Hello neglected blog! October update!

Oh, this poor, neglected blog. Can't believe I just dropped the Sept 11th post and didn't come back. September actually did feature a really nice short vacation out in Greenport, we stayed at the same Sunset Motel where we had such a nice stay in fall 2019. We got to go for a sail with our friends Walter and Dottie, and two afternoon paddles, and I got up early one morning and went for a heavenly swim - water was so nice and clear and a beautiful temperature for swimming - much cooler and it would've been too cold, but a really beautiful start to the day. 

I also pulled off a "for fun" Grimaldo's Mile early in September (September 12th) in fact; the Coney Island Brighton Beach Open Water Swimmers (CIBBOWS) ran their famous entry-level one mile swim virtually this year - you could swim your mile anywhere and report your time and they tracked the results. Originally the time was during August, and when I got shingles in August, I scratched (ha ha)  being able to make it, but when the rash dried up and I went back to swim one weekend, club members let me know the limit had been extended through I think September 13th. I went out on September 12th; it was very rough and I didn't think I would be able to swim the full mile that day, but I decided I'd go see what I could do, and with nowhere I needed to be at any particular time, and all the time in the world for making it through the bounce, I just kept swimmin' for that mile. I hadn't even timed it, it was probably one of of the slowest miles I'd ever swam but I was really heppy to have done it - pretty cool to look at conditions and say "I won't be able to do that" and then pull it off after alll!

Then October just flipped EVERYTHING on me. 

There is a bacteria called Klebsiella that is normally a harmless part of your intestinal flora. However, if your immune system is out of whack, it can cause all sorts of trouble. Apparently my immune system was not quite on top of things. 

 I was working on my month end close reports on Friday the 2nd when I suddenly got tired. I decided to take a nap. Woke up on Sunday morning except for TQ getting me up for food. I was supposed to start my new chemo on Tuesday so I figured they would want to see a covid test - I had taken my temperature at some point and I think it was 102. 

TQ was actually more worried than I was, I thought I was fine but he felt I was thinking very slowly. Anyways, he took me to our local CityMD on Monday morning for a covid test, as I asked. The doctor measured my blood pressure once on the in-room device, shook his head, took it a second time, then brought in a portable one. Turned out my blood pressure was super low and my heartrate going like a racehorse to try to keep in. 

They put me in a ambulance and sent me to the emergency room at NYU Langone Brooklyn - I asked for them so my oncologist could follow along. NYU Langone has a really good communication system, and Dr. Meyers was able to follow along fine (in fact the Brooklyn doctors told me that everytime they called her to fill her in, she's already seen the report). I had sepsis from that bacteria. It took them 2 weeks to stabilize me enough to go home I made it to chemo last Tuesday. Taxol and I did not agree. That's another story though. About amazing nurses. TK!

This week, they tried me on another type of chemo whose name I can't remember. This one went fine, I was thinking I might be feeling a tiny bit queasy at the end but I was mistaking queasy for hungry - I got home and had a grilled cheese sandwich with good bread, a little good cheddar and a giant slice of this beautiful tomato TQ had gotten earlier in the week. All better, and still feeling good today! 

So there's my late October catch up! Been on leave of absence since the start of hospitalization; although I'm thoroughly enjoying lounging around rereading my books (I have been on an autobiography kick, revisiting Pete Hamill's A Drinking Life, Trevor Noah's Born a Crime, and now Esther Williams's Million Dollar Mermaid) but now that I'm feeling good about both my recovery from the klebsiella infection AND my response to the new chemo, I'm thinking it's time to get back to work!