Thursday, October 27, 2016

Twp Years Ago, This Date...

A dry river bed in the Sierra.,maybe taken by Jan H. Seems like centuries ago; I just got out of Petaluma Valley Hospital where I confounded the doctors and nurses for a few days. Now I am home with wonderful full time care. I had taken the magic $200.000 a month targeted pill to kill my rare cancer mutation for ten days with no problem till everything suddenly went south. I called 911 when I started vomiting blood. Three days to the ER. then three in the hospital, where my left arm looked like a huge sausage link and my right lung filled with fluid. How blessed I am to have friends here and Catherine in the wings to intervene. It was a long haul. Not sure where we'll go from here but I must be getting better because I'm getting bossy.

Friday, October 14, 2016

More Matters of Consequence

Since last week's blog much has happened in the political world. Just before the second Donald-Hillary debate, an old tape of Trump revealed him boasting about sexually molesting women which was followed a few days later by other women reporting his advances. All of this made women incensed. For me the anger churned and churned, and I have been unable to let go of it. The anti nausea pills I take a half hour before the chemo pills hardly touch my emotional upheaval. Not being a mother, I've so often wondered if mothers of boys teach their offspring to respect women? If they do, how come the boys when they become men forget the lesson? I presume Trump had a mother...I wonder what she would think? Does anyone know how Trump was raised?
Last night at a meeting (I ventured out for the first time in a week)I took an informal poll among my Rainbow Women colleagues. "Is there anyone here who has NOT been groped, hit on, or molested by a man?" The answer was no. I guess this is universal. So sad.
I thought of my own life. It has happened at least a dozen times that I remember, and I've probably forgotten another dozen. Twice a janitor at a place of employment cornered me after hours and made a pass. I was young, and it never occurred to me to report them. Among the stories I heard last night was that of a young woman who was volunteering at a farm in Israel. She stepped on a scorpion in her bare feet, and while laying on a gurney in the hospital corridor getting novacain injections a medical employee in a white coat came by and climbed on the gurney and mauled her. Many other stories, curiously enough, happened in medical settings. Apparently doctors, like entertainers, think they have special privilege.
Hillary's election will not stop this behavior. I'm not sure if anything will. I'm incensed that any woman would cast a vote for Donald after what has come out, and yet thousands will. I know at least half a dozen who live near me. They vote the way their husbands tell them to, and they tell me that "I just don't understand". Well. I don't, and never will.

Friday, October 7, 2016

Matters of Consequence

Since there are ten of us in the book club I started almost four years ago, each person gets a turn every ten months to choose a book and hostess the group. For my turn yesterday I chose St Exuperey's The Little Prince,  

This a book given to me as a gift in 1949, and I have probably read it forty times. The pages are a little yellowed and the jacket is gone, but it never fails to speak to me. For the meeting I asked each member to read a selection that spoke to them, and if so moved, to come in costume representing that part. Since my agenda was to start the magic chemo pill the next day (today) I personally chose the part about the little prince visiting the fourth planet and interviewing the business man on matters of consequence... Niece Cheari took the role of the business man counting the stars.

It was such fun. I tried to serve french cheeses and decorate with the tricolors of the French flag. You can see by the pictures that we had great fun. Another "Bonnie" in the group chose to read about the fox in the desert, and you will see that I tried on the fox ears.
So as for today, I took the pill at nine, took an anti nausea pill at 9:45, and so far have managed to keep both




down. Between my insurance and Pfizer, the pill manufacturer, all the costs of $12,000 a month are being picked up. How lucky am I.