More about Rinnie
Hello! It’s July 7th and we are home at last! There’s no place like home for sure. Even Rinnie was ready to come home. It’s good to see our dog, our cats and to sleep in our own beds. We’ve been sleeping in the same room for over a month, so it was hard for me to leave her all the way down the hall in her own room! But I managed, with only a couple of tiptoe visits in the night.
Rinnie was supposed to be in camp for the next two weeks, but has decided to honor her body’s desire for rest and stay home. They have to walk 2 - 3 blocks twice a day to get to the rehearsal site, and that is hard for her. Standing for long periods of time hurts her back and her sitter-downer is not working at all! She is most comfortable when lying down.
That said, she has a pretty good appetite. She is one finicky eater, but I have 13 1/2 years of experience at feeding her, so I do a pretty good job. She gave me a loooong grocery list today of foods that she would love to be eating. We got home last night from Atlanta to a mostly empty refrigerator, so a grocery run is necessary today!
Physically, she has developed a “stitch” issue. Her body is spitting out the stitches from where they did the biopsy of Theodore. So the skin of the incision has opened a bit, is itching a lot and I’ve gotten a couple of stitches out so far. There’s one more that’s almost ready to leave, (no tugging or helping them to come out! I just wipe them off with a q-tip.) and we hope that is the last one. It’s back to nurse mode for Mom, cleaning the incision several times a day and putting on some antibiotic ointment so that it doesn’t get infected. That nurse thing just keeps coming in handy!
Mentally, Rinnie is doing pretty well. It’s hard for her that the summer is almost gone and school starts in a month! She misses her friends and we hope that now that we will be in town for at least a couple of weeks, that she can get together with her friends and visit some. She has been able to get out to do some swimming, which is her favorite thing about summer and that has helped a little. All in all, she stays positive and looks forward to school starting next month. She loves the summer, but she has always been ready to go back to school and see her friends more often.
Thank you for your continued prayers. I tear up daily with gratitude for someone who calls or emails and does something nice for us. It’s remembering us with prayers that touches us most. We are so very grateful for our wonderful community!
I am adding a comment every few days, so for updates, just click on the comments. Also, feel free to add your own comment/message to Rinnie.
Pam
July 8th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
I know that I will not do an update tomorrow because we will be busy all day, so I want to take an opportunity to do it today. It’s Tuesday, July 8th, and we are doing well. Doug stopped by for a visit, and it was sure nice to see him! We got all caught up on what’s going on at his house. Both he and his fiance’, Kayla, are at AB Tech, working on their education. Things look very bright for them! Kayla is working on medical transcription and Doug is doing prerequisites for the police academy. I’m very excited for them both.
Rinnie is doing well today. She helped me to clip Scout. He is a bit “fluffy” and gets pretty hot in the summer, so I keep him clipped short. Although he loves the resulting coolness, he does not care so much for being clipped. Rinnie helps me to hold him still while I do the clipping. I’ve done a pretty good job this time… sometimes he gets a creative cut! Have you ever tried to clip a moving target? He is taking a nap at my feet as we speak. All of that work just wears him out! I still have a bit of cleaning up to do under his front legs, but we all needed a rest break. It was getting too hot for him out on the deck. He prefers the air conditioning!
Well, Rinnie is off to shower the dog hair away. All is well in our world. We are grateful for our community and for your prayers.
Pam
July 13th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Hello again,
It’s July 13th and all is well in our world. Rinnie had a restless night last night. No pain, just unable to sleep and frustrated about it. She took some Benedryl and still couldn’t sleep. So we were awake much of the night and thus did not go to church this morning. I’m feeling tired…all I need is an opportunity and I’ll be sleeping soundly!
We are enjoying being home. I have not been able to figure out how to connect her laptop to the wireless system, so I have a friend who will help me with that later today. We’ll be home for the next week. I am taking a work break, and Rinnie is continuing to do her healing work. I am grateful to have work that feeds my soul. I swear that I get as much or more from the massage as my clients do! I am grateful for my clients who are supporting me by continuing to schedule appointments! And to be flexible around my needing to confirm appointments when Rinnie is doing less well.
Staying in gratitude….
Pam
July 15th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
It’s July 15th and the month is half gone! Time flies. School starts in less than a month.
We are home and there’s really not much to report. Rinnie has slept well for the past 2 nights, not waking till almost noon today! She is normally an early riser, so that was a surprise. She is eating very well, maintaining her weight, thought not yet gaining any back, resting, and watching more Friends DVD’s (Thank you so much Joy and Bob for loaning them to her! She is on the last couple of years now.) She is not going out much, which is probably a good thing. The rest is vital at this point and I appreciate that she is listening to her body and not just going on despite fatigue. She goes to work with me some and that’s about it. We eat all meals at home because she only eat cheese when we eat out, and we are currently eating mostly a vegan diet. (She was craving salmon, so I muscle tested her and since she was strong for it, she got it!) We are eating no milk products for one month. Then, she wants to have a “cheese and ice cream day” and see how her body feels. I’d rather that she didn’t, but believe that her body will give her evidence for avoiding milk products for a while longer.
