Squirrel jerky?

We got elfed last night. Sometime after I got home from the presidency meeting and before I tried to let the cat out at 3:00a.m. (Cat was having none of it.)

Inside the bag was a packet labeled “squirrel jerky” which said, “Greetings [Beloved]! Here’s a small token of my esteem. Get feeling better, I miss our late night fun and games. Merry Christmas to all! Sincerely, the Squirrel.” An ornament was also attached: a simple red wooden star that said “Believe.”

Those of you who are FB friends to both of us, will remember the go-round Beloved had with one or more of the neighborhood squirrels over the matter of peaches and pecans. Beloved was breathing out threats of squirrel tacos.

Oh dear. I just remembered that we had tacos for dinner last night. Evidently, he missed one?

In more serious news, Mel’s dad had a stroke in the wee hours yesterday and is in the hospital. Last we heard, paralysis had come and gone and come again, but he is being well cared for. Double whammy for those kids, as Mel and Squishy have been most solicitous about Beloved as he fights cancer.

Beloved met with the liver specialist yesterday. I’ll adapt from his update to our kids: The meeting was to determine the viability of inserting a stent in the liver to mitigate the rising bilirubin levels. Based on the CT scans, MRI’s, and sonogram, doing the stent at this time is not viable. The bile duct is the right size and is not obstructed. The problem is basically an inflamed and enlarged liver due to the cancer.

Beloved has an appointment next Tuesday with another doctor to explore the possibility of inserting glass beads into the tumors in the liver, which basically shuts off their blood supply and eventually kills them. The doctor he met with yesterday is aware of the appointment next week and also felt that for now that was the best way to go. The really neat thing is that we have our local oncologist and the liver specialist and the glass bead guy that Beloved sees next week, all working as a team on his behalf.

He also told our kids, “The new chemo drug they put me on before Thanksgiving was creating some nasty side effects and I was taken off of it last Friday - some of the side effects - left side of face went numb, including taste buds on left side of tongue, internal bleeding (under control now), double vision in right eye, and assorted other fun stuff...” The internal bleeding was news to me. He thought he’d told me. I ahemed at him. Vociferously.

I’ll close with happier news. The sweater body is humming along. It is now a hair over 11” in length. The side seam decreases are subtle, nearly invisible, but effective. I think two more decreases will do it.

Time for me to put the bag of jerky in his chair for when he wakes up. And to grab another ball of yarn for the knitting bag. And to slip out of the house a little early for a swing past the grocery store. I blew through a 20oz bottle of Cherry Coke yesterday in a little over an hour yesterday (I fought sleep all day.) A two liter bottle should last me the rest of the week. I also need to print off part of a spreadsheet, as we have tithing settlement tonight. But mostly, I hope, tonight will be all about the knitting.