UPDATE and why I went outside again this morning.

UPDATE:

Yesterday evening the outer dressings came off my two incisions without any trouble. Hooray! Woke up at 1:45 a.m. and finally got back to sleep around 2:30 a.m. Slept until 6:15 a.m. which means I got some rest. I ate breakfast after I woke up the second time. Still no nausea or taste alterations. The peripheral neuropathy continues to get better--thank goodness. When it does happen, it's mostly in my feet. Since I need to build up my stamina before Chemo Round Two, I walked outside in the shade yesterday for a total of 4583 steps, according to the Health app on my iPhone 6 Plus. That's four times my daily average. Hooray! This morning when I went outside, the skies were overcast, so I was able to walk in my neighborhood and made it 1194 steps in about 20 minutes. I'll be back outside in the shade until much later today because the sun has come out. I am blessed to live where I do, to have the opportunities during my recovery. Thank you for your continued prayers, love and concern.



Yesterday when I walked outside on the south side of the building in the shade, I made it to the corner of my building and saw the beautiful sunshine in the banana tree in the southern end of the front yard. The two-story Albertina Kerr building across the street makes great early morning shade.



I continued toward the front steps and took this photo at a different angle from all the others I've taken of our front sidewalk and entrance.



Here's the sunshine that I needed to avoid. Isn't it beautiful?



To me, the proximity of these roses and the difference in the age of their blooms makes for a great photo. What do you think, please?

UPDATE - Woke up way too early. I'm about to take my first nap of the day, y'all.

--> UPDATE:

Made it through all that went on yesterday without any problems. Got my ride to the hospital for the chemo port placement--thanks to a sweet friend. The doctor who placed it was the same guy who did my needle biopsy on June 17. I really like that guy! And his crew was top-knotch!

I will be able to take off the bandages over the two incisions tomorrow. So far, I have had no pain associated with either incision, although I have no desire to lie on my right side in bed, nor do I want to do jumping jacks or reach too high, period.

Still no nausea, taste alterations, and thankfully less peripheral neuropathy. Thank you for your continued prayers, love and concern.



I fell asleep between 10-10:30 p.m. Woke up at 2:45 a.m. and couldn't go back to sleep. So, by 4:52 a.m. I had eaten some oatmeal and prunes and finished off several ounces of water. I decided to go outside since the sun had not yet come up. I checked the temperature on my phone--59 degrees. Wow. I put on my Mickey Mouse sweatshirt jacket, zipped it up, pulled up the hood and walked out the building's front door. At the end of our sidewalk, I could hear the sprinklers to the south doing their thing. They cut off within a minute or two, and then the ones to the north cut on. So, I walked down the still dry front steps and across the street to the front yard at Albertina Kerr's. I sat on the bench for a few minutes because I heard the sprays of water begin to hit the banana tree leaves which are right up against our sidewalk and its steps. I knew I needed to wait for silence before walking back inside my building. When I got across the street once all was quiet, I saw this image and knew that I had to photograph it and share it with y'all. Who in the world wouldn't want to call this building home?

Chemo Round One, Day 2. Three cheers for the window unit and the anti-nausea meds!

I slept from 11:30 until 4 a.m. When I woke up, I was hungry. I toasted a King Hawaiian bun--there really is very little Land o' Lakes butter on that bun, I have no idea why it looks so shiny--put a few blueberries, grapes and cherries with it on my sunny yellow salad plate, filled up my cup with hot Twinings English Breakfast Tea and my mug with 28 ounces of water. Before I took this photo, I ate two bites of half of the bun. Between 4:30 a.m. and 7:30 a.m., I ate the rest of this, interspersed with napping in the recliner and talking on the phone with Lamont to be certain that I understood my meds' schedule for Day 2. I believe I finally have it straight and have entered correct reminders in my phone in case I'm napping. I want to take those anti-nausea ones on schedule since I'm getting ready for Day 3 which could be the day that I get hit with nausea, etc.



I was told yesterday to not go out in the sun without sunblock. Since we are supposed to get to 100 degrees, or at least close to it, today, I will not be wasting any sunblock just to get in some walking. I have a great place to walk indoors, through the hallways and up the various carpeted stairs. Here's a photo looking down onto my apartment's windows, to the left. You can see my splendid window unit in place and doing its wonderful thing for my little studio. Three cheers for the window unit! When I took this photo at 8:34 a.m., I checked the weather app--it was 73 degrees.



I walked through that multi-glass-paned door, across this landing and explored the hallways off it. Then I took this photo so that you could get an idea of how great a place I have for indoor walking, with carpet and stairs and handrails almost everywhere. My window unit is peeking through the bottom right corner of the rightmost window. Three cheers for the window unit!



One more photo from the landing before I explored some more. You can see someone who lives upstairs from me has a window unit. I also know that the people who live next to me, as you look to your right, have a window unit. They also have a darling little pug named Charlotte. Their window unit is not visible in the photo, like mine and my upstairs neighbor's. Three cheers for all of these window units! Not everyone in the building has one, though, so I hope all of them have lots of fans and/or shade from trees to help them out during these continuous days of mid-90s.



This is the first floor vestibule--the sun coming through the front door makes a sort of church-window-like impression on the tile floor. I like this vestibule a whole lot, especially that brown bench on the left which is a great place to sit for spell if one is spent, energy-wise. I had plenty of energy and walked through the multi-glass-paned door and up the five stairs you can sort of see through it, at least the white-painted wood not covered by the carpet on each step. I walked up and down my hallway and decided to go out onto the completely shaded sidewalk. I had my keys with me, of course, so I knew that I could get back inside without getting into the sunshine.



Shade to the west.



Shade to the east. Outside that gate I could go either across the street to Albertina Kerr and its rose gardens, or I could sit in my aluminum folding chair. Not doing any of that today unless it is after sundown which is supposed to happen at 8:43 p.m. I'm going to set a reminder on my phone to check it out then, sunwise, especially if I'm going stir crazy in here. Who knows, I might get up early again tomorrow and feel like going out for a bit before sunrise. I imagine it will be close to when it came up today at 5:53 a.m.



I walked east and into the other building in my little apartment complex, straight through it to its front entrance that faces south. I looked out and realized that I could go out there for a short walk in shade. Hooray!



When I reached the top of the stairs, I realized I was going to be holding onto that handrail because these are a bit steep.



Here's the side entrance to my building which I use very often. I like the gate's shadow on the sidewalk. I could tell that it was pretty warm already out there and believe the weather man's report about what we will have here today. As I'm typing two and a half hours after I took these photos, it is already 82 degrees.



I walked in the grass beneath the trees as far as I dared go and was able to at least see Albertina Kerr's building and that massive and well-tended hedge around the front yard. I turned around and walked into my building through the side entrance. I'd have been foolish to have continued up the sidewalk and in through the front entrance which is to the right, off that sidewalk beside the street. I don't want to tempt fate where any possible chemo side effects are involved. So far, so good, y'all! Thank you for your continued prayers, love, and concern.

Spring in the Neighborhood

The dogwood on the apartment building's side street is blooming! Here’s how the blossoms looked May 14, 2011.

March 5, 2011, announcing what was to come. It didn't pan out. The Google Maps screen shot shows what's coming, in fact, it's almost finished now. I need to get out there and take a photo to show you.

With the Blue Diamond within walking distance of my studio apartment, where the food is excellent on a regular basis, I never felt the need to frequent the food carts that ended up inside the fence. Evidently not too many others did because, as I noticed in person, then read about online, the carts left and an apartment building began to be built in either 2013 or 2014.



So, all of that brown dirt area on the screen shot is a five-story apartment building with 47 units and surface parking there where you see the parking spaces marked on the pavement. If surface parking had not already existed, I seriously doubt the the developer would have included parking in plans for this building.

Hollywood Theatre, No. 5

Looking west at the Hollywood Theatre in a photo that I took on September 30, 2012. Now you can see the apartment building standing on what was a vacant lot, seen in yesterday's post. I can tell you that the view when you're eastbound on NE Sandy Blvd. is no longer what it was in yesterday's post.

See the lights on the left side of the Hollywood Theatre building? They are in the ladies restroom--it has a small vestibule or lobby or seating area, I'm not sure what to call it. I'm pretty sure it's original to the building which has been turned into a theater with three screens, one big one downstairs and two smaller ones upstairs. Despite that yellow insulation showing on the apartment building, I like how this photo turned out.

Here's an article about the plans for the building, from the Portland Mercury, May 2, 2011. And here's another article from the Daily Journal of Commerce, December 5, 2011, about the beginning of the building project. It remains to be seen what sort of business will be on the first floor of the apartment building. It would be cool if it were a good restaurant.

The view from ... ?

Guess, anyone? Looks like I've been to an exotic locale and didn't let you know I was going, doesn't it?


I will tell you that I took the photo, uploaded it from the D5100 to Flickr, opened it in Picnik where I altered it with two effects, vibrance and HDR-ish, then I cropped it as a square before putting it here on the blog. Then I looked at it for a while and decided to try to clone out the upright that is on the window pane. That's the photo you see at the top of the blog. I tried to clone it out, and for the most part, I'm pleased with the results. Well, sort of pleased. It's not easy to find colors and directions that you can use to cover up what you don't want visible.

Here's the original photo, straight from the camera.


OK. I'll spill the beans. My living room has four windows which look out onto the sidewalk that goes from the building's front door out to the sidewalk along the street. I pulled the blinds up on the east-most window and liked the look enough to grab my camera and take a few photos. I distinctly thought, "These should be fun at Picnik!"

So, I'm not crazy just because I thought this would be fun to play with at Picnik. You can see why when you look at the altered photo above, can't you? Hope so. Such outcomes are one of the reasons I adore taking digital photos and having a great camera to do so and then having a great computer, my beloved iMac which I have named ALL, a place to get busy with my photos.

No, I'm not crazy. I'm keeping myself sane.

The dynamic duo, back in the day

Like many have mentioned, looking back on the good memories helps us. I took this fine photo on June 3, 2007, in front of our building. Mama had let Duncan have the leash, so much so that he must have pulled all of it out of the handle! I can guarantee that once she got down the steps, she reeled him in so that he was a safe distance from the curb and our busy, busy street.

Don't they both look grand?