Happy New Year
Friday, January 1, 2016, I fixed a corn casserole and we joined friends for supper. Ken and Jackie provided stone crab claws, Bill and Ruth brought cheese grits, and Rick and Sydney Shaurette, also staying at the club on their boat, provided a scrumptious crisp green salad. John and Betsy S. were still hanging out at the tiki bar, so they joined us as well. It was a lovely way to start the New Year with good friends.
On Saturday, January 2, I started out my day by going to Essentials of Bradenton for a whole body deep tissue massage ( http://essentialsofbradenton.com ). JP and Kellie gave me a gift card for Christmas and I couldn’t wait to use it. When I got back to the club, we ate lunch with Bill and Ruth at the tiki bar before they left to go back home. Then we went over to our friends, Steve and Joy Fredrick’s for supper. They will be flying back to Antiqua next week to get their sailboat, Ocean Angel, out of storage and ready for another six months of sailing. This year they plan to spend at least a month in St. Martin while they have their rigging replaced.
On Sunday, January 3, the winds were too high for us to feel comfortable taking “On the Hook” up the river to our home port, so we made arrangements to leave the boat at the yacht club for a couple more days. Rick took the outside Christmas decorations down before it started raining and I took care of the decorations inside the boat which we took with us to store at the cabin the Ocala National Forest on Monday, January 4. I visited with Dad on Monday afternoon and then again on Tuesday, 1/5, morning before we drove back to Palmetto. We had lunch at the yacht club and settled in for the night, hoping that the wind would die down enough for us to move the boat back into our slip at Riviera Dunes tomorrow afternoon. The wind did not die down on Wednesday, January 6, so I left Rick on the boat tied to the wall at the yacht club. Our friend, Steve Fredrick, is the guest speaker at the Sail Fleet dinner meeting tonight, so Rick will attend that while I am back in Ocala. On Thursday, 1/7, I met with an Elder Law attorney in Ocala in the morning. She will be drafting a letter for Dad to sign making me a co-trustee so that I can instruct his financial advisors to transfer money to cover his Rehabilitation Center expenses. Also, in the afternoon, I had a “mobile notary” come in to notarize some forms that his financial advisors sent that allow them to talk to me about his IRA. I saw Dad again on Friday, 1/8, morning before returning to Palmetto. (For anyone interested, it is approximately 120 miles from the boat to the Rehab Center and another 20 miles from the rehab center to Dad’s cabin where we stay.) Rick and I met Bill and Ruth for supper at the Riverside Café. They have taken in her mother’s dog. Her sister is taking care of their mother and can’t handle the blind dog as well, so Bill and Ruth have taken “Scooter” to live with them. Scooter has the same parents as their two dogs, “Boots” and “Gizmo”. They had taken Scooter up to Tampa this afternoon to a vet that specializes in animal eyesight. Unfortunately, he told them that nothing could be done to improve Scooter’s eyesight. Saturday, 1/9/16, Rick and I ran some errands; bought a lock for his new bicycle and went to the boat surplus store to find a light cover to replace one on the back of the boat. While Rick was exchanging a couple of things, I got my hair cut. It started raining about 3:00 as another cold front moved through the area. But, we braved the rain to drive to the yacht club to attend the Power Fleet dinner meeting where we visited with Ken and Jackie as well as other friends.
After church on Sunday, 1/10, we met Bill and Ruth for a late lunch. Then we all returned to the Blu Mangrove. I was so tired that I left the three of them at the bar and I went back to the boat for a nap that lasted all night long! Rick and I returned to Ocala on Monday, 1/11. The head of the Restorative Care program came to see me and Dad in the afternoon at the rehab center. She said that she would be putting him on a walking schedule (2 days one week and 3 days the next). I told her that he might give her a hard time, but I would do all I could to encourage him. She said that at the very least, she needed to get him out of bed today to get his weight. She went into his room alone and next thing I knew, he was dressed and she was wheