This past Thursday, James drove up for his first PET/CT scan in awhile. It’s hard not to feel easily distracted and sick to my stomach leading up to these tests, and then waiting an undetermined amount of time for the results. And then *poof*, they show-up in the Stanford app……
It’s been a loooong five months. Those of you that are still reading these posts every now and then… thank you thank you thank you. I’ve endured mudslides and forest fires and earthquakes, but the immediate threat has always passed. This has been different. A chronic crisis. And we all…
On Monday night it was just Jakey and me. Poor Nate went to bed at 6:45PM with a temperature of almost 104. Meanwhile James was putting another few hundred miles on his car as he drove home from Stanford. It sounds like his follow-up check-ups with the radiation doctor and the…
….And…. we’re back. I’m keenly aware that the Team James updates have been few and far between and for that I am sincerely sorry. During the six weeks of radiation I was just keeping my head above water. And I was always cooking. And putting Jake to bed one hundred…
Words. I’ve always loved words. Loved understanding their meanings, their history, and the way sayings can be so different across languages. One of my favorites in Spanish is that someone thinks they’re the “ombligo del mundo” or “the bellybutton of the world.” In English we’d say they think they’re the…
The Scotts Valley Purnells brought James home this weekend for a little R&R. I was so so excited to see him on Friday I felt jittery as I left work. Mostly we took it easy this weekend. We had lots of cups of hot tea and several sessions of “barn…
Sometime in November, Jacob experienced his first case of heartburn. I’m not exactly sure what we had for dinner that night, but he came to me on the couch, complaining that his heart hurt. He was pressing on his chest and breathing deeply and anxiously pacing back and forth. I…
It’s Sunday night and we’ve survived Week One of our Six Week Retreat of Healing. James has been settling-in at Granddad and Grandma Suzy’s this week, commuting to Los Gatos for his daily radiation treatments, and doing his best to balance staying busy and not wearing himself out. He had…
Many years ago, my dear friend Kristen was on an airplane. She’s eagerly looking forward to cracking her big new Harry Potter book for several hours of cross-country magical mayhem when an older gentleman, sitting next to her, decides to chat her up, “Is that one of those books about…
As some of you have noticed, I’ve become significantly more attuned to my surroundings in the last two months. Maybe it’s my mindful meditation practice? Perhaps the real or perceived threat of being in constant and imminent danger? Or it could be La Niña and the weekly excitement of rockslides and…