Our Days Are Bright L.J. - News Letter 21

Seasons Greetings Friends and Family

And just like that 2021 is almost over. It seems time just goes by faster and faster as we get older. Well, lots happened this year, good and bad, but hey you cannot have one without the other right, balance. Anyway, let's see, the year started out with Covid-19 still being an issue here in Rhode Island just like everywhere. We finally got our vaccine in April and were pretty happy to get it and feel a bit free to go out and not get sick. Eventually, in the Fall, we got the booster as well.

The day after our boy Barnaby passed Jonathan developed terrible abdominal pain. We had to call an ambulance at 3am as he couldn't wait any longer. He had had a hernia for more than ten years but it never really was much trouble other than meaning he had to be careful about lifting heavy things. After some tests, they determined that his hernia was "incarcerated" which is the last step beyond "strangulated". The Head of Emergency Medicine at Kent Hospital said if we had waited another two hours he could have died. They rushed him into surgery and Lisa took her first Uber trip alone. Thinking of Jonathan made it easier for her to get to the hospital and overcome her anxiety issues. Everything went well and he came home after a couple of days and Nurse Lisa took care of him for about a week until Jonathan was walking around with ease and feeling better.

So, to address the obvious, as you can see we got a new puppy. After Lisa healed we decided the house was too empty. We named her Chosette. We came up with the name Chosette because we both love Les Misérables and found out that the name Cosette in it comes from the old French word Chosette which means "Little Thing", and she is a little thing. She is a Beagle/Poodle mix, some call it Beagle-Poo while others call it a Poogle or Poogle Hound. No matter what she is called, she is just an enormous joy making us laugh and smile, loving to cuddle and play, and she is just an amazingly sweet little girl. As of Christmas she will be seven months old and should be around 16 pounds when fully grown. We must admit that we do love being able to pick her up easily for those extra cuddles.

We have been going out more since getting our boosters, like to dinner and shopping. It seems like it has been years, and wow, yes it has been between Lisa's Lymphoma and cancer treatments, then Covid, and then Lisa's ovaries scare. We are finally hoping to take a vacation soon. Also, we are on weight watchers and doing very well, losing weight and even going down on our sugar numbers and insulin.

We still love feeding the squirrels and birds and taking nature photos. Jonathan is still at Citizens and working from home. Lisa is creating her art and selling it online. She is also making a couple of coloring books to sell on Amazon and Etsy, one reflecting her cancer journey with images and words of strength (to give half the profits to cancer research). And the other one a Basset Hound book featuring Barnaby.

We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and holiday season and a healthy and prosperous New Year.

During early July our wonderful Basset Hound, Barnaby, crossed the Rainbow Bridge due to liver cancer which had spread to his stomach and kidney. It all happened so fast. Barnaby is so, so missed. Lisa cried off and on for days and weeks and we still feel the pain. We feel the pain of losing all our pets over the years, but unlike Barnaby, they had longer lives well into their teens. Barnaby only had nine short years.

Jonathan got well quickly, and just in time for Lisa's surgery in late Summer. Lisa had two ovarian cysts removed, one the size of a baseball and the other the size of a golf ball. Unlike Jonathan who had surgery at Kent Hospital, Lisa had to go to Women & Infants Hospital in Providence. The Covid-19 protocols were more intense at Women & Infants, which makes sense dealing with pregnant women and babies. So anyway, Jonathan couldn't even go into the hospital and go up to pre-op with her. We had not been told this until we got there and so Lisa had a huge anxiety attack in the lobby. But they were all nice and kind to her, even the surgeon came in and sat with her a bit, and in the end, all went well. She was out that day because there was no immediate cancer threat in the preliminary testing done on the cysts, which was wonderful news. Only her ovaries were affected so she didn't need a hysterectomy which is great because it would have been a much longer healing process. But, they were able to do the surgery laparoscopically for the ovaries which allowed Lisa to go home that day. The full tests came back later that there were some precancerous cells, which really just means that Lisa will need frequent checkups with the cancer surgeon (besides her regular oncologist for her lymphoma which has been in remission for two years as of this month).