Loose Strife

Although we did make it to the Lake House for dinner tonight, Laura is still not feeling well. Coinciding with flare-up of pain and beginning of new radiation, it’s probably radiation side effects (nausea, fatigue). Her onc prescribed new meds for nausea. (By now, Laura could start a pharmacy business on the side.) She’ll be seeing the onc yet again on Monday to make sure she’s OK. Everyday rads next week. Surgeon on Tuesday. Blood work Wednesday. Another onc appt Friday. Dental work Friday. Friends will be visiting next weekend from CA. Then my mom comes up for a while.
We’re searching for day care for Naomi to hopefully simplify things. And Lily nows goes to preschool all day for 3 days per week. Here she is before leaving for her first day of school.

Laura’s been feeling pretty poorly over the last week or so.  Back pain was so bad that I considered taking her to the ER on Sunday and I worried that she wouldn’t get help until Tuesday, after the Labor Day holiday.  I panicked and tracked down one of her oncologists, who called me back around 10pm.  She continues to be amazingly kind and caring.  She called Laura’s primary oncologist and got back to me to up her pain meds and schedule the start of radiation the next morning.  (You just couldn’t ask for a better team of physicians.  The radiation oncologist had the machines started up and came in just for Laura on Labor Day.)
Anyway, it’s now Friday.  Laura’s been on heavy doses of narcotics and a week of radiation. On top of that, she had a Lupron injection that shuts down her ovaries. And of course the daily Tamoxifen. I’ve learned that this sort of treatment is common, but no doubt, all of this is causing a lot of internal discomfort. Laura has spent most of the week in bed.
This is my first week of teaching fall classes, so I’m really grateful that Natalie and Joe are around to deal with the kiddos.

Yesterday my father-in-law, Joe, worked on getting an old sickle bar mower attached and running on my tractor. He removed all the teeth and then put them back on, replacing some broken ones. But the big problem was figuring out how to mount it. The mower was specifically designed for my obsolete 2-point hitch and it seemed to just rest on the ground when mounted. We finally came to accept that it was supposed to do that — which means a low cut for sure, and lots of opportunities to hit rocks.
The most impressive work that he did was to remove a stuck bolt with a round head. In a million years I wouldn’t have thought to file down the edges of the bolt in order to get a wrench around it.

Anyway, the good news is that we got it going.

When the PTO engages those blades move fast!
I’ll be trying it out when I harvest my second buckwheat crop in a week or so.