Hair update

I have now entered the Sinead O'Conner stage in hair regrowth, only with a lot more gray and a lot more mileage.

What would Sigmund Freud think?

I know when people start telling you about their dreams, you probably say to yourself, "Yeah, yeah, yeah...ho hum," but Jimmy was describing the one he had last night to me, and it was a doozie. This is what he said:

"I was quail hunting, and the three bird dogs I was hunting with strayed off. I happened to be hunting that day with Steve Spurrier, and he said he'd go look for Suzy, the best pointer, if I'd search for the other two. There was a shopping mall across the road and so I went in and found my two dogs going down the escalator. I rounded them up and went back to see if Spurrier had had any luck finding Suzy. He was waiting, sitting on the tailgate of his truck, and said he'd located Suzy in a bar down the road; he'd fed her a bowl of bar cherries, and she had left. I was furious with Spurrier for losing my favorite dog, the maddest I've been in decades of not liking Spurrier."

Now, was that one weird dream, or what?

Painting

When our friend Leona Strickland Hudson died a couple of years ago, she left the bulk of her estate to charities, one being the Annette Howell Turner Center for the Arts in Valdosta, and I was very pleased and flattered when commissioned to do a portrait of her. But after I got so sick last February, the director of the art center, Cheryl Oliver, my ex-husband Jack's beautiful wife, called me in Atlanta and graciously offered to let me off the hook. I declined because I loved Leona, and it was something I really wanted to do.

The dedication of the Dugald and Leona Hudson building is next Monday, and I actually finished the painting this past Sunday: quite a feat for the Queen of Procrastination!

There was already a portrait of her husband Dugald, painted about sixty years ago, when he was a young man in military attire. I wanted Leona to be about that same age in her portrait, as they are to be hung as a pair, so I chose this wedding picture of her, and just changed her outfit.

I haven't painted anything in quite a while, but I'm pleased with the result, and think Leona would be too.

Well, BOO.

We went to Valdosta's Pearlman Cancer Center today to get blood tests, and I was surprised and disappointed that my white blood count and platelets have gone down instead of up: the WBC is 2 and the platelets are 44. The red blood count is okay. We've been so happy and excited to be home and maybe I've been a tad too frisky. I was probably being overly optimistic, expecting to go from being a hyper C-VAD patient, to a normally functioning human being overnight.

Jimmy's tests for myeloma have to be sent off, and we'll know about them next week, but he's doing very well.

Settling in

We've been home a week now, and are settling in. I'm taking things very slowly, and am gradually getting my strength back. Jimmy, on the other hand, has been a busy bee, going to work and spending time with the grandchildren. Yesterday (our tenth wedding anniversary, by the way) he went on a dove shoot, the first one he's been on since 2006. He had a wonderful time, and came home tired but happy.

This is what the van looked like, packed for the trip home. I almost wish I'd just donated it all to Good Will, rather than having to deal with it when I got it here. Andy's the only keeper in the lot of it. He's squinty-eyed because he'd already had the doggie tranquilizer he has to take because he's such a bad traveler, hassling and whining the whole way.

All done

The race is run. I survived, and except for a checkup every now and then, this interesting little segment of my life is finished. We came up here in late February and will be leaving in the fall, so we spent all four seasons in Atlanta. The being sick part wasn't any fun, but all in all, we had a pretty good time.

Randy Crosby and Will Foss, who work for Jimmy, came up today to get the furniture and some paintings and things we had brought with us, and tomorrow Jamey will help us get the other stuff loaded in the van. It's amazing, the amount of junk you can accumulate in a few short months. Then tomorrow, maybe Sunday, we'll ease on down the road. It all depends on how we feel after trying to cheer UGA on to a badly needed win.

I got along okay with the radiation, except that it has knocked my all blood counts down again, especially the platelets, the bane of my existence. As they build back up, I hope my energy does too.