Another trip up North to Check in

Tomorrow, Wednesday the 18th we travel up north to Darthmouth Hitchcock Hospital to check in with the Transplant doctor.

One of the issues with living with cancer, is the fact that I have to check in with doctors every so often to find out how I'm doing.  I see a lot of doctors and they all want blood, I just show up and roll up my sleeve and give them blood.   Wednesday, we have to be there for 9 am.  In good weather, it's an hour and a half drive.  In bad, a good 2 1/2 hours. So we leave early, get there for a bunch of blood work then wait a while to get the results, then talk and talk to the doctor's and parts of his team to see where I am and how I'm doing.

At the moment, we go up 4 times a year, I'm hopping I'm doing so well that he tells us we can drop that to 3 times a year.  That would be nice.  

In the meantime, we reflect on what the past year has given us.  A lot of laughter, a lot of love, a lot of dotors, good friends, good food, good prayers and a lot of leaning on God to keep us going.

If you would, please, pray for us to have a good drive up, good results and a good drive back home after a long, emotional day up north.

Thank you

 

Only in New England

It's often said that if you don't like the weather here in New England, wait a few days, it will change.
They are so right!  In just one short week we have all 4 seasons!

The start of Memorial Day week May 25th

Yup, that's snow. Parts on NH had a few inches on snow while other parts (like us) had really cold rain/sleet mixed together.  Really! And we had frost warnings (good thing we didn't have our garden in yet) Sure looks like Winter here!

By mid week

Rain, not just a nice spring rain, it was more like a fall rain, temps were below freezing at night and only up to the 40's and 50's during the day.  Yup, felt more like fall around here.

By late week

Our Bleeding heart bloomed.  A sure sign of Spring! Finally!

By weekend

We had temps up into the 90's. AC was put in the windows and turned on. 

It took 2 days and 6 loads of wash but the sweaters, socks, flannel pj's and fleece lined jeans have been replaced by t-shirts, shorts, cotton pj's and fewer sweaters (I get cold easy).

What's will all this crazy weather?  What's it like at your place?

WE HAVE POWER!!!

Well the truth is we never lost it, but it wasn't for Sandy's lack of trying. Our lights flickered and the TV went off and on again but in the long run, we kept our power.

We had started the pellet stove to bring the house temperature up in the house because if the power does go off, it takes a few minutes to get the generator going and everything plugged in so we wanted the house a bit warmer which August loved and Becke tolerated.

Gerry got the generator ready to start because the last thing he wanted to do was to start putting it together in hurricane wind and rain. This way all he had to do was go out there, pull the start cord and plug in everything we need to "rough it" in the country. 

Did you know that you can't get a generator wet!!!  When do you need the generator to work, well when it's raining, when it's snowing and other times when most likely the generator will get wet!  So Gerry created this tent cover for it and it worked really well until the winds hit close to hurricane strength and then one of the legs on the bottom broke so he was out at 9pm working on it.  

Today, if the stores are open, he will go get new parts and fix it.  Then, hopefully we will be ready this winter and loose power then.

The winds were pretty bad here and we took August out on a leash to "go" because I was pretty sure he would become a balloon and be lifted away.  He didn't want to go out but since I do not have an indoor tree for him, he had no choice. Becke went out, did whatever and came in as fast as she could. she is no fool!! They both gave up drinking because what goes in must come out and they didn't want to go out!!  Smart dogs.  This morning, they emptied the water dish so I feel pretty safe in saying it's over for us here.

Thank goodness for Face book because that is how we kept in touch with so many to make sure they were safe and to pray for many who were stuck at work and others trying to drive home in such a mess.  Love technology! 

There are still a lot of people out of power, and for many the roads to work are blocked and they can't get to work if work is even open! Our road seems to be open because I see a car here and there going down it. At least I hope it's open and those cars are not just neighbors turning around and going home!   It's a mess up here but compared to NY, NJ and MA we are golden.  

When the sun comes up and we can get out, we will take local photos and post them but we are fine.

My prayers are will all of those who are not fine, or even OK.  God be with you all.