In my reading/research, some of the things that promote cancer growth are:
sugar
milk protein
an acid body (caused by eating not only sugar and milk products, but meat and lots of breads)
So I am doing all that I can (translate that as all that Rinnie will allow) to see that she has an alkaline body. The only food she eats willingly is bread, so that’s a challenge. She will take barley grass supplements, so she is on those based on her saliva pH.
That’s all for now. She’d love to hear from you.
Pam
July 24th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
It’s been a while since I’ve done an update because my computer got a virus! But we are up and running again. Rinnie is doing well. She has some good days and some not so good days. We are having more of the good days, thankfully.
Rinnie continues to stay in touch with her friends through text messages, instant messaging, phone calls and email. She actually went to a pool lock-in with a friend on Saturday night. She slept on an air mattress on the ground in a tent! She was a bit disappointed because it was a younger crowd that she had expected (more 5th graders and only a few 8th graders!). But she did have fun. She failed to pack warm clothes (we are in the mountains and it gets into the 60’s and sometimes the 50’s at night) so she got a bit chilled. She did not want me to bring her any, though… I offered to throw some over the fence into the pool area. We have to chalk that up to “adventure” for her. Maybe she’ll remember next time….
We are home until the 1st, when we go back to Atlanta for another round of treatments before school starts on the 12th. We have an appointment to speak with the director of the school and her teachers about how she will be able to go to school and, hopefully, stay all day. As a charter school, their funding is dependent upon the presence of students for the first month. They discourage absences during this time, and we will do our best to find a place of balance between her being at school all day, every day, and her health and wellbeing.
Rinnie has completed all 10 seasons of Friends on DVD, thanks to a loan of them from Bob and Joy. Now, she is reading the Harry Potter books. Her brother, Doug, and I have always enjoyed the books, but I think she resisted them because of that. We have been staying in Atlanta with Melony and David, and they are very big Harry Potter fans. I think they have had a big influence on her desire to read the books. Rinnie has always loved the movies, and now is enjoying learning details that are in the books and were skipped in the movies. I expect that she will go back and watch the movies again as well!
Thank you so much for your love and support!
Pam
July 26th, 2008 at 11:03 am
It is Saturday, July 26th and all is well. Rinnie continues to do very well. Theodore is shrinking, getting softer. She has had only a few narcotics since she started treatment in Atlanta….she is just not in pain any more. She takes plain Tylenol or the occasional Aleve for soreness! She does still have a wound where the biopsy was done. The incision opened up a few weeks ago and her body rejected the stitches… I would clean the wound with a q-tip, using a bit of peroxide to prevent infection, and the stitches would just wipe off…still in a knot and everything. It was like her body was spitting the stitches out or something. the remaining wound is clean, free from infection and healing nicely. I think it’ll be completely healed in another week or so. Meanwhile, we just make sure she showers after going to the pool and then change the bandaid. That nursing degree sure comes in handy!
I am off to paint one of my office rooms. I will go down to the 2 original rooms that Bruce and I started with 5 years ago. Grace is leaving Phoenix Massage and starting her own practice, so we don’t need the space. The room has to be returned to white. Kevin and Grace are helping with that. I am doing what I can to lower expenses so that I can work very little and be available to Rinnie as much as possible. It’s a balancing thing….make enough money to provide our needs, while being home to care for Rinnie. The donations from rinnierocks.com have been very helpful! I have been able to pay for the medical treatments in Atlanta, took Rinnie to the Baba Center at Myrtle Beach, gas for my car, food for us to eat, and clothes for Rinnie, too. I am so very grateful!!!
School starts on the 12th, and Rinnie is very much looking forward to going back! Both of my kids have always enjoyed school and been great students. I am blessed!
That’s it for today. Blessings!
Pam
July 29th, 2008 at 11:40 am
It’s July 29th and I’m at my nursing job for two days. Rinnie is hanging out with friends and doing quite well. She has missed doing that all summer. Although she understands that she needs this time to heal, she misses hanging out with friends. She has missed out on summer camps, camping, swimming and all sorts of stuff. She has mostly hung out with me and Melony all summer… And we are just adults!
Rinnie is just well enough to discover that she isn’t tired enough by bedtime so that she can sleep at night. My cure for that is more chores! Um, plus spending time with friends! I’m actually thrilled that she is at the place of not being tired enough to sleep. School starts in about 2 weeks and I’m sure that will keep her busy and probably will tire her out some. I’m keeping my schedule open for the whole first week of school just in case she needs me. We live 1.5 miles from the school so I can be there pretty quickly if she does. And I have tons of chores that could stand to be done.
All is well in our world.