Jessie Blackburn

A hard, but good week here, aside from all the madness in the world. Jessie completed her last chemo on Tuesday.😊 The Infusion Center at Georgetown has a tradition that you ring the victory bell after your last chemo. And despite the fact that they were not permitting visitors, they let me sneak in at the end of the day to record the event. Now she just has to get over the effects of this round, and then it's on to a month of radiation, after which all of this just becomes a bad memory. Otherwise, we're existing as everyone else is. Trying to get through each day and stay healthy.  Kids are fine. Nicole is somewhat the victim of the COVID recession, although she still has some on-line clients. William is living with his girlfriend out in the country in the north of England and doing some long-distance work. And Madeleine and Greg are nurses at Johns Hopkins, doing some COVID work (with appropriate personal protective equipment) and a constant source of anxi...

Greetings. Sorry it's been so long, but things have been rather uneventful. Which is a good thing. Jessie is now half way done with Chemo and things still going well -- aside from occasional nausea and persistent exhaustion. Next week she starts on the Taxol, so that will be a whole new series of side-effects, but most people say Taxol isn't as bad as the stuff she's been having so far. We shall see. William arrived back from eastern Congo for an extended stay, so that's been nice. Otherwise, we all went to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts yesterday for a Hopper Exhibit and she's going to exercise classes, yoga seeing lots of movies and happily having visitors. Otherwise, just putting one foot ahead of the last....

Second round of chemo yesterday. (Only six left to go....) The first round went pretty well. Some fatigue, a little nausea, but not too bad. Her main treatment doctor is back, having been stuck in Portugal (her homeland) during the first round because she lost her green card. She said that with all of the modern drugs, their goal is to have no nausea at all, so we're going to see if we can reach that goal this time around. Nothing they can do about the fatigue though. Jessie, Bunny and every dog We've had plenty of help over the last couple of weeks. Jessie's sister Sarah was here for a week, and her cousin Bunny is here now until Saturday. They've both promised to make return appearances. And William will be returning from Congo for an extended leave the beginning of next month. Thanks everyone for all of your support. Keep those cards, letters and visits coming. 

The first chemo session went quite well. All of the nurses and others were quite helpful, explained everything thoroughly and were quite supportive. We arrived  with enough snacks and reading material to supply the entire hospital for a week, but we were out by noon. Aside from a little screw up with the anti-nausea medications (where everyone at the hospital thought everyone else had phoned the prescriptions into the pharmacy), everything went swimmingly. As of 9:00 tonight, no significant side effects which bodes well for the new year. So Happy New Year everyone. We're all looking forward to a healthy 2020. 

Well, as the year 2020 dawns, Jessie rings it in by heading for her first chemo infusion on New Years Eve. While not looking forward to the chemo itself, she's envisioning the final elimination of any little stray cancerous cells that may have escaped surgery last month. The chemo goes for 16 weeks (every other week), followed by a month off, and then radiation for a month. Just starting out. Wait a month and we'll show off our bounty We're heading to the store to buy anything and everything that someone on chemo might want to eat, and battening down the hatches with lots of good books, movies and mysteries.  And thanks to a hydroponic garden from the kids for Christmas, we will soon be well stocked with veggies. (See the photo.) We had a great Christmas with all of the kids and various others (including a newly-inaugurated son-in-law who is also a nurse). Nurses Madeleine and Greg will be in the neighborhood to help out, and William will be returning for an extend...

Not too much new to report. Still healing after surgery. Still a bit sore, and still dealing with bandages and drains (although fewer). But she's walking a lot and enjoys visits from friends. Feel free to call. And thanks to all of you who provided meals. They were all excellent and we're getting fat. Future events: Meetings with the oncologist at Georgetown to be followed by chemo sometime around Christmas. Nicole is coming in for Thanksgiving tomorrow and we'll all be celebrating with Madeleine and Greg and some friends on Friday night as Mad and Greg are working on Thanksgiving and the next morning (in return for Christmas off.) We visited them today while at JHU for a follow-up appointment. That's about it for now. Thanks again to everyone for your help, best wishes and support.