughter Rebecca's graduation from high school. So proud to see her passing another milestone in her life and planning to go off to college at Bennington College in Vermont in the Fall. Well, she did go off to college and didn't seem to be enjoying it as much as she had hoped. She wasn't feeling well for a few weeks and told her mother (my duaghter Julianne) that she was having some vision problems, probably caused by all the computer work in animation class etc. So Julianne told her to go see the nurse. She did and was sent to an Opthalmologist (sp?). That's when the curve ball started our way. The doctor found her optic nerves were swollen and recommended that she have an MRI. November 5th: Julianne and Rebecca's Dad flew up to Bennington to be with Rebecca while she had the MRI. The child has never been sick, so the thought of going into a strange hospital so far from home was naturally very disconc

I was once told that a lady doesn't sweat, she perspires. Deodorants tout their ability to be antiperspirant. But how do we really differentiate? Well, I am here to tell you that if you live in the Deep South, you sweat. Yes, and it doesn't matter which sex you are either. The moisture hangs in the air like a living thing. Sometimes when you walk outside, the blast is so hot, you would swear you just stepped into a sauna. I remember when I was living in Baton Route, LA, that it was 80 degrees on April 15th, and 100 percent humidity without a cloud in the sky. That's when I decided to leave BR and move back to SC! A little moisture on your forehead might be perspiration. My husband could be classified as a perspirer. He can be out in the hot sun at noon and he just gets a little wet in the face. He would have to be out there all day in the heat before he would actually perspire enough to call it sweat. I know a lot of people like that and some that I've never seen "