Mark’s 40th Birthday

Today is my 40th Birthday. Last night, Karin and I had a lovely dinner at B. Matthews on Bay Street. The food was fantastic. Bennett spent the night with Gran & PaPa since he had school this am.

I started my 1 year maintenance Rituxan today. It will repeat the next 4 Wednesdays into December. People asked why do chemo on my birthday? One, because it is time to do it again, and two, Wednesday’s are the best day for working around my rotating shift cycle with minimal interruption and avoiding working immediately before and after treatment.

We arrived right at 8:30, their start time. It was a pretty full room at the start, and for the first half of the day. It took a little while for my start. Tylenol and IV benadryl at the start. I am on the Rituxin at 5 past 10:00 and it runs till 12:30 or so. I saw Dr. Negrea for an office visit near the end of the infusion. I still have the remnants of had a head cold for more than a week. No fever and my bloodwork is good. He said that my lungs sounded good. He gave me a script for a different antihistamine-decongestant. I will have it delivered to my work tomorrow. All the folks in the chemo room sang Happy Birthday to me after my treatment was finished. Dr Negrea gave me a tin of European cookies. I will look into starting my immunizations next week before Thanksgiving.

I took it easy most of this afternoon. Karin took Desi to the vet to have her stitches removed. She had some tumors removed a week ago. Desi has some form of cancer that causes tumors at her skin from time to time. After that, Karin went to the dentist to have a tooth looked at, she has another broken tooth, a crown will be scheduled after Thanksgiving. I planted some snap dragons and violas in a bed near the front of the yard. Bennett came home with Karin and he dug in the dirt with me and ran around the yard.

Tonight we had Japanese at one of our favorites. I think is called Kakki now. It has changed names about 4 times in 4 years. We’ll be in bed around 9:00. Not a bad day at all.

Take care,

Mark