First order of business.
The ‘Go Fund me’ site is live.
Click here.
Last week was quite the week for Kristina. Chock full and exhausting. If she wasn’t on the phone she was going to
appointments. Legal, medical, financial,
insurance, and oh yeah, there’s that sloop tavern thing. It’s all exhausting, compounded by very real
fears of what the future holds.
Her core care team has also been busy. It’s awe inspiring to see Kristina’s friends
kick into gear. Kristina is surrounded by caring
doers. These people get stuff done.
One of the challenges for me as the writer is I don’t know
all of Kristina’s friends, so I know I’m going to do a poor job giving credit
where credit is due, but I have a hunch they don’t really care about that. They care about Kristina, are mobilized and single minded with that mission.
Kristina did have a set of appointments on Thursday and
learned a few things. First, she didn’t
need the platelet transfusions she was warned she may need. The blood work is coming back better than
expected, so for now, no transfusions.
The second thing was the Chemo itself. It’ll be slightly ‘dumbed down’ as one of the
ingredients to the cocktail is something she’s already had too much of in the
past. Kristina took this as bad news in
that it may not be quite as effective, but her medical care team pretty much
said this is how it’s going to be.
Third, the date for the Hickman tube insertion was pushed
one day to this Thursday, the day she’ll go into the hospital.
What hasn’t changed is the gravity of the treatment, the
length of the treatment and the fact that if all goes well, this will be a marathon
as opposed to a sprint.
As the week came to an end, Kristina was exhausted. She and Christine had taken a road trip last
Sunday to Vancouver, then non stop phone
calls and appointments. Thursday was a
long day in the hospital going over every aspect of the treatment options,
goals, and the sequence of events. Friday
was another long day (totally in pajamas by the way) on the phone. Then came Saturday. What else, a cruise on the boat.
Leigh, Kristina and I departed Shilshole around 8:30 and had
a great downwind run up to Langley. We
sailed quite a bit with only the jib, the heater going the whole time in an
enclosed cockpit. Low stress and
perfectly comfortable. The only
disappointment was we didn’t see any whales.
Langley had their ‘welcome the whales’ parade, but the whales didn’t
welcome us!
Saturday night was supposed to be a potluck but rain forced
everyone inside with different groups dining on different boats. We had a great time on Cambria with dinner
served to, well, a lot of people. Some
folks had driven up from Seattle simply to be with Kristina.
After everyone left, I made up some ‘heated
beautifuls’. Half Grand Marnier, and
half Courvoisier, served neat over a glass of hot water. Smooth, soothing, the perfect end to a good day
on the water.
The following morning we had coffee in the cockpit and
cleared the marina at 8:42. One minute
later, my friend Sally, who, with her husband live on Camano Island right
across from Langley, texted ‘two whales, in front of the house northbound’. Perfect.
15 minutes later we were well positioned and killed the engine. We saw, and heard, 3 or 4 gray whales
casually working their way up their way up the western side of Camano. We think they were feeding (what else would
they be doing, watching Netflix??), slowly swimming and blowing their way
north.
With the close encounter of the whales a warm memory, we
headed south into increasing wind and rain.
Pretty soon there was spray over the bow and driving rain was slamming
into the boat. What did we do? Put on foulies and confront the weather? Au contraire.
Leigh went below to serve mimosas, we turned on the windshield wipers, and
cranked up the heat as Kristina’s quiche’s emerged piping hot from the
oven. And so goes Cambria’s way of dealing
with the weather.
Was it a perfect weekend?
No. Life deals serious issues to
us. And we need to square our shoulders
to them and confront them. By her own
count, Kristina has been to 58 countries.
She confided to us she’s lived a great life and her mantra of ‘live life
boldly’ has served her well.
On the way down, the talk briefly turned to the
serious. She’d be OK if everything came
to a crashing end next week. She said she’s had a good run. But is she done yet?
Oh hell no…..
This week marks the real start to the treatment. She’ll go into the hospital to begin
treatment on Thursday.
Editors note: We
don’t plan on updating every day.
Probably a few times a week, but that’ll be based on circumstance. Kristina’s ability to communicate will decline
once the Chemo starts. We’ll try to keep
all informed as she ‘battles boldly’.
Mark
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