watching for fish

leopard frog

matt sits to fish

it's a long walk down to the pond. after a busy day of biking and killing pantry moths in the kitchen, matt was pretty tired by the time we started fishing. he did have enough energy to make the only catch of the night, a three inch sunfish that really put up quite a fight.

still no luck

matt and i went fishing tonight down at the pond. he had a very active day, even going for a short bike ride on the hilly, dead end street near our house. unfortunately, neither of us had any luck catching dinner and had to settle for nature burger. i deep-fried his in bacon grease. still trying to fatten him up.

yuck

are we eating or are we playing?

things get messy

sharing

evie, alexander and i went to shelburne farms for a grand adventure on monday while the other grown-ups worked on the house. i made us peanut butter and jelly for lunch. the sharing of the sandwiches quickly led to a bit of a mess in aaron and julie's purple minivan. see how nice they look now?

another salamander

in an effort to prove to my sister just how easy it is to find redbacked salamanders in new england and to show off my naturalist skills, i took evie and julie on a salamander expedition. we found one under the first log we rolled over.

telling stories

the west end

dad and uncle tom spent the day putting up the trim boards on one of the gable ends of the house. it takes a lot of time and careful cutting with a chop saw and a hand saw to get all the angles right. and by "right" i don't mean 90 degrees, but rather "appropriate." i think it looks great.

sawdusty day

christian works hard

tongue and groove flooring

julie and aaron have installed tongue and groove pine flooring in the second floor of their house. i think it looks really nice. the boards will likely shrink a little with time, exposing narrow gaps between them.

????

redbacked salamander

meeting with the oncologist

i went with matt to meet with the oncologist yesterday. i had attempted to find out more about duodenal cancer before the appointment but was thwarted in my search because there is very little information available on the web. it turns out that duodenal cancer is pretty rare- i asked dr. stuart, the oncologist, how many cases he had seen during his career. he has been a doctor for over twenty years and has seen only 20-30 cases of duodenal cancer. similarly, i read that the sloan kettering cancer center in new york city sees 5-10 cases of this type of cancer each year. the rarity of duodenal cancer also makes the determination of a treatment plan more difficult. when someone comes in with breast cancer or prostate cancer, they have a protocol that they can follow for treatment, but with matt's type of cancer, they still have so much to learn. it seems like they err on the side on caution in terms of aggressive treatment to make sure the cancer doesn't come back.

dr. stuart said that the surgeons had removed a number of lymph nodes that appeared to be impacted by the cancer and because of this and because the tumor was highly aggressive, they have decided to treat matt with both radiation and chemotherapy in an attempt to prevent any future resurgence of the cancer. matt will first undergo radiation therapy, starting sometime in mid- to late june. for six weeks, he will have to go in five days a week for a ten minute treatment. when that is over, he will start on a four month program of chemo, during which he will have to go in either once a week or once every two weeks for treatment.

for now, matt is focused on recovering from surgery. he is gradually gaining his energy and stamina back, although he still needs to rest once or twice a day and is taking pain medication every five hours. he has had a few moments when he has felt completely pain-free, which makes us feel like the end is in sight. he is also progressing towards eating normal-sized portions of food. i don't know if he'll be able to return to the six bowls of morning cereal that he was at just before he went in for his operation, but he is again consuming a decent amount of crispix (or the hannaford version thereof, creatively named "crispy hexagons) and raisin bran. we found out that he lost ten pounds over the past two weeks and now weighs significantly less than me. i find this situation to be intolerable and have been secretly slipping chunks of lard and strips of bacon into his cereal in order to fatten him up. crispix never tasted so good.

rhododendron

the dark pink flowers almost seem to glow

rainbow suspenders

the finished platform

the platform is done, but we're waiting to put up the screen house until tomorrow. there was hail in the forecast for today. it was lucky that we waited as we had a very strong storm this afternoon. i heard there was even some snow out in cazenovia, ny.

supervising

matt felt well enough to sit outside and give me pointers as i put the deck planks on the platform for his screen house.

dogwood

after a long week of rain, we are finally getting some sunshine here. matt is happy to be able to enjoy the nice weather. he has been going for short walks down the driveway and has discovered that the stairs up to our apartment on the second floor of the carriage house are not as overwhelming as we feared they might be. many things about being home are better than the hospital- especially the lack of beeping here. however, it has been hard for him to get in and out of bed and the hallway here isn't all that long, which means late night pacing involves a lot more turning around and heading back. i set up a twin bed (re-acqusitioned from my friend michelle) under the skylight in the kitchen and also attached some wheels to the legs of a table that matt got from the dump. he can pull the table up to him whenever he wants, or just relax in the sunshine. soon we'll have the screen house set up outside and he'll be able to relax out there, protected from bugs and sunburns.

first harvest of the season

"easter egg" radishes. delicious.

talking in the sunshine

matt comes home tomorrow.

good news

we talked with the surgeon today who told us that biopsies of the tissue surrounding the tumor all came back negative for cancerous cells, which is great. the tumors themselves were "highly aggressive" duodenal carcinomas and matt is well rid of them. as far as i am concerned, this good news means that "i can't do the dishes because i have cancer" will no longer hold any water.

just an ordinary guy out for a walk

matt almost looks like an ordinary guy out for a walk, if you would consider it "ordinary" for a guy to wear a dress and white tights and to not go anywhere without his security pillow that says "hug me" on it. and sometimes, when his dress isn't tied properly, you can see his bum.

the recovery is still going according to plan. matt is off the IV and is now taking pain pills every four hours. they don't make him groggy the way that the IV pain meds did, so he likes this a little better. his diet has been upgraded again to "full liquids" so he has moved on from jell-o to cream of wheat. and tomorrow- applesauce. actually, tomorrow he can eat whatever he wants. he has been going for lots of walks in the hallway and has spent hours gazing at the picture of jake gyllenhaal.

thanks for caring, jake

the first blue sky in five days

today: jello!

upon closer examination

while checking out his wound and talking to his mom, matt discovers a long hair on his chest and (unsuccessfully) attempts to pull it out. we turned down the bright hospital light after this- it reveals too much.

matt checks out his wound and talks to his mom

movin' right along

matt's naso-gastral tube was removed this morning and it looks like they might take both his epidural and catheter out this afternoon. pretty soon, he'll have only the IV left. i am continually amazed at the speed of his progress.

cruisin' down the hallway

looking out on another rainy day

matt went for a few walks today. he has decided that, from now on, he will be wearing mu-mu's and thigh highs everywhere he goes.

a care package from uc berkeley

incentive respirations

matt was pretty uncomfortable for a while this morning after a night without much sleep. he was feeling itchy and sore from lying in a bed for too long and as any lasting effects of the OR anasthesia wore off, the pain started to catch up with him. oh, and also i tripped over his catheter tube. i am sure that didn't feel "good." they adjusted his pain medication a little, so although he is still itchy and sore, he isn't experiencing much discomfort as a result of the procedure. he was able to get out of bed to sit in a chair three separate times today and it's expected that he will spend at least three hours sitting up tomorrow. matt did manage to take a nap today (ruthann guarded the door and did not let ANYONE in) and they intend to give him something to help him sleep tonight. with all the noises and flashing lights and vital signs in the hospital, it is very difficult to get any rest. i am so impressed at the speed of his recovery and it seems like he is right on track to come home next thursday.

he is in room 908 in the farr building at beth isreal deaconess medical center in boston.

24 hours after surgery

wait, they let him have a lollipop?

mmmm, lollipops. but actually, this is a sponge on a stick he is using to wet his pallette. he was pretty parched after surgery and isn't allowed to consume anything for a couple of days.

support hose

matt has to wear these special stockings for a while to prevent blood clots from forming in his legs. these, along with the nose tube, will not be part of his post-hospital attire.

surgery is a success!

it was a long day, but matt made it through surgery just fine. when his mom and i left his room at 8:30, he was awake and, thanks to the epidural, not in any pain. the tube out his nose isn't very appealing, but i don't think it is a permanent feature. also, because of the intubation during the surgery, he sounds a little like kim carnes. the woman who sang "bette davis eyes". the surgeon was confident that they were able to remove all the cancerous tissue and expects that matt will be able to get up and walk around by tomorrow.

thank you thank you thank you to everyone for your support.

tomorrow is the big day

it seems like the past few weeks have flown by and i can't believe that it's almost time for....

MY BIRTHDAY!!

oh, and matt's major surgery. but let's keep our priorities straight here. i'll be 31. you can send me presents and cards. i think it would really make matt feel better. 28 farm st, dover, ma 02030

matt is doing well and has gained at least 10 pounds since he was discharged from the hospital in april. his surgery was supposed to start at 10:30 tomorrow morning, but due to a cancellation, they moved him up to the 7:30 am time slot. i can't honestly say that either of us is overjoyed by this news, as matt now has to check in to the hospital at 6:00. and it's not like if he gets the operation over with earlier in the day, we'll be able to get home before rush hour or something. the surgeon also told him that, although this procedure typically takes 6-8 hours, he'll have matt out of there in five and a half. always one to enjoy a good competition, i have made a wager with the surgeon and will be timing him. if i win, the surgery is free. if he wins, i have to give him evie (don't worry, aaron and julie- 5 and a half hours? a whipple procedure? come on- it's a sure thing. just like brother derek was a shoe-in to win the kentucky derby. or the yankees will win all 19 games against the red sox this season. wait, what?... 14-3 last night? oh man, sorry about your daughter, julie, and sorry about your yankees, aaron).

matt will be in the hospital for 6-7 days after the operation, healing and and gaining strength. the doctors have given him more information about his recovery. after one month, he will feel fine but will likely still tire easily. after just two months, he should be back to normal. unfortunately, they do now think there is a strong possibility that he will need chemotherapy, but they won't be totally sure until they dissect the tumor.

keep matt in your thoughts tomorrow. and, as always, don't forget about my birthday.

i didn't catch anything

but i did get my lure good and stuck on the dock. so far, fishing at the lake has not been great this year. matt has caught one small largemouth bass and one sunfish. we're still waiting for a dinner-sized catch.

matt catches a fish

going fishing at farm street

the mosquitoes are breeding in the vernal pool

what is that thing?

inside this case made of sticks is the larva of a caddisfly, another creature that thrives in vernal pools.

a second opinion

so matt saw another doctor today to find out if a whipple procedure really is necessary. in this doctor's opinion, it would be "ill-advised to seek any other treatment," so it looks like the operation is a go for may 11. matt will be in surgery for most of the day on my birthday and then recovering in the hospital for about a week afterwards. we just got a bill from the ER matt went to on easter sunday. it turns out that an IV costs $375 for the first hour and $115 for each additional hour. according to my calculations, matt checked in to the ER at 3:30 on sunday and was discharged around noon on friday for a total of 117.5 hours of IV. carry the four and realize that total cost for IV alone could amount to $13,772. and 50 cents. matt just pointed out that my calculation is based on the emergency room rate and he was in an in-patient ward most of the time, so perhaps it will be less than that. nevertheless, we're hoping cobra will cover IV and all other treatments. otherwise, if any of you know any "get rich quick" schemes, please let us know.

matt untangles his fishing line

where are his pants?