Salted strawberries

Tuesday August 17th, 2010

I forgot to mention one funny thing last night. Our dad had cut up some fresh strawberries and had sprinkled, what I thought, was sugar on top. I had pulled the rest of the yummy looking bowl of strawberries over and had planned to polish it off. I had one bite and then I realized that something was wrong. I had to ask dad, "Did you put SALT on these?" His reply was, "Of course." Yucky! Cathy & I couldn't believe that he thought it'd taste good and laughed. We know of other people that put salt on their watermelon. Why?

This morning I had received a call from Vera, my nurse practitioner. She gave me the good news that I'm scheduled for a CT tomorrow with an appt. on Thurs. with the oncology surgeon. Boy was I relieved. I don't think I'd last until Sept. 13th for the other one. The discomfort and swelling in my abdomen that I'm having is getting to be ridiculous.

My friend, Odette, came by and we went to lunch @ Cafe Selmarie in the Lincoln Square area. I had last been there over 15 years ago when it was just a small shop. It's really expanded since then and the food was wonderful. We shared a warm ham & cheese sandwich and salads with warm goat cheese. I felt good & I ate all of my portions. Then we picked up desserts for later. They have a very cute assortment of sugar cookies. I picked up the last smiley face one, little dinosaurs, tulips, ice cream cones and daisy shaped cookies. She had picked up a slice of cake for later. We then stopped by her parents home to surprise visit them. Her dad had recent surgery so he was in a recliner. My back was really hurting by this point so Odette put me in another recliner, which was super comfortable too. Her mom needed to run some errands so they left the two of us. We had a good time talking, I almost fell asleep that chair was so comfortable. After Odette returned with her mom, we chatted a bit more before she took me home with some more goodies, her dad makes homemade pickles.

She stayed with me for a bit longer after we returned to my home. I had to take a nap before dad served dinner. Paul was taking me to get a new cell phone later. Since my diagnosis, my cell phone bill has doubled and then some, going over my minutes in texting & calls. He & I got to the store around 8 pm, for some reason, my back was very painful and I had told the saleslady of my condition. She gave me her boss's chair to sit in. Then she saw how I was short of breath & they got me a cold cup of water. She told me that her mom was sick for a long time so she's used to giving sick people comfort measures. She was very helpful and had to call her boss to ask some questions. We told him how I was sitting in his chair & he told me I had to run his store. I'd be the last person qualified to do so, electronics and I don't mix, unless you want it broken. So my old memory card would not transfer into my new phone, meaning I have to manually put in my old numbers or if you can, call me, because I figured out how to save contact info. that way.

While we were in the store, our cousin, Claire, called from the Philippines. She had just gotten the e-mail that I sent earlier telling her of my pending CT & surgery appt. I was SOOOO happy to hear her voice, I miss her so much,that I started crying. The special saleslady got me some tissues too. Claire is the cousin who's an oncologist out there. I told her how my stomach is and that I wish she could come back to take care of me. She said that she'll look into it. She reminded me how they're all praying for me and that she too has some contacts in Chicago, oncology-wise. I had also picked up something so I can take my pictures off my camera, since I could not located my camera box @ home with the attachments to do so. More electronic stuff I get to play with. Great, I'm not a manual reader, I try to figure stuff out by myself but these things seem very complicated.

Thanks everyone for your well wishes with my test and appt. You know I'll keep you posted with the results. I hope there's a remedy to my situation. I don't want to take meds for pain relief, my body is going through enough with the chemo and cancer. I'm dizzy enough @ times with my vertigo and when I'm alert, I want to stay alert to take in life while I'm here. Goodnight.