New Day, Next Step

The weekend was nice. We went to a BBQ with some of Aunt Mary's longtime friends. They lived on a hill even higher and with more views than Aunt Mary. Maryland is a pretty amazing place. Baltimore has the highest murder rate and just north of it is beautiful farm lands, that indeed are still very much small town America.

We went to Broom's Bloom Farm for ice cream Sunday night. It was packed. A little shack on the edge of a dairy farm. It was packed. Young families, kids running everywhere and old folks sitting quietly at tables. All enjoyed their ice cream, no one complained waiting in line for their turn to order. They had live music (a friend of Aunt Mary and cousin John -- in fact John taught him how to play the guitar). Trish said it was like a scene from a movie. The weather was beautiful. Cool, in the 70's. The sky was clear -- blue with a few wispy white clouds floating lazily in the sky.

The other amazing thing is that each of the communities in the area had 4h of July parades, fireworks and other celebrations (frog jumps, turlte races, etc). They start these events on the 29 or 30 of June and have something going on almost every day through the 4th of July. In fact, if Trish is up to it we will go to one of Aunt Mary's friends houses to watch fire works tonight. I could get used to this place.

Monday, Trish and Aunt Mary had a very busy day. They picked blueberries, strawberries, peaches and sour cherries. I talked to her a couple of times from my office in Glen Burnie and each time she sounded happy. The two of them giggled and sounded more like two young school girls playing hookie from school than two ladies fighting blood cancers. I worked, they played -- it was a good day. They ended the day by baking a sour cherry cobbler. It was good. It was good therapy too.

Trish is in an operating room at the moment getting her new Hickmann in place (central line). We started this morning signing her admittance papers. We'll stop by IPOP before leaving, so they can test Trish's new toy -- flushing it and probably drawing some blood.

We will drive down to the hospital tomorrow around 11. They will start her chemo tomorrow, 7 days of intense chemo leading up to the transplant.