Wednesday: Canasta w/ Kerry/Mom, Grits w/ Kerry/Ross

December 27, 2023

Ok, I'll start with the important again. Today, just when I was about to write this, I had a big thought. It's that in a way, I'm grateful for the traumatic brain injury, just because I love the coping strategies that I've developed to deal with it so much. Like, this blog is like my number one coping strategy, and it also really fits in with my history as a journalism major and writer. So I guess the other thing that I'm grateful for today is writing, just because I love recording things, and it's almost like I was gifted with an injury that made me NEED to record things. And the cancer plays into that as well! That's because the cancer meds require an INSANE amount of planning in my day, every single day. And that is the other reason that I was pushed into absolutely HAVING to record many things. Frankly, a huge part of this, with me using my pocket notebooks, started with recording the times of the day I took my medications. I'm currently on my pocket notebook number 16, and I know I started counting them this year. Now, I've moved into little hard-cover notebooks, which is a VAST improvement to the first thing I ever took daily notes on, which were the Fogo server pads. That is really where my note-taking began, which is kind of funny. 

Ok, I NEED a new paragraph after all this heavy stuff. Today I took my meds at 7:33 am with two eggs. While eating the eggs, I know I told Kerry that eggs pretty much have all their fat in the yolks, not the whites. I had googled that the other day. We also had some tea. Then, Mom, Kerry, and I all played the geography game I'd gotten for Christmas from Jodi. It seemed to mainly ask for city names. There was some stuff that Kerry knew that Mom and I did not. Later on, the three of us also played a few hands of Canasta, with us not using the obnoxious three-person-game rules, which complicate things too much. 

Oh, and this morning I also logged onto my Mayo Clinic call that we thought would be integrative medicine, to help me manage symptoms. The lady essentially told us she was a person who deals more with "stress management," which I don't have hardly any of. We're not sure what the future there looks like. Then, we also completed a call with Dr. Go, my current lead hematology doctor. He said that the results of my genetic testing had come back, and named a new mutation they found. Unfortunately, there aren't many treatments for that specific mutation. He also talked about potential future radiation and some treatment with this new drug that I would try instead of Turalio. I'm not at all sure when they would test me again after I start trying the new stuff. Really, they just need some more time to absorb the results, since they literally only came in earlier today. 

Then, Kerry, Ross, Mom, and I had dinner, which was shrimp and "grits," which I think had cornmeal or something like that. After dinner, which I took my meds with at 6:45 pm, the three of us played a new game. It was called Flamme Rouge and involved racing bike riders. It was kind of complicated, but a cool game to learn for the first time. Apparently, it means "red flag," which makes a lot of sense. We also had some more tea tonight, and then Ross won our game.