Our sweet goodbye at Little Rock Airport
“…every gift is exactly that, a gift.” – Maya Angelou
What a lovely weekend and then extended two days with our daughter and her new husband here in Little Rock! Just what the caregiver ordered for Dave (and me!). I was so heartened when I called her and just casually said, “Hey! Any chance you two could pop down for a visit with us? It’s a good time for your Dad, and we are just hanging out. We’ll put you up downtown in the River Market, and you and Jeffers can have fun exploring around there when not with us at the apartment.” She didn’t hesitate. Checked their schedule and booked their flight. They LOVED the Old Peabody, now owned by Marriott. Said it was “OFF THE CHARTS MOM!” Jeffers found a great sports bar nearby called Brewskis. Best wings and most delightful server!
I went, and we watched the Razorbacks play Ole Miss on Saturday. Then Dave joined us Sunday, and we watched Washington (our old team) and the Saints (who I usually will root for being Lousiana born). We had more wings and lots of fun conversations with the locals. I got another pulled pork place to try, a drive-thru in Old Town Hot Springs, and another drive on Route 7 to see the leaves change in early November. We may miss that as Dave will be hot into his new therapy the first week of November. We went out to dinner twice, and then the kids got stuck here with the Southwest flights massively canceled out of Florida and Dallas. So a quick pivot and they came and stayed at the apartment with us. Goodness Village provides a queen air mattress. We enjoyed being crammed in the apartment together, and Jeffers cooked two amazing dinners that we all agreed we liked better than the fine establishments we ate out in. He’s a fabulous cook. (They made it home last night!)
Jeffers and I laughed about how Montana and Dave were both working, and we had to be quiet and find things to occupy ourselves.
They both LOVED the new Tahoe Car and drove it. Jeffers spent some time going over the features of the car for me. Some I didn’t know I had and a couple I hoped I had but hadn’t figured out. One was that I could wave my foot under the back bumper, and it would open the trunk automatically for me. I tried and tried based on the instructions in the manual and decided I must not have that feature. But Jeffers found a youtube video that demonstrated its more of sweeping action. And WHALAH! Open sesame! He said I made an excellent choice in car and they are looking forward to the ride up the mountains to Tahoe next time they come.
UAMS continues to keep close and lovely tabs on us. We got our labs yesterday after the Ortho visit with Dr. Montgomery (who is excellent BTW). He wanted a follow-up and an X-Ray to see IF Dave’s femur was showing any signs of healing. He has some concerns due to the years of treatment he has had. He’s hopeful but directly honest about his experience with MM patients and bone involvement. Which I appreciate. Optimistic, hopeful, but real! I’ll take it. Anyway, Dave’s femur shows signs of healing, and he was pleased to give Dave that report. I still want to see if I can get Dave some HBOT therapy while we are here to help that. I would ideally like to get a few in BEFORE the Abecma Car T. I try really hard not to interfere with BIG therapy treatments with my complementary therapies as the truth is, while it won’t hurt him, it may create things that they don’t understand as they are monitoring him and so, we tend to not introduce arbitrariness in his care. That’s for trials to do IMHO. I try really hard to be upfront, informative, but also thoughtful about our interference. This brings me to my friend Mark Jackson, who reached out to me years ago after writing about our success with HBOT and Dave’s Stem Cell Collection process. I’ll post the link for you to go have a read instead of recounting the amazing experience we had with it. Anyway, of course, I reached out to him while we were here. We met on one of our previous checkups a few years ago. He’s just wonderful. He is in the business of selling and installing HBOT for clinics and private citizens, complete with financing options. He was hoping I would open a clinic and I just was too overwhelmed to think about that, though it continues to intrigue me. Anyway, I’m hoping he can find me, someone, to get it done before the Abecma starts. But today, there is a ribbon-cutting ceremony of a new clinic opening in Heber Springs, about an hour from here. So I’m going and will get to see him and maybe make some good contacts. I’m very excited about it. He’ll be there so I will thoroughly enjoy reconnecting with him personally!
Here’s the link: The Myeloma Beacon
Jeffers popped over to the big gym next to my building. They changed ownership from LA Fitness to ESPORTA. This slowed me down from going in even when I had some time. But I had fully intended to. Anyway, he spoke to them about me and it turns out ESPORTA smartly kept the great staff there at LA Fitness and when he told them about me they said, “Lori’s back! YES! We will take care of her!” OMG! He got free workouts for two days, and yesterday I went over and was warmly welcomed and got all signed up and have a new trainer I will meet Thursday! So excited. They also have opened up everything in the gym and a new infrared sauna is opening in the ladies locker room on Friday! And classes are up and running so I’ve signed up for a couple of those. I need to get some gym shoes and I’m golden.
Our PT person showed up also while the kids were here. She was PERFECT and AMAZING and clearly very experienced. She was so helpful in many areas. All she wanted to do was see what he could do. Listen to the things he was struggling with, and then she set about having him do all those things and gave us tip after tip after tip on how to manage all of them. It was stellar. She was absolutely amazed at what he was able to do. When she comes back she will work primarily with Dave on his exercises. He’s working on them, but not enough. I told her I had to use my NAG card sparingly and she laughed. But we all told Dave his recovery to full use is dependent upon his commitment to these exercises. So once in a while, I walk by and say, “Do some while you are sitting there, buddy!” I will leave it up to her to get thru to him on that and then support whatever is needed. I’ve learned to just let those relationships develop while I listen carefully.
So we are having another stellar week here as we wait to begin. I’m meeting more people on the therapy, either waiting to start right behind us or in the process of getting their cells collected and getting going. So we have connected and are now the new subgroup within Myelomaville embarking on this revolutionary new cancer therapy in the world of cancer. We are all so very hopeful and I think at this point it is a well-placed hope. But you know, we’ve all read or been down these roads before when something new comes available. And while they were extremely valuable and helpful in the world of Myeloma, they didn’t quite get us there. So cautiously optimistic is still in play and that’s totally ok with me. I’ll take it.
