This is my garden, emerging from the snow. One of those little beds is mine! And, while I lay in the PET scanner machine here at MD Anderson yesterday , I thought about what I'm going to plant in it. I imagine flowers blooming in my garden and those nodules in my lungs, the ones that qualified me for this cure program, turning into nice pink lung cells at the same time . Pink like the floral garlands framing my fireplace and camouflaging the power cord from the TV that hangs above the fireplace.
I am so excited about this garden! After years of having to cultivate shade lovers in New York, I am going for sun lovers! Plants like me, plants that love light and sun! I am going to have not one but two gardens, this one, which is just downhill from my house, and a big deck garden. Tomatoes, peppers, broccoli (I love broccoli, especially fresh broccoli), lettuce, basil, mint, lavender (supposedly keeps the deer away, not sure about the moose). Zinnias, nasturtiums (apparently they discourage pests, too), morning glories on a trellis on my deck to greet me every morning!
I met a master gardener yesterday and I told her how I was going to make a pesto base--just basil and olive oil--and freeze it. "Freeze it in ice trays!" she told me. "GREAT!" I said. She also recommended chopping up the other herbs, and freezing them in ice trays as well. Boy, I am glad I have a freezer in my garage.
After my PET scan I met with Melinda, my PA, and Dr. Srour, separately. The PET scan was not ready when I saw Melinda--I had not expected it to be--so we talked about her upcoming trip to Italy. That conversation came after she had told me all of the lab tests I had done were, as usual, perfect! YES!
Then Dr. Srour came in. He was able to look at the scan but radiology has not read it yet and probably won't for a day or two. He couldn't tell if there was any change in the nodules, but he was totally happy with what he saw.
He looked at me,
"I'm impressed." He said. Because I'm stable. And have been for months.
And then we talked about what life is like for his parents in Lebanon. They are doing well. News reports about Lebanon's economic crisis omit the fact that Lebanon has not just its own currency but also i'm the US dollar. A lot of people get paid in US dollars, which now buys about four times more than it used to. If you work for the government, however, which one of his brothers does, times are hard. But, he said, everyone pitches in to help. Now that is MY kind of story!
Today, I'm getting my second PET scan and then heading to the airport.
"Keep your hospital band on," she said. "In case the TSA machine reads that you're radioactive. I haven't heard of it happening at the airport, but it does happen every once in a while at the port."
I'm keeping it on!
The freezing of herbs works like a charm. Your good reports have me doing jumping too but not in ski boots! Oh my, all I can see is the deer, muskrat, raccoons and insects feasting on your labor of love in that open field. I like this site for mitigating insects. Plug your ZIP code into the National Wildlife Federation’s Native Plant Finder. Their data is from Doug Tallamy, a professor of entomology at UDelaware whose work has helped catalyze a growing native plant movement. Happy gardening.