A Sandi Update

I worked retail for more than twenty years and then I subbed for several years before being hired on staff in the local public school system (which in many aspects was just like working retail) so I get that some people are strange.  But, there are limits and the last month has not only made me question a lot of things but to seriously consider walking away from trying to do anything anymore.  Some of that is my worsening health and the strain of things here, but a large part is external.

I have never once written somebody and told the blogger he or she should not write about this or that. It never once crossed my mind to do such a thing. Yet, a number of people in the last month have felt the compulsion to drop me a note privately via e-mail to lecture and castigate me about writing about my Dad and his death,  and, among other things, Sandi and her cancer fight as “folks don’t want to read that” or “shame on you for exploiting your wife to beg for money” and other comments like that. My hands down personal favorite,  “You killed your dad, you are killing your wife, are you going to kill your fu**ed  up retarded ugly sons next?” These are not random folks that just stumbled across my blog. These are actual living breathing people from the various writing/reading lists I am on who have one face in public there and a far different face in private to me.

Really makes me wonder.

On the flip side of things in the last week Sand got two large boxes of yarn from folks who want her to use the yarn to make her chemo hats for donations to her fellow cancer patients.  She was absolutely thrilled to get the boxes of yarn and will do exactly as asked. 

Also appreciated very much were the few donations made by folks this month to hold things together a little bit longer for us. We appreciate it very much. As we do the several folks who e-mailed us over the weekend to ask about her and remind us both that they are praying for us amidst their own very significant troubles. 

For those who have asked in private or just flat out wondered the above is why I have not written much about her the last couple of weeks.  This latest round of chemo has worked her over pretty good. She has had the flu like symptoms nearly the entire time with only brief respites of a day here and there since she had chemo back early in the month. Beyond that, she has been incredibly cold nearly every day. Even on the days when we were nearly 80 here and I could sit outside in the sun while wearing shorts, Sandi was out on the porch in long sleeved outfits with her hat on and several heavy blankets. Several days, Karl and I took turns running blankets through the dryer to warm them up before putting them on her because she was shaking she was so cold.

Whether or not she has been so cold is a sign she is too anemic and will have to have a major blood transfusion tomorrow we don’t know. Round Five of chemo is scheduled tomorrow and Wednesday but I expect she will have to have a blood transfusion and the chemo will be pushed back a week to ten days.  Hopefully not. Hopefully the fact that everything was worse this time around is nothing more than what one expects as the rounds of chemo take a toll on her.

We will find out tomorrow morning…..

Kevin