As you probably know, Emily is an emergency room doctor in Boston. Since the COVID pandemic started, I’ve been running an occasional post highlighting news from her front-line perspective.
The staff at her hospital recently got a new shipment of gowns, yay! Except wait at minute – does “Non-medical” mean what it sounds like it means?
What is a non-medical hospital gown? Doesn’t sound good to me.
On a happier note, she also sent very cute kid pictures. Phoebe got her 4 month vaccinations. (Awww, look at those blue eyes. Mom, that was not fun!)
Yes, do keep vaccinating your children! It’s important!
Everyone is enjoying the summer weather!
Emily and Bryan have invested in some great backyard kid toys and an above-ground pool. Worth it!! Keeping the kids safe and happy in these crazy no-visiting-the-park times.
Several of you have been asking how I’m doing with the chemo side effects. Thanks for asking, I appreciate the concern. I’ve completed my third round of chemo (sort of). As in the past, I did not manage a full dose for the second week. I made it 6 days at full dose, took two days off, started gabapentin to help with the side effects, took 2/3 dose of chemo for three more days, and then went back off the chemo on Friday (2 days early). So all I managed during the second week was a total of 3 days at 2/3 dose.
The primary issue is my hands and feet, which tingle and burn. They are swollen and the skin of my soles and palms has become thick, stiff, and smooth. In addition to being painful, I have lost some function as well. For example, on bad days I have trouble with any object manipulation that requires pressure, particularly pressure against anything hard and rough. That means toothpaste caps, garden hose attachments, even a lamp switch that has a serrated edge is difficult.
Lifting heavy things is difficult too, not because I don’t have the muscles but because the weight of the object puts too much pressure against the palms of my hands (trying to grip iron frying pans for example).
I’ve been off the chemo since Friday and it’s now Tuesday, so I am somewhat improved. I’m going on neighborhood walks now, and I can do much more with my hands. Now it’s just a matter of annoyance or inconvenience. For example, my computer and phone both use touch ID, but my fingerprint doesn’t work anymore because my skin has gotten tough and smooth. So I have to key in my password every time.
I’m expecting to improve through the week, and start chemo back up again this coming Monday. I’m going to start at 2/3 dose and see how long I can go. Based on recent experience, I’m guessing I’ll manage one week at 2/3 dose.
On a more cheerful note, we took the van camping over the long weekend, even though I wasn’t feeling well. It’s not any harder to sit on a camp chair under the pine trees than sit on a chair at home. 🙂 And the van has a bed and everything, so I really was just as comfortable as being at home, and it was so nice to be away from home. John did all the packing and unpacking and all the cooking, so I didn’t have to do anything. He’s very generous and helpful that way.
I’ll write about the trip and post more pictures soon.
Darren was invited to be a guest writer on a post about stammering. Here’s the post – it’s very interesting! Let me know if the link doesn’t work and I’ll post the text.
This is the talk Laura gave recently after getting promoted at work. She is on the diversity team as an extra-curricular at work, specializing in neurodiversity.
Many of you are signed up to get emails every time I post. Yesterday I discovered that some of you are replying to those emails in order to send me a comment. Unfortunately, I don’t get those comments and had no idea you were trying to email me. I wasn’t deliberately ignoring you! I just didn’t get your email.
If you reply to your “New Post” email, it looks like it goes to “Turning51” but it actually goes to “donotreply@wordpress”. So I never got all those comments. Disappointing, I know! I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that was happening. I also don’t know how to change it.
If you want to send me a comment, start a new email. I think most of my readers know me and have my personal email. In case I have readers who don’t know me, I made a new email for this blog, turning51bykristina@gmail.com.
The townhome in Santa Fe got two full-price cash offers on the first day. Wow. Cash offers. Full-price cash offers. Two of them! Guess we should have listed it for more? We accepted one of the offers and everything seems to be going fine so far. The only possible issue that I can think of is…a tree. Yes, tree issues at both houses!
The open space right next to the Santa Fe townhouse has a huge tree that the HOA plans to remove soon.
We’ve told the buyers and hopefully they won’t mind and will agree with the HOA and be glad it’s being removed. Removing that tree is going to be a big messy job. It’s always nerve wracking whenever anything is happening while a house is under contract. Being under contract is a very tenuous position where the house isn’t for sale, but it isn’t sold either.
Remember when John and I almost bought a nice house in Placitas? The sellers had to replace the septic system while we were under contract. They ran into some issues, it got messy, and John and I spooked.
Originally it had really nice backyard landscaping that included a bocce ball court. That all got plowed under. It was heartbreaking to watch and we ended up getting out of the contract. The sellers relisted the house and got new buyers, so it all worked out in the end. But they were considerably delayed. Houses aren’t sold until the sale closes!
I’m one week into my third chemo round of two weeks on, one week off. I’m actually feeling pretty good. Unfortunately, I’m showing signs of some fairly concerning side effects. One of the biggest common side effects from the kind of chemo I’m taking is something called hand-foot syndrome.
When my doctor first warned me about it, it didn’t sound all that serious. The skin on the palms of my hands and soles of my feet would thicken and crack, maybe blister and peel. She recommended lots of lotion. Ok, fine. A little bit gross but not really a big deal. But what I didn’t initially understand (was not told, but later figured out) is that this syndrome can cause permanent nerve damage; permanent tingling, burning and pain, that can interfere with walking and in particular interfere with higher impact activities like hiking and jogging.
If you ask me my goals for my life, assuming I get out of all this alive, among my top goals is hiking. I want to swim, hike, jog, bike, hang out with my friends, and live closer to my kids. That’s all I want in life. Sorry, no grand plans to save the world. I just want to be walking through the woods with people I care about.
The tingling/burning in my hands and feet got so bad on Saturday night that I didn’t sleep well. On Sunday we called the nurses line and the nurse on duty told us to back off on the chemo a bit, and to start taking gabapentin. Well, I know of gabapentin as a painkiller. And I’m not interested in masking the current pain symptoms; I’m interested in making sure I can hike when I’m done with all this. The nurse said the gabapentin isn’t just a painkiller; it can actually decrease the potential for nerve damage.
I was dubious, but I researched it and it looks like there’s a slight bit of evidence that gabapentin might help regenerate nerves in some situations, maybe. My conclusion of “maybe” was confirmed by my sister who said, “While its primary purpose is nerve pain treatment, there was one study (not very large and not very well done) that did suggest it had some actual preventative capacity when it came to overall health of nerve conduction. Possibly it could be helpful in preventing any long-term sequelae…it does have a lot of side effects…if you can tolerate a low dose, it shouldn’t be harmful, maybe helpful. Probably worth a try.”
Gabapentin is also an anticonvulsant used for epilepsy. It’s a serious drug with a long and scary list of side effects. I often don’t react well to drugs. I’ll start on low dose and see how it goes.
I’m taking a short break from the chemo Sunday and today. We’re getting the gabapentin today, and I hope to start the chemo back up tomorrow at a 2/3 dose. I will try to complete the rest of the week of chemo if the nerves in my hands and feet calm down. I’ve had some tingly pain off and on for a few weeks, but it’s been constant and more severe since Saturday.
When I first started chemo, I didn’t realize it would be an exercise in “how much can I tolerate?” I thought I would take my rounds of chemo, feel sick, and deal with it. I imagined a lot of puking, which, while not fun, is something I can handle. Instead it’s this big guessing game, trying not to end up with permanent damage, with my health providers not really knowing any better than I do how much chemo I should be taking and for how long.
Darren came to stay with us! He plans to stay until the work-from-home orders are lifted and he needs to go back home. I’m soooo happy to have him here! I was stressing his two-day drive from Boise to Albuquerque (that was part of my stress from yesterday which I didn’t mention because he hadn’t arrived yet and I guess I’m superstitious, lol.) I always worry when people are traveling.
I’m happy he made it safely! Although now we get to wait around for a couple of weeks to see if we get covid. Everything is so fraught these days! He wore a mask and was very careful and stayed at a campground instead of a hotel. He’s even wearing a mask when around us in our own house! And we’re avoiding close contact. And I’ve got the evaporative cooler blowing air constantly through the house.
I meant to convert to refrigerated air this spring, but then I was in Boston getting cancer surgery and now it’s a pandemic, so I never got my air conditioning. Turns out the evaporative cooler is very good at pushing a lot of fresh air through the house, which they say makes a big difference. But who knows, it’s so hard to know what is prudent and what is just unnecessary and not going to make any difference anyway. Traveling out here from Boise was a risk, but I’m just so glad to have him here.
Today he did a video interview with Laura about autism for her company’s diversity program. I listened in, and it was absolutely amazing. Like wow. I’m going to see if I can get the recording of the video and post it. It was so impressive.
And now he’s helping a friend of mine move. She was trying to do it all by herself and it’s just not possible to move furniture alone. So he’s got gloves and a mask and they’re doing their best to social distance. The reality is, sometimes we just need to interact a bit with each other. How is she supposed to move alone?
I wanted to help her myself, but I’m still recovering from surgery. I’m not in much pain, just twinges when I move in certain ways, but I feel like I have a long, narrow piece of cardboard inside me, horizontally across my lower abdomen. It’s stiff and pulls and just feels wrong. I guess it must be internal scar tissue. Anyway I’m not supposed to be lifting heavy objects, which presumably includes furniture.
It was very nice of Darren to spend his first day here helping out my friend, after doing a fabulous job of talking to Laura’s coworkers about autism.
Life has gotten stressful! I mean, it kinda was already, what with the cancer and the threat of covid. But now there’s a bunch of regular life stuff going on too. John’s project at work is facing some significant hurdles and may need to shut down. John wouldn’t lose his job, thankfully. But it’s a big, multi-year project and he’s put a lot into it. It would be discouraging to lose it now after all that work. He would have to find someone else’s project to work on.
Along that same line (of losing projects), I am mourning the impending loss of our small rental business, which we are preparing to dismantle. We have put enormous amounts of time and money into this business over the last few years! We’ve bought the properties, put them into LLCs, did a lot of repair and upgrades, and haven’t actually made any money yet. They were an investment with the intent to keep them for a number of years. If we sell them now, the real estate fees alone would wipe out any rent generated.
It really doesn’t make any sense to build a business just to give up on it right before it was supposed to start generating an income. But cancer doesn’t make any sense. And covid doesn’t make any sense. Nothing makes any sense anymore. It’s sad, it seems like all that work for these past couple of years for nothing!
Plus, I liked the rentals! I’m so sad to sell them, because they’re nice houses and we fixed them up the way we thought was good for the tenants. I liked having tenants and being able to provide a nice place for them to live. We replaced the kitchen appliances, fixed the sprinkler systems, planted plants in the yards, tore out old carpet, repainted, and made them feel like homes, not depressing rentals.
But then I got cancer (actually, then I got diagnosed with cancer, who knows how long I’ve actually had it – years maybe). After the diagnosis we started thinking about getting out of the rental business because of how much work it is. Also with the economy worsening, John and I are feeling increasingly vulnerable as small-business property owners.
The leases all came due this spring. When I got diagnosed at the end of January we considered giving our tenants notice to be out at the end of their leases so we could sell the properties. But then the coronavirus appeared, and we didn’t want our tenants to have to find new houses in those conditions. So we decided the tenants could all stay past their leases and we just hoped for the best.
Turns out, two of our tenants gave us notice themselves – one couple bought their own condo, and another tenant needed to move to Santa Fe. They were both apologetic for leaving us with empty houses in the middle of a pandemic, but we figured it was for the best, allowing us a chance to try to sell the two properties. In addition, our third tenants have given notice for the end of the summer – they are moving back home to Florida in September.
The first house to list was one in Albuquerque. We got an offer within two days, which we accepted. Then the buyers backed out during inspections! Bummer! The inspections went very well – the house is in great shape. But inspections give an easy-out for buyers who are having second thoughts.
The buyers wanted us to take out the beautiful tree in the backyard! It’s the only large tree on the property and it would be a tragedy to lose it. Mature trees are valuable in the deserts of Albuquerque!
In the picture it looks like the tree is right up to the eves, but the picture is deceiving. The tree is in the far corner of the backyard and not threatening the house in any way. There is an entire patio between the tree and the house.
And if it was the view they were after, there’s plenty of view in the other direction.
Plus, of course, they could always take the tree out AFTER they buy the house. We weren’t going to take it out for them, and devalue our own property, and likely end up with them still not going through with the sale.
Buyers with doubts often focus on some inconsequential issue because psychologically they are having misgivings even if there isn’t a logical reason, and they are trying to resolve their feelings of hesitation. But it wasn’t the house for them.
Our real estate agent (who is excellent) said not to worry, that we can relist it right away and probably get a better offer. Sure enough, she had it relisted that same day and by the following day we had another offer! The new offer is for more than the first offer. Our concern with this new offer is these are first-time buyers and they show signs of being cash-strapped (the type of loan they are getting is the main concern).
In this market, the banks are being very cautious, so we’re worried these buyers may not end up qualifying for their loan. And we wouldn’t know that for over a month. So we’re thinking of sitting tight for a couple of days and see if more offers come in before committing ourselves to these buyers.
Update – we’ve gotten a third offer for the Albuquerque house, at full price, and with a better downpayment and a stronger loan situation than the second offer. Fingers crossed, there seems nothing wrong with this offer. Having to relist the house delayed us by about 3 weeks, but if this one goes through it’s actually a better deal than the first offer.
A Second Update – I got distracted and didn’t manage to hit the “publish” button yesterday afternoon so now I have a new update. Buyers #3 backed out for an unknown reason, only a few hours after they had submitted their offer! I don’t know why. But it’s a hard time to be buying or selling right now.
Here in Albuquerque the housing inventory (number of houses on the market) is currently extremely low. So buyers don’t have a lot of choice. If they are determined to buy, they end up making offers on houses that aren’t really what they wanted, because that’s all there is available. That happened to us when we moved to California in 2012. There was nothing on the market! Nothing! I was so unhappy with the house we bought that I was literally in tears when we signed the closing papers.
Also everyone is just nervous about making a big investment right now. The coronavirus is such a new situation, and the economy is doing badly. So many people are out of work! I don’t blame buyers for getting cold feet. I’ve got cold feet. I don’t know what’s going to happen. None of us do. Anyway, we think buyers #2 are still interested, so we’re contacting them today.
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