(not necessarily in that order)
With plans proceeding full speed ahead for the launch of a new Christmas album with the Joy Singers, it was time to get serious about a photo shoot.
So, today was the day, with Barbara Bingham, our photographer extraordinaire, guiding us every step of the way.
It was grueling, at slightly over three hours, but also great fun. And — for once — I even remembered to take some pics to document the process.
Today’s celebration of Dad’s 90th birthday was a resounding success.
It left me both exhausted and deeply appreciative of how blessed I am to have grown up in a large and loving family. Especially considering that my wonderful Dad is who he is thanks to his family.
So, here’s to family — quirky, flawed, complicated, challenging — but loving one another just the same, to the very best of our ability.
The Christmas play was a tremendous success on every level: inspiring, uplifted, sweet, well-attended, well spoken, well sung, beautiful costumes and scenery, and an amazingly smooth flow from start to finish.
Christmas Eve dinner with friends followed and now I’m falling asleep at the computer.
Happy Christmas, everyone!
“Silence and seclusion are the secrets of success. In this modern life of activity there is only one way to separate yourself from its ceaseless demands: get away from it once in a while.” — Paramhansa Yogananda
SUCCESS!
As of today (Tuesday, September 27) I am officially discharged from the outpatient bone marrow transplant unit!
The last big “hiccup” was on Sunday, when my heart started racing. An EKG showed it was out-of-sync and the doctors thought I might need medication to slow it down and get things back to the correct rhythm. But thanks to IV fluids, prayers, and meditation my heart rate went from 130-ish down to 80-ish in the course of an hour.
Turns out the reason my heart went whacky was because my body was working so hard on rebuilding my immune system. As you can see below, I had 0.1 white blood cell count on Sept 22 (the first red circle), 1.0 two days later, a dramatic increase to 5.2 on Sunday, followed by even more exponential increases of 18.2 and 19.6. Way to go, body!
Because of the heart episode I had to take things really easy yesterday (Monday) and they gave me tons of fluid, potassium, and a blood transfusion. But today during their rounds the doctors said I was done; it was almost a little bit anticlimactic (what, no fireworks?!?). 😂
I sincerely hope to never have to go through anything like this again, but I’m extremely grateful that the option was available.
We’ll stay near the hospital for the next few weeks while the recovery process continues, but we no longer have to report to the AIM clinic at 7:30 every single morning, as we’ve done for the past fifteen days.
What a glorious, fun, intensely satisfying time we had at this afternoon’s Christmas Faire!
Lots of people purchased our magnet and our new Christmas album, which is great. But what made it both glorious and intense was the fact of connecting with that many people, in person!
I felt wiped out about halfway through the four hours, and realized I’m out of practice when it comes to interacting with numbers of people!
Ramesha and I are agreed that this was one of our best vacations ever. So, it seems wise to make note of what worked, in order to remember it for next time.
Being near the main drag of Carmel allowed us to park at the hotel and then not touch the car again until the morning we left. We walked to restaurants; we walked to pick up groceries; we walked to parks; and we walked to the beach. I had slacked off on walking during my last challenge, but these three days more than made up for it!
On our first full day we arrived back at our room pooped out from lots of walking and ready for a nap…only to realize that some new hotel guests had arrived in the room directly above us and they were really noisy! Heavy footsteps, loud laughter, banging doors type noisy.
It was bad enough in the afternoon but our intuition told us they were there to party and we weren’t eager to be woken up in the wee hours of the morning. So, we asked to move to a different room! It was a little annoying having to pack everything up and then unpack it again, but we were soooo glad we did! And we realized that in future we should always ask for an upstairs room.
We loved having very little on our agenda. We did virtually no sightseeing and oriented our “schedule” around eating delicious meals whenever we were good and ready.
We got plenty of rest, getting to bed early and not being in a rush to get up and go.
Adding to all that was the natural charm and beauty of Carmel — uniquely quaint buildings; flowers blooming everywhere; stunning artwork in every other shop; the beautiful white sand beach; and some of the nicest, most genuinely friendly restaurant people we’ve ever encountered.
All in all, it was a perfect vacation!