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Day 12: Saturday, May 23rd

Much better sleep! 85 Fitbit score and for the first time in many nights I hit my deep sleep benchmark of one hour 25 minutes. (Two Tylenol PM the night before may have helped!) The MRI that was originally scheduled for this morning was cancelled. Yesterday, Shields Health called me to say that the appointment would need to be rescheduled because it turns out that it needed to be “with contrast” and that takes longer. Then there were no openings until mid-June, either at Emerson or any facility nearby. Messaged my docs and it turns out that Lozano the “boss” for now, doesn’t need it. Messaged Driscoll and he said, OK, then cancel it.

Looked for transcription software on Google. Turns out that Word has transcription built in, so beginning to just transcribe my handwritten comments. Also, set up a one-year subscription on WordPress. Bit of a hassle to set up and spent an hour on chat trying to explain what the problem was. Eventually I called up and it turned out that somehow I had managed to have two subscriptions in the cart. A nice agent sorted stuff out. Everything set now.

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Day 11: Friday, May 22nd

Very poor sleep. 49 Fitbit score, though I’m sure it was lower when I checked this morning. Even when I get a higher score I’m not hitting the benchmark for deep sleep. At least I’m not tossing and turning because my leg is in a cast and I’m not able to turn. Trying to get into some sort of routine with the painkillers: two oxycodones a day is usual, one when I’m about to go to sleep and another in the middle of the night.

Decided to cancel Jean Butler’s visit this morning. Not ready to face the world, especially with worrying about my diagnosis and prognosis. Maureen, however, said she’d do the putting up and so we set up a FaceTime to allow me to tell her what plants need to be potted, what they were, and where to plant them. What will. Next step will be to see if I can get some of my fellow Master Gardeners to finish setting up the veggie garden and planting them. Going to wait until after the next appointment with lozano before I do that.

Started with learning course for WordPress. Now that I have a little knowledge I can see what a mess the Acton Garden Club site is come on hundreds of spam comments, critical issues not resolved, orphan pages, etcetera, and surprisingly no posts at all – everything is a page. Makes no sense. I need to set up my own account.

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Day 10: Thurday, May 21st

Spent most of the day at Emerson for an NM bone scan where I get a shot of radioactive technetium and phosphorus. Then wait a couple of hours or more for the chemicals to bond to the bone. Then run through a scanner. They must have seen something because after they sent me to have more X-rays of both legs, arms, and pelvis

When we got back I had Maureen set up the travel wheelchair to take me to the greenhouse where they could point out where things were.

The results of the tests came in. Not good news. The results of the NM bone scan and X-rays are in, and the telling phrases are “concern for malignancy” and “concern for osteolytic metastatic disease.” Here we go again! Trust in the doctors, but how to break the news? Maureen and I are scared of course, the prognosis is in terms of how much longer I can live. What will the doctors be recommending? The symptoms of this disease bear out the fracture being caused by weakened bone. So what will this do to my recovery from the fracture? I message Chen and Lozano to see what they have to say. Would love to be able to get on with my life, but that seems unlikely. Am I going to bow out early?

In the evening, I sat in on the second lecture of the roots of conservation series. Another 1.5 hours towards graduation requirements.

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Day 5: Saturday, May 16th

Stayed in bed. Lots of texts from the folks at the plant sale. They look good and most of the plants were sold in the first hour. They all sold by the end of the day.

Day 4: Friday, May 15th

I sleep till about 8:00 AM! Set up and did puzzles. Care team person for Dr. Eddie Chen called and said I could switch to a virtual appointment. So I don’t need to go downstairs today. Hurray! Trixie is keeping me company. She got her walk, and Maureen gets to go to the gym.

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