Day 753

If there ever was any question about why kitty sits in the basket on my ironing board, it was answered today.

Just look at that sunshine streaming through the window!

Day 752

As much time and money hubby and I spend with doctor's appointments and tests and xrays and MRIs and prescription medications you'd think we'd give the cat the same treatment. But we have to fess up. We don't take the cat to the vet. We did when she was little but haven't had her back in years and years.

We know it's bad. We love her and feed her and brush her and play with her but we just haven't found our way to the vet's office. That changes next week when we finally get her there.

It's the getting there that has always been worrisome. Being that she never travels in the car I'm a bit concerned. Daughter and I bought a cat carrier this past week to give her a comfy place to hang out. Soft-sided, a long strap for me to carry it over my shoulder, a nice soft bed for kitty to rest on.

Trying to introduce her to the idea isn't going as well as I thought it would. Not that I haven't tried to get her interested! You can see the progress I've made.

Cat.

 Empty cat carrier.

At least I have until Monday to get it figured out. Might be time to pull out the treats.

Day 751

Last night my daughter asked me if I ever get tired of taking a picture every day.

Yep. A lot. Almost every day. So many days I just don't have anything exciting going on. Nothing exciting to see, nothing exciting to do. Just the same thing, just a different year. But then there are days where I get to do something a bit different than my normal schedule and get to see things in a different way.

Take Idaho's State Capitol building. Back on Day 170 , after over 30 years of living in Idaho, I first stepped into the building. Got a picture, even.

Then today I had another meeting right next to the Capitol. Seemed like a good day to take some additional pictures of the outside. How can I not feel important being able to see this before and after meetings?

Day 750

Still hanging out in Boise, keeping quiet. And organizing all that fabric from last week. Thanks to my mom and daughter and their help some is ready to head to eBay, some to Marsing, and some will stay put right here.

Day 749

Being that the rheumatologist's office is a lot closer to our place in Boise than our place in Marsing I'm hanging out in Boise for a couple days. Just in case. According to the nurse I could have a potentially life-threatening allergic reaction up to 48 hours after the infusion. Better safe than sorry!

It did give me a chance to get late afternoon pictures of the thunderstorm rolling through.

That's black sky behind the tree, not blue sky.

Day 748

I never blog at the exact moment something is happening but today is different.

First of all, I thought I'd be able to talk about my first training session - as an editor - on my uphill climb to being a narrator for the books for the blind. But the gal training me had to cancel so here I am writing about the next scheduled appointment of the day.

I sit in this room.

I sit here in this row of chairs.

Hooked up to this machine. Feet up, blanket covering me, blood pressure cuff on one arm, IV in the other.

Other than the nurse sitting at her computer and the folks, mostly staff members, walking by the room and glancing at with me with a look of pity and forced smiles on their faces, I'm alone. Yet it's not quiet. The noise of the machine pumping the multiple vials of medicine that was injected in the IV compete with the conversations of doctors and nurses and patients in the hallway.

I crossed one of those last lines I drew in the sand. I'm running out of options. I've crossed the steroid line, the chemotherapy line, the pre-filled syringe line, the measuring the medicine and then injecting myself line, the anti-malaria drug line.

Today I crossed the infusion line. I sit here with thousands of dollars entering my veins in the hope of gaining some relief in the rheumatoid arthritis battle. It's a battle I've been losing. But maybe, just maybe...

Day 747

It seemed exciting, it seemed a fun way to keep myself busy. Patterns, patterns, patterns. Except when I hit that imaginary wall today, that one caused by the chemotherapy drugs, it didn't seem so fun and exciting. Seemed like nothing but work. Time to refocus my mind, to concentrate on trying to find some energy. And time to organize patterns.

It will get better! (If I tell myself that enough it eventually will.) Just not today.