Summer Vacation

This is our summer holidays.  We had a gap of no medical appointments or other obligations so we went to the cottage for nine interrupted days of relaxation.  I left two days earlier than Erinn hours after my chemo doctor appointment so I took the kids and my mom came up with our niece and nephew the next day.  It was great playtime for all four kids.

Ironically, we've been experiencing drought conditions in the Ottawa Valley and we've had about 80 days of no rain.  Brown front lawns in my neighbourhood have only been overshadowed by the dying crops the farmers are experiencing.  It's all doom and gloom as crops are failing and prices are sky rocketing.  Including the price of gasoline which floats around $1.25 per litre.  That'll be funny to read in a few years where, heaven forbid, we may actually be paying what Europeans are paying for gas which is closer to $2 per litre.

Oh, yes, the irony is that we got rained out at the cottage.  We're back in town to get a break from being indoors at the cottage for six days in a row of rain.  I'd say the drought is officially over in this part of the world.

This one sunny day is when all the fun happened.

My hands are often pins and needles from the chemo and whenever I use them for opening jars, putting on my clothes or attaching my wristwatch, my fingers go numb.  The more intensely I use my fingers, the quicker they go numb.  My feet aren't doing much better as I'm walking around barefoot in the summer and I like to be on carpet or they go numb.



This blue heron got the hell out of Dodge only a few hours before the rain started for six days straight.  We went back home on the third day of rain.  We'll go back tomorrow to finish our vacation, rain or shine!



I rode a bicycle a couple of times.  That was good progress.  Before we went to the cottage, I went for a 20 km ride and my ass didn't really complain.  Just my heart.  Man, I'm outta shape!  Of course, I realize the chemo knocks the life out of me but I'll have to do this more often to get my conditioning back up.  This was far better than my 18 km ride the week before where I pretty much passed out at the side of the bicycle path at 9 kms and rode home the same 9 kms at a much slower pace.

It felt good to exercise.  It's my first exercise since I got the life sucked out of me at my April surgery.  I'll do more of it in the future.