Big Day at Blue Springs, but 433, That’s Ridiculous

Tuesday February 26, 2014
Blue Spring State Park
Orange City, Florida

 

 

I keep forgetting to give an update on David since there isn’t anything to tell.

 

People have been asking me and I keep forgetting to put it in the blog because we don’t know anything but here’s the story in brief.  

David relapsed only 14 months after he was declared in complete remission and his myeloma is active once again.    If you did not read that post, you can see it here.  

His doctors did a second round of the regular tests to make sure and did a  bone marrow biopsy which should have given the percentage of involvement and information about his prognosis.  The regular tests came back and confirmed the relapse.  We waited and waited for the biopsy results.  They analyzed them twice and found them to be inconclusive.  They think it is a false negative since they know he has relapsed. 

SO, he had a hole drilled in his hip and they took a chunk of bone and aspirated the marrow but it didn’t test out.  Now we wait 3 months and see what the effects on the myeloma are from the addition of dexamethasone to his medications.   He takes it once a week on Wednesday.  It speeds him up – well sort of.  It speeds up his mind and his chatter. It probably actually slows him down in doing things.   It gives him insomnia.  He has to take sleeping pills to sleep for two or three nights.   Then he has 4 regular days and nights and then repeat.  

We don’t know yet if they will want to do another bone marrow biopsy in July at the 2nd year “anniversary” of the stem cell transplant.  Thank you all for reminding me that you are interested in all this business.  The summary is, we don’t know anything at this point except that unfortunately he has relapsed and fortunately he still feels fine.   I do wish I had more information about what’s upcoming for him and for us. 

 

 

On my walk to see the manatee this morning, I discover they are making progress on repairing the boardwalk.

 

 

I walk down the path and by pass the boardwalk since I know it is closed off.   When I check it from the far end I find they have the tree out.  I move along to the overlooks and the manatee are more visible though not greater in number.  By the I head back home for breakfast the crew has the broken boards removed.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a great morning on the boardwalk.

 

 

There are eight manatee.  Small numbers compared to just recently but with the warm weather I’m happy I can see them pretty well especially when they rise to the top to breathe and stick their cute noses out of the water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The one with the tracker around her “hips” is called Pixie. She was found as a 45 pound baby and just released recently at 800 pounds after two years. The work done by the Save the Manatee Club is just amazing. They are the source for all information Manatee including the sad fact that 829 manatee were killed in 2013 making it the deadliest year for manatee since record keeping began.

 

 

 

The manatee are heading down the spring run toward the river. 

 

They must be going out to eat their body weight in grasses for the day.   There is no food for them in the spring or spring run, just warmth to keep their body temperature up to the tropical level it needs.

 

 

 

Walking further down and looking across out to the river, it looks like it may well be a good day for a paddle.  They’ve pushed the rain predictions back another day to tomorrow and Thursday so I think we’d better take advantage.

 

 

 

 

In the spring area the great blue is at his fishing post as are the cormorants.  I watch them all for a while.  The Great Blue of course barely moves.  The cormorants jockey for position and seem to be trying to ignore one another.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So what are they looking at???

When I look up to see where David has gone, I notice he is with a group of people intently staring up and across the spring run.   Given the direction they are looking I know what has attracted their attention.

 

 

 

There are two eagles who have a nest each year in this area.  I first saw them on Monday when I came down and they were swooping around fishing and then flew off.  What a great sight that was.   Now only one is here.

 

 

We walk on down to the end of the boardwalk and out onto the tour boat dock.  Looking in both directions, the river looks inviting.  It is quiet at this time of the morning.  I like that especially.  The day at the park hasn’t really started yet except for those of us campers interested in the early morning activities of the animal residents.

 

 

 

 

The ticket booth for the boat tour is open and the agent’s dog comes to work with her. 

 

He’s a fabulously handsome dog.  I think a Bernese Mountain Dog.  Very calm and happy to be petted.  I wonder how he likes it here in July assuming that he lives here year round.   I pet his head and scratch his ears.  He seems to smile but as soon as someone in the ticket booth behind us rattles some paper, he is up and in to investigate.  Just as well, I have spent the morning

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walking on down the boardwalk toward home I see Bobbi in her interesting jacket. 

People ask her about it everywhere she goes.  Her entire right arm is covered in Florida State Park patches but she has many many other places too, lots of which we have been to.   Her jacket is a wind breaker and she has sewn all the patches on herself.  In fact this is the 3rd jacket they have been on.

She and her husband live in Michigan and if we don’t get to go west this summer and want to do the Great Lakes, she has promised to share don’t miss spots in Michigan with us.

 

 

 

 

Someone’s rapping at my window pane.

 

When we get back to Winnona I sit down at the dinette to take my pictures off my camera and I hear a tapping at the window next to me.  I look up and just then wings flutter and a tufted titmouse grabs the window frame and looks in through the screen.  Clearly he can’t see me but I can sure see him.  He then flutters up and pecks again, drops down and holds on.  I can’t figure out what he’s doing unless he sees his reflection somewhere up there but not through the screen.  He does this over and over.  We stare at each other for quite some time.  I can’t take my eyes off of a bird less than a foot away.  I hope he doesn’t tire himself out.  But it’s great to get such a close look at him.  I wish he had picked the side of the window without the screen.

It reminds me of the window bird feeder we had in the farm kitchen.  It had one way glass and was installed inside the house actually so the birds would come in to get the sunflower seeds and we could see them as clear as day right there in our kitchen between the Hoosier cupboard and the stove.

 

 

 

 

Yes it’s ridiculous! No wonder it takes forever to do a blog post.

 

Between this morning and our afternoon paddle, I took 433 pictures today.   Now that’s ridiculous.  The lighting kept giving me fits and I have a lot of trouble with my eyes.  They don’t like bright sun but if I wear sun glasses they don’t like the dimmed light.  I just can’t please them which means I’m never sure that I got the picture I wanted so I take eleventymillion of everything.  

And so it seems I have done an entire post just on our great morning here at Blue Springs.  The wonderful paddle on and around the St. John’s River that we did in the afternoon will just have to wait for another day.