Month: April 2008

Zoe fell completely in love with my sister when she came for a rare solo visit to our house 4 years ago when I was sick. Then, the 20 month old Zoe who rarely let anyone hold her would run in front of Becki, turn to her with her arms up and say “Uppa Becki?”

This weekend Becki had another solo visit. This time for Dad’s retirement Open House. She stayed with us and the love affair between the two was renewed. Zoe giggled for hours straight.

Below is a photo of the crazy pair–and a picture that Zoe did at school today depicting the leg-slide she and Becki came up with during one especially silly time last night.

Now we don’t know who is more fun, Ante Bakey or the whole Veal family!

Zoe is a full-on kid. She and Vera had their first sale of random junk. They hollered “get your stuff for a dollar” most of the afternoon. And wound up making $5 to split.

Mark and I were a little jealous. Our early entrepreneurial ventures (lemonade for me, a croquet course for Mark) were never so lucrative. Mark laments the maps of the croquet course his dad dutifully copied at work were never even given a second glance by potential paying customers. And I recall Becki and Jackie and me spending hours at the end of Jackie’s driveway with lemonade–to no avail.

Here are the two successful shopkeepers–along with a sample of their on-message marketing

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can summer be far behind?

Another post about waiting.

Mark and I saw the oncologist today. The chest x-ray shows slight (3 mm) growth on the measurable nodule in my lung. It shows no new nodules (good news) and no pleural effusion (don’t ask me what this means, it has something to do with fuzzy stuff that might indicate the cancer is on the move)–also good news.

But the growing thing, not good news.

However, the drug I’m on usually takes 6-8 weeks to be effective. My x-ray was taken at more like 5 1/2 weeks. So, we are going to wait another 4 weeks and see what my lungs look like on a CAT scan. If it seems the Faslodex is ineffective, we need to (in our doctor’s words) “pull the ripcord.” Pulling the ripcord means chemo.

And I really don’t want to do chemo again. Really, really, really.

It is not crazy to think that Faslodex still could work, or I’d be off it as of today. When it does work, it often works for years (like 3-5) so we’d really like to give it a fightin’ chance.

So, we’re waiting until May 22, at which time we should know what’s next.

Just like every time we have an appointment with the doctor, Mark and I waited for over an hour to see him. However, this time I was reading a great book and didn’t really care when he showed up. By the time he did, I was even still in a pleasant mood and rather reluctant to put my bookmark back in.

Hmmm, perhaps that pile of books in my living room might be just what I need for the next four weeks. Waiting may not be all that hard after all.

We just got back from 5 days with my sister’s fabulous family.

It seems that, when our families get together, we each have our counterpart. Becki and I have each other, Jim and Mark get along famously. And Ike and Zoe are simply cut from the same silly cloth. Ramona and Josie have always known the joy of twin-ship. When we visit, the rest of us get to experience it too.

Becki and I have not always appreciated people thinking we look alike. When we were younger, it drove us nuts. Now, though, when our times together are so few and far between and our sister-friendship so insanely precious, I absolutely love it when we enter a store and someone gives us a double take and says, “y’all twins?” It happened almost everywhere we went in Atlanta. And I relished it every time.

I miss my seester.