Days Go By

Saturday February 26, 2012

We’ve been having our ups and downs.

Thursday morning was David’s 4th treatment of Velcade.  
We have moved his appointments out of the Tampa office to the Brandon office
which is much closer to where we are staying and thus much easier for us.
Color this UP.

The appointment began as always with a blood draw to determine his current counts. 
He was surprised that before they gave the velcade shot they gave him an injection of procrit. 

Procrit is a synthetic copy of Epoetin Alpha
produced in the kidney to stimulate hemoglobin
to produce red blood cells and avoid the necessity
of a blood transfusion in patients showing severe anemia. 
His blood work hemoglobin count had dropped below 10 necessitating the shot. 

He’s beginning to feel like a pin cushion
with all the blood taken and injections given twice a week. 
Within hours of this shot,
he felt more tired and run down than he has ever felt.
He had never felt anemic until now.
Color this DOWN.

Precision Auto in Brandon Florida is a Great Place
to get your car repaired.

On a more pleasant note,
Thursday afternoon was the day the car finally got fixed
thanks to David’s persistence in finding the part
and getting the Honda Dealership to order it. 
And thanks to Precision Automotive in Brandon, Florida
who had to drop our full gas tank to install it. 
We now have a leak free gas line. 
Color this UP.

Precision Auto  is terrific. 
They are honest,
reliable,
VERY reasonably priced,
thorough and
very experienced
so they can charge you the minimum for labor to do your work.

We cannot recommend them highly enough. 
If you are anywhere in this area and need any auto work done,
do yourself a favor and have them do it. 
I’ll be putting out reviews of praise on all the internet sites
we used to find them including Car Talk’s Mechanics Files.

Finally,
after weeks of being put on the back burner,
Ruby’s problems are fixed and that chore can be filed away.
Definitely UP

But, David found himself exhausted and went to bed early.
Color that DOWN.

We wanted to take a vacation during his “break”.

Friday we left Lithia Springs and drove across the state
166 miles to keep part of our previously made East Coast reservations. 
Since David’s treatments are two weeks on and one week off,
this was his “vacation” after round #1 and he wanted
to DO something. 

We arrived about 3:00 at Jonathan Dickinson State Park.

There are two campgrounds at Jonathan Dickinson.

Our site is in Pine Flatwoods just a short way into the park.  It is for sure flat but has very few pines in the campground.  It does have full hook ups but zero charm in my opinion.

What it does have is lots of grackles.

Here is a picture of our site #79.
Full hook ups but not much more to write home about.

I would much rather have been in the River campground
4 miles into the park near all of the facilities.

It is a much smaller campground and designed for smaller RVs although there are at least 3 sites that Winnona could get in to.  But none for a rig any bigger than she is at 34’.  

It’s a lovely little campground though
with much more of a camping feel.

Again David was surprised to find he was very tired
after the drive.  Prior to the procrit injection,
although his numbers said he was anemic,
he hadn’t felt that way.  
Now, he was exhausted from what
in the past would have been a relatively easy drive.  

We got minimally set up, had dinner and he went to bed early.

Saturday dawned, I went out running about 7:45am,
came back, did my stretching and other exercises and found that
David had slept the entire time.  
Nearly 12 hours of sleep. Very unusual for him. 
But he said he felt better.

After breakfast we just noodled around until lunch
David took another nap after lunch.  When he woke
we drove the 4 miles down to
the visitor center rather than biking down
as we usually would.

We saw the film they were showing on the
Loxahatchee River which flows through the park.
It was Florida’s first wild and scenic designated river.
We’d love to kayak on it.   But that will depend
on David’s energy and the weather.

So far the weather has been a disappointment.
It has rained, been cloudy and windy both days.
Although in a way, that’s good since it
makes David less disappointed that he doesn’t
feel as good as usual.

After the movie, we spent some time in the
extremely well done visitor’s center learning the
history of the area that is now the park and
the history of the park itself.

 

There were two books that I would love to read but at 120 and 156 pages each, $15.95 per books is
too stiff for my wallet.
But they really looked interesting.
One was a journal by Jonathan Dickinson a Quaker merchant who was shipwrecked near here in 1669
with his family and slaves.  His accounts of the  Native Peoples would have been very interesting to read.  The other book was the story of Trapper Nelson a rather eccentric man who lived up river from the early 30’s to late 60’s.   More about him on another day.

David looked around some and then uncharacteristically sat on the bench

while I finished looking at the exhibits.

His energy was flagging so we went back for a nap for him while I made dinner.  
After eating, he again went to bed early hoping he’d have more energy tomorrow
which luckily he did.
That’s an UP!!