North To Oklahoma

Nap Time With Tin Tin And Kaia

It's 7:00, and Beth and I have been up since 6:00, with Rami having just joined us. Beth is making his breakfast and will then head off to school. It looks like we'll have rain today on our drive north to Oklahoma. We're not leaving until around noon and expect a short four-hour drive today, followed by 3.5 hours tomorrow to our son Tom's house in Lee's Summit, MO. I actually got a good night's sleep for once, with little coughing — which is why I woke at 6:00 — and I hope it continues.

Monday was typical: Beth was off by 7:00, and the rest of us got up at various times — first Rami, then me, then Evie. Rami had an appointment in Dallas at 8:30, and I wasn't sure whether he needed me to drive him. He's usually reluctant to let someone else take the wheel, so he left around 8:10, leaving Evie and me to the morning. I sat around reading, enjoying coffee and a bagel, and writing the blog. Evie was up by 8:30 and joined me, and we weren't quite sure what to do with ourselves other than clean the kitchen and organize a few things. I still didn't have enough energy to walk the dogs, so we let them run freely in the backyard for most of the morning. I ended up taking an hour nap around 10:30 and woke feeling more like myself.

For lunch, I had a ham and cheese sandwich and some of Beth's chicken soup. I wasn't sure what the afternoon would bring until Rami called to ask if I could take an Uber to the hospital and then drive him home. The nurses wouldn't allow him to drive because of his low blood pressure. The ride to the cancer center was interesting — mostly a long stretch of businesses, restaurants, gas stations, and malls, seemingly going on forever. I arrived at the Presbyterian Hospital Cancer Center and finally found Rami in the infusion room, along with ten to fifteen other patients sitting patiently with IVs in their arms. It's quite a place — people constantly coming and going — and it gives you a real sense of how many people are fighting cancer each day. The nurses were wonderful and finally gave Rami the okay to leave once his blood pressure was high enough. We were home in fifteen minutes, an easy five-or-six-mile drive. Rami was relieved to be home, especially after what should have been a two-hour appointment stretched into six. 

Thank you, Ms. Albaran

Beth arrived home excited because he sixth graders, knowing that she had missed a few days because her husband was sick, had a gathering to show her how much they appreciated her. How neat. Later,  I drove to the pharmacy to pick up another inhaler — a steroid inhaler called Symbicort, which I had used a few years ago.

For Beth

I watched the Cavs game during wine time, since it tips off here at 6:00. Dinner had already been made — turkey chili over pasta and a salad — and we watched two more episodes of Season Two of Landman before everyone but me went to bed around 8:45. I then watched the Knicks blow a late lead and lose to Atlanta at Madison Square Garden, quite the upset. I finished the night with the first half of the Nuggets and Timberwolves, a game eventually won by the Timberwolves.

"In fourteen months, Trump has turned America into a country people hate, fear, and laugh at."