In October Ben did four infusions of Rituxan.
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| Long, boring day. |
After his first infusion, the next day I flew out to SFO via SL (picking up an Andy on the way) We had a lovely flight from SL to SFO over the Sierras and over Yosemite. Once at SFO we found Linnea and Sheldon, upgraded my tincan rental to something with trunk space and drove ourselves back home to Modesto.
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| Yosemite. |
Modesto is an interesting place to visit. We took a drive out to the vineyards and orchards out the East side of town and were really shocked at everything which was dying from lack of water. Linnea, Darren and I stayed in the Beck's house and enjoyed late-night talks with Beth who has an upstairs loft area which is little girl heaven; books, dress-ups, day bed, closet full of games. I want to be as cool as Beth if I grow up. Sheldon and Darren stayed in Nina Black's house and I had good reason to be thankful for the generosity of Mom's friends. These lovely people and their open hearts and homes are why I still consider Modesto to be home.
Monday we attended Grandpa Broadbent's funeral in Davis. I think 43 of my cousins made it. That's pretty cool. Davis seems just as I remember it even if the house at 821 A isn't the same appearance-wise. Linnea, Andy and I grabbed some in-n-out on the way to SFO to get Andy home, and enjoyed the rush hour traffic back to Modesto. This trip involved entirely too much driving!
The next day Sheldon, Darren, Linnea and I headed out once again for the airport. Sheldon drove the fastest car
in the world (rental) and gave a few noggins bruises flying out of the toll booth on the San Mateo. I took our early arrival as an opportunity to crash at the USO which is actually quite nice if really hard to find. I flew home via SFO-LAX-ABQ. LAX is still one of my least-favorite airports. I had the USO to crash at during my four hour layover, but sharing a smallish space with four hundred just-graduated-from-basic Marines isn't exactly my idea of a grand time. Even though I was pre-check for the TSA garbage it still took an HOUR to get back through security at LAX. Add in my un- air conditioned bus trip out to my terminal and I still despise LAX.
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| SFO-LAX looked pretty brown. Drought |
The moon was out as we took off and the moonlight on the ocean was really pretty. I still don't ever want to fly out of LAX ever again.
The month continued, things broke. Our shower got demoed once the kids pulled the soap dish out of the wall and we found out the tiles were put up on drywall. That's not good.
This is what the bathroom looked like when I left to drive to Utah for Meagan's funeral.
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| pretty NM |
The drive out was really pretty since all the cottonwoods are beautifully golden all along the river bottoms. Also, even the desert can be pretty. In Cortez I had a mini-freak-out when I thought I'd put gasoline in Ben's little diesel Golf. Luckily I didn't, because you can't. Only insane people running on caffeine have a hard time comprehending this. I may have hugged the gasoline station attendant who came outside to actually physically demonstrate this to me.
At the end of my 10.5 hours drive I got to spend time with Linnea, who I always enjoy time with. Also I got to spend the day with Holly and her littles in the morning and my friend Carin after the funeral at which point I may have decided that I was going to live in Utah so I didn't have to drive back home on Saturday. And then after dinner at one of my fave Chinese places in UT I may have decided I needed to stay another night to go to another fave restaurant. Neither of these resolutions stuck and I headed back on Saturday morning.
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| somewhere south of Redmesa |
I drove home a slightly different way to avoid the construction north of Shiprock. About Mancos I was too sore and too tired to keep going, so I had an early dinner/late lunch, walked around the town and the park and found enough energy to make the last four hours to home. Someday I will live in Mancos? Do I only love it because we always make a break there and I think the little town is adorable? Are you laughing, Dad? Who knows.
The good news, is even though I spent so much time traveling in October the family did really well while I was gone, only one kid got forgotten at school one day and my neighbors were super awesome and picked up Ben after his last infusion.
2 comments:
Wow! Mem's costume turned out super cool. Miss yer faces. Yours maybe less than the rest just since we've seen you too much ;). Come up with a good excuse for us to come out in December or March--Creed has year-round school right now.
I had no idea you had gone to Meagan's funeral. I'm glad you did. But it makes me think we really need to get together sooner rather than later. What an autumn you've had!!!! I despise when sorrows cluster like this.
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