Improved clinch knot.

After church, after the briefest of naps, after a delightful evening of spaghetti and mayhem with the tribe of Beloved’s middle son, I learned how to make myself useful helping Beloved spool our two new reels. And I learned another knot that is good for catching something or other that escapes me as neatly as most fish at the lake.

Beloved is set to go fishing. I am set to go to work. My lunch is packed and on the kitchen counter. My knitting is near my new bag.

I need to bring y’all up to date on Beloved’s fight against the Other Woman (i.e., cancer). In December they took him off the particular drug which was causing neuropathy in his hands and feet and put him on something with different side effects (which have, thankfully, been minimal). Apparently it is not as effective in wiping out the cancer cells, because two tumors in his liver that had shrunk significantly at the last CT scan in November, have doubled in size (they are both still far smaller than they were last August, when his cancer cell count was 880). We now go to chemo every week: the three-drug cocktail every other Thursday, pump for two days, and removal of the pump on Saturday morning; and a new drug on the alternate Thursday that will not require him to wear a pump. They are pretty confident that this new drug will be effective at beating the rogue cells into submission.

We are less than thrilled with his oncologist. Son-the-second has filed a formal complaint with the hospital. They drew blood as usual, Beloved had his visit with the oncologist, got a few of his questions answered and several of them more or less blown off (I wasn’t there), and then the nurse told him to stop by the lab because they might have to draw more blood, but wouldn’t or couldn’t tell him why. Turns out that they had not done a cancer cell count with the first batch.

Hence the formal complaint. Now that he is on my insurance, we will be doctor-shopping and aiming for a referral to a different doctor or program. The program at Parkland (which is where people go when they have no, or crummy, insurance) is run by the doctors at UT Southwestern (right next door to Parkland), which is supposed to be one of the best hospitals around. We don’t know what went into his oncologist’s oversight. I am trying to be charitable. Beloved is understandably steamed, as is Son-the-second, whose boss’s attorney has said that if we want to file a claim against the hospital, he will represent us for free. (Squishy has also worked where his big brother is now working, and at least one other member of our congregation works there, so many of their powers-that-be are following Beloved’s challenge and rooting him on prayerfully.)

The goodness of some people sometimes surprises even me.

Tonight for Family Home Evening we are inspecting our 72 hour kits. I suspect that mine will not pass Beloved’s inspection. I am picking up a trivial amount of cash in small bills, and a roll of quarters apiece, to add to each kit. I am also going to toss in a ball of sock yarn and some spare needles. I’ll rotate that out every six months or so.

Weird dream last night. I was shopping at the Super Walmart in south Arlington with the children’s father(!), and I was apparently not upset that he was driving, and we got separated in the store, and my cell phone kept upgrading so that I couldn’t use it to call Firstborn to come get me and take me to Fort Worth and my car.

Very, very glad to wake up next to Beloved this morning. I should probably step away from the computer and go give him a good-luck-fishing-today smooch.