Phoenix (02/13/2005)

I am calling this Blog Phoenix because we spent most of the week in Phoenix although today we are in Seattle. We left the rig at the park in Phoenix and flew to Seattle on yesterday for some medical tests for me. We will be in Seattle staying with friends this coming week and then returning to Phoenix next week.
In Dec 2000, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. At that time I had a lumpectomy, chemotherapy, radiation, and a second surgery. I pretty much sailed through all the treatment. I did not have any lymph node involvement and everything looked good so I thought I was cured. I went in for the every 4 month checkups but I really did not expect anything but good news. In December 2003 the news was not so good. The cancer had returned and they found a new cancer in the other breast. I had a double mastectomy, a second round of chemotherapy and more radiation. This time I did not sail through the chemo but my employer was very understanding and I had good insurance so things were fine. During my first 4 month checkup they found an anomaly on my lung so I had an additional test. The additional test showed an anomaly on my hip so I had an another test. In the end, the hip came out OK, the lung was probably OK, but my outlook had changed. My sister Christine (the nurse) tells me that I should consider breast cancer a chronic disease, that is, you find something - you fix it, and you go on until the next time. All this because I am in Seattle for my second 4 month checkup and unlike my first set of checkups I find myself worrying about what we will find. This week I started taking the water aerobics class at the park in Phoenix and I love it. The water both supports you and provides resistance. I like the feeling of having worked out and stretched. The class meets Monday thru Friday (if it is not raining) for an hour so on Friday (when it rained) I used the park's fitness room to work out. I really like having all this equipment handy but not in my house. Speaking of rain (again) we had so much rain the dry riverbed where we run Max is now 3 feet under water. If there is somewhere out there that needs rain send me a message and we'll plan a visit.
I had a nice birthday on Thursday. When I got up Rich had a birthday balloon, a card, and a box of candy for me. (I am being very careful not to let Max have any more of my candy.) We went out to breakfast and I went to a quilt meeting and pin shopping in the afternoon. The park has a quilting group which meets Thursday afternoons from 1 - 3:30. They work on their own quilts (The park provides 6 machines: 2 sergers, 2 standards, 1 embroidery, and a large neck quilting machine.) and each member works on a quilt they decided to do as a group. One of the members of the quilting group is also a cancer survivor so it was nice to compare notes with her. They also have a member who is a quilt instructor who helps people out with quilting problems. They got me so excited again about quilting I loaded the Electric Quilt software on the laptop and started designing my Hawaiian quilt.
In addition this week we have been looking at houses in 55 plus active adult communities. So far we looked at Trilogy, Robson, and Leisure World. They all have swimming pools, activity centers, nice grounds, etc. The Trilogy group had a floor plan we really liked with a great room, (living room, kitchen and dining room combination) master suite, guest suite, quilt room, and center courtyard. We are not ready to buy anything now but are interested in seeing what‘s out there.
Average Steps for week: 9,845

I will be updating the Blog daily as I get medical results.