Catching up with the Montana Messinas

Catch up post! What have we been up to? This week has a lot of appointments. For two people with relatively free calendars, we have had appointments this week!

I joined a book club that is offered through the cancer support center in the area. It is such a nice group of people. The social worker who helps organize the meetings each month is able to get hard copies of the books for everyone for free. We discussed the book entitled, “The Magnificent Lives of Majorie Post” by Alison Pataki. It was really good! It was not something that I would have read on my own, so I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. It is a biographical fiction about the life of the Post cereal foods heiress, Majorie Post. It talks about Kellogg’s…it was really very interesting. I have the next two months’ books in hand and they are each different and interesting-looking. I am happy to be a part of this group. I am an avid reader and have an audio book going during the day and a different book on my kindle at night. I love a good story, so getting me out of my normal wheelhouse, is a welcome change as well as being able to discuss them with!

Yesterday I had a doctor’s appointment with a new set of medical folks, called my palliative medical team. I met a fabulous nurse and also an awesome doctor. Unfortunately, that doctor is leaving in November to move out of the area. However, I have my foot in the door for this palliative care team. For those of you who don’t know much about palliative care, let me fill you in. A palliative care team includes a physician certified or experienced in hospice or palliative care, nurse practitioner, clinical social worker, spiritual support specialist, and a registered nurse. Most insurance companies will cover palliative care. This team helps me with relief from symptoms, pain, and the stress of serious illness. The goal is to improve my quality of life that are patient and family centered. To be eligible, you must have a serious illness or life-limiting illness. They don’t step in last minute as you are dying…but they can. I wish I would have had something like this during the first stages of my cancer diagnosis. However, I wanted to get my foot in the door here and get to know them and allow them to help me with side effect management. I am currently doing fairly well, but I do live with a lot of pain in my feet and one of my medical side effects is incredibly vivid dreams, which I have every night, all night. Even though I have slept all night, I do not wake up feeling rested. I was able to talk to her about these symptoms and I will be trying to add a bit of magnesium glycinate at night to help alleviate the issue of the dreams and the cramping in my arches at night. It is such a little thing…but I have been dealing with it for over 2.5 years now. They will keep meeting with me, to get to know me and get to know what I would like for end of life care, whenever that happens. As I told a good friend on the phone today, it was a gut-check to have this meeting take place….but it was also long overdue and I am glad to be in the hands of some wonderfully caring people. I have my next treatment tomorrow, on Thursday. It consists of 3 appointments. I go in and get my lab work drawn. I then go and see my oncologist. He has been great…he wants to see me every time I come in for a shot and do blood work to keep an eye on me. He listens to my heart and lungs…makes sure I don’t have weird swelling going on…you know…doctor stuff that I never got from my local oncologist in Omaha….who I hadn’t seen in over 2 years in person. I am pretty sure this is what my care is supposed to look like. Then after seeing him, I head over to the infusion clinic and get a shot in the hip. Then I am free for the month. However…it is getting to be time for a scan again. My specialist at the Mayo clinic said 4-6 months and the last scan was mid May….so we are getting to be in that time frame now. I will talk to him about it tomorrow. Rich and I are traveling a lot in October…and not actually much of it will be together, so we’ll see what they come up with. This will be my first set of scans here in Montana.

Rich is at the small VA clinic in Kalispell today getting his initial patient appointment done as well. We’ll have to see how much can be done at this clinic. The nearest VA hospital is hours away. I heard a rumor they were thinking of putting a VA hospital in Kalispell, but I don’t know when that would happen or if it was just a rumor.

Friday around noon I will be leaving for Anaconda, Montana (which is near Butte). It is a four hour drive to get there. I will be going on a retreat for women in Montana with cancer. It is called Mending in the Mountains and there will be 60 women attending. I am really looking forward to the retreat and the drive. The colors are changing now and the bright yellows and reds are beautiful in the mountains. I will get home late Sunday afternoon. I had to laugh as I read an email this morning from the organizers saying they are having a Hawaiian themed party on Saturday night and we could feel free to dress up if we wanted to. It is going to be on the porch of the retreat center…which seems like it would be outside….the highs are going to be in the 50’s and lows in the high 30’s. It is more flannel weather, I think! We shall see!

Rich and I have been busy enjoying the beautiful fall weather here. We went to East Glacier (about a 2 hour drive) and hiked all day around there. We went bicycling in Whitefish for an hour and a half or so on Monday. We have taken the dog for a walk on around the riverside city park in Columbia Falls (our nearest town – about 10 minutes away). We are always looking for bears as they are eating 20 hours a day right now trying to fatten up for their winter hibernation. It didn’t take long for us to become more like the locals and be looking at all the scat on the ground….trying to determine which animal it belongs to and how fresh it is. Yep…didn’t do that in Omaha!

Today is a rainy, cooler day, so I am getting things done inside. Catching up on blogging…doing the laundry….making phone calls…procrastinating on vacuuming…which I will do when I am done with this post. I did go out and dusted off my 16 oz boxing gloves this morning. I wrapped up my hands for the first time in 3 years (I stopped bag training when I was put on blood thinners….almost 3 years ago to the day today). It felt good to hit a heavy bag, jump rope and do some speed bag work. It made me realize how out of boxing shape I am, but wow, it felt good. I am thinking Rich may have to use the Thera gun on my upper back tonight or tomorrow, but that’s okay. It was glorious to go cool off in 50 degree weather on the front porch afterwards. That is Tallinn’s favorite spot to be…on the front porch watching everything….like a whole flock of turkeys just making their way across our yard. He doesn’t like turkeys and gives them a wide berth. Here’s a fighting shot of my first day back!