Friday and homeward bound

After a really great couple of days with the family in the Hampton's it was time to go home. I really wasn't feeling great with the cough, the headaches and the general fatigue but I new it was a short flight home to Baltimore. So I sucked it up and got on the flight. It was easy and quick. Just like flying to Zim.....ha, ha.

I had to make a quick flower stop on the way home as it was Diana's birthday. Roses were in order. I got nice red ones from me and pink ones from Russ, Phil and my Mom. We had a nice dinner together (curried chicken) that Diana made and even Chef Mike (from Suskin's Hell's kitchen) was impressed. It was an early night and boy did I need the rest.

On a side note, this cartoon sums up why Tsvangirai signed the Zim deal.

Carpe Diem.

A visit to Montauk

Another day and even more sunshine! Usual great breakfast and a lie at the pool! Oren, Ilan and Carolina went off to the beach and when they returned we all drove off to Montauk and had fish and chips for lunch at Gosmans. The view was beautiful and the ocean looked rough and wild! After lunch a visit to the lighthouse and a walk up the spiral staircase and I was not even out of breath! I did,however, have a nagging headache which developed throughout the day and the coughing doesn't help...it actually makes it worse. I did try and ease the cough with cough syrup but I do think that it's because I'm now off all steroids and I need to try and manage my lungs and deal with the cough. We will speak to the 'team' and see what the recipe going forward is...the flight home tomorrow isn't too long so no worries there!

Anyway we climbed up the lighthouse and then headed back to East Hampton where we all swam,jacuzzied and relaxed. I had a little sleep and Ilan prepared the barbie...turf today!

Oren and Rus went on a pie search. The Hampton's are really famous for their pies and we had to have one...they came back with TWO. Rhubarb and three berries!

The barbecued meat was excellent and the meal was wonderful. I really was feeling under par but I still ate! Rus and I had our pie on the bed watching telly...eating famous pie while we watched the world in meltdown!!
Earlier night than usual and hopefully wake up feeling a little better!

Carpe Diem.
'

Beach and barbie day

We all awoke to a glorious day and a warm pool with the hot jacuzzi gently humming away! This is definitely the way to live! A huge breakfast followed and please note that it is imperative that I note my eating habits because they are so different and it is wonderful to be enjoying food again. I am not allowed to have grapefruit because apparently it interferes with the medication but nothing else is barred and believe me nothing is! I don't have much taste for alcohol but not sure I ever did!??

Anyway, we jacuzzied and then Russ and I decided to do a little gardening! The two neat freaks could not stand the encroachment of weeds on the path so we gardened! Also rearranged the furniture on the deck and generally made the place ours!

Lunch was the rest of the contents of the fridge and then we went to the beach driving round Lily Pond Road which is unbelievable! We were literally blown away by the beautiful homes and manicured gardens.
We played a sort of cricket/baseball on the beach and just enjoyed the laziness of the day. The season here is over and all the beach was empty and so beautiful,clean and quiet.

We decided to barbecue for dinner and what a feast! Actually we bought enough food for two barbies. It was the surf tonight and it's the turf tomorrow. Ilan was the master chef and the menu consisted of shrimp, snapper, sea bass and lobster accompanied by corn and salad! Perfect!
Icecream and popcorn to follow with a movie (The Cleaner with Samuel L. Jackson)......are you jealous yet!

Diana called with a message from Dr. Erlich. The blood work looked fine and I can stop taking the potassium supplement. He is also giving me something else for the cough. Not steroids!

Wait until tomorrow......

Carpe Diem.

Where in the world is Carmen "Adrian" Sandiego

Well, in the East Hampton's (on Long Island) of course. I flew into Islip airport from Baltimore. Quick easy flight. Russ and Phil picked me up but what a schlep. It was about and hour from the rental house. Oh well.

We arrived at the house and how great it is! A beautiful pool outside and a really hot jacuzzi! Just the place to relax with my sisters and Gerry,Oren,Ilan and Carolina! Unfortunately the weather wasn't great so we lazed around and then took a drive so they could give me a little orientation of this amazing area. East Hampton is truly gorgeous and once you've seen it you realise why the rich and famous flock! That's me!!!

It was so excellent of Phil to drag her busy body three hours on a bus to be with us and it's always sad when she leaves but work she must....need one of us to be planning the next trips! Not really Philly! We wish you could have stayed longer!! We then started the mission to have dinner and we were all starving! I am actually constantly hungry now and it is really strange for my sisters who still have the habit of feeding me! They were so surprised to see me actually going to the fridge and constantly grazing on my own!Anyway, we had such difficulty finding a restaurant as most are closed on a Tuesday night! How odd!! Must be a Hampton thing...But Nicholls was open and we had an great meal!

I slept upstairs with Oren who actually snores so well done to me for bringing ear plugs! And I woke at 7.30!!!!

Carpe Diem.

Blood work day

Today I had my bi-weekly blood work done at Quest Labs. Hopefully they will get the results to Dr. Erlich fairly quickly. I'm sure everything is ok but there are a ton of things they are monitoring so it will be nice to know that all is ok. I have finished taking the Prednisone and the Nystatin and now all I'm on is the Cymbalta, Sutent and a potassium supplement. Hopefully I will be able to stop the potassium supplement if all is well with the blood work. I'm also back on a multivitamin a day and fish oil supplements for cholesterol. No, it's not that bad!

I have started doing sit-ups and push-ups and will build up slowly to other exercises. I'm still coughing a bit especially if I take a deep breath so the cardio stuff will have to wait. I have been wearing a pedometer some days and showing about 4 miles of walking etc.etc. Not too bad!

I had to drop a few things off a Sinai hospital so I decided to pay a quick visit to Mary at the infusion center. It was great to see her again. She said I looked really well and I told her I was feeling good. I weighed myself and came in at a whopping 141 lbs (64 kgs). I have put on about 10 lbs in the last short while. I'm hoping to get back to about 155 lbs of lean, not-so-mean, non-fighting machine.

Carpe Diem.

Weekend Update

On Saturday morning I took Craig and Taryn to the train station for their trip back to New York. We had a good couple of days together. Before Craig left he gave me some new Zim currency. Worthless, but at least they look pretty!!!



In the evening Diana and Robyn drove to Philadelphia to watch the USA women's olympic soccer team take on Ireland in an exhibition game. Rob really enjoyed it and had a great time. Diana, on the other hand, had a good time with Rob and enjoyed the soccer but................had a tough time with those teeny-bopper fans!!! Better her than me.

Sunday morning Rob and Mike helped me get my Ipod sorted out. I got some goods songs from both of them. At lunchtime I drove Rob back to school. She had an afternoon soccer game that she was playing in and then had to referee a bunch of games til 8 PM. Back home Mike and I did what we do best. Order Chinese take out.

Carpe Diem.

Washington visit

This morning Diana and I took Craig and Taryn to Washington to see the sights. They had never been to Washington before so we had to really manage our time. They chose to see the Holocaust museum and the Air and Space museum. Two fine choices. We spent a couple of hours at the Holocaust museum and if you've never been, I highly recommend it. It's very heavy, but well worth the experience and knowledge.

I ducked out a few minutes ahead of Diana, Taryn and Craig to get myself a hot dog from the street vendor. Wow, I'm really eating well. We then went and spent a little over an hour and a half at the Air and Space museum. What more can I say about this museum? Really interesting, as usual. While Craig and Taryn were doing their thing, Diana and I did what we (errrrrr...I) do best-EAT. Diana had an ice cream and I had a green salad. Not bad, eh?

We then went to pick up Robyn from College Park (ed. note-the TERPS beat No. 23 Cal today!!!) We were a few minutes late but she was nonetheless happy to see us and showed our guests around her room. We then drove back to Baltimore. Traffic was complete sh!t. Instead of the regular 45 minutes, it took us 2 hours. Max had his legs crossed he had to pee so badly.

We went to Sandra and Neil for Shabbat dinner and as usual, she made a really cool dinner, which, by the way, included Oreo cheesecake. Then, homeward bound to watch some Hurricane Ike action. I hope its not as bad as they expected it to be.

Carpe Diem.

***Just in case you are wondering***

There may be a couple of days where nothing much is going on with me and the family. I do not want to start writing trivial and mundane stuff about my travails in general so a few days may go by before I have anything of substance to write to the blog. I appreciate you all checking the blog periodically. You can rest assured that when it's a health issue, something interesting or something news worthy, I will communicate it through the blog. Once again, I appreciate and am grateful for all the blog comments and personal emails. Thanks for your love and support.

What a sad anniversary today is!

Carpe Diem.

It's pretty quiet

Not much going on the past couple of days. The weather has been pretty decent but even that being the case, we closed our pool for the winter season. No one was using it! The water was a bit chilly and there was no point in putting the heater on. Global warming, the $$$, yada, yada, yada.

Diana is working, Rob's at Uni and Mike is at school. So I'm eating out most days at lunch time. My appetite is still good and I seem to be slowly putting on weight. I'm not sure my current diet is the epitome of good eating but right now I need to concentrate on gaining my weight back. So what if my cholesterol kills me. Just kidding. I don't want to be premature but so far so good with the medication. Hopefully, it will stay that way.

What's coming up, you ask? Tomorrow Craig Solomon (Hylton's/Silvie's son from Cape Town) will be staying with us for a couple of days. He is coming with his fiance. It's their first visit to this area (or the USA) so we will do the touristy stuff for them. Then next week I am off to the Hamptons for a couple of days. Sounds pretentious. I will be meeting up with the London "gang". Russ, Gerry, Oren and Ilan. They are over here visiting and going to the wedding of a good friend of theirs'.

Carpe Diem.

Weekend Update

Saturday Hanna arrived. No, not our niece. The tropical storm Hanna. Lot's of rain and a bit of wind. Not much else. Good.

Phil came in from New York. She went to a surprise birthday party for her good friend Jeanne Segal (neice of George Segal - the actor). The party was in Bethesda, a really nice part of the suburbs of Washington, DC. I was drafted as her date for the evening. More like chauffeur & food taster but I was only too happy to do this. Met some interesting people. There was even another pilot there. A Southwest Airlines captain. The food and snacks were amazing. It was a Mexican theme and they had this really popular Mexican food truck come by the house and prepare all sorts of stuff for the guests. I know it doesn't sound that appealing but it was quite pleasant. Besides which, Prednisone makes it all good!!!

Phil went home Sunday morning after breakfast. Sunday evening Mike and I went for dinner with four of our very close Baltimore friends. These two couples were the ones who came over to be with us the night I was diagnosed with lung cancer. They have been wonderfully supportive and a really big help to all of us through this ordeal. It was our way (and our treat) of saying thank you for everything and thank you for being such good friends. It was a really nice Indian restaurant in a nice and interesting part of Baltimore. And yes, I ate really well!

Carpe Diem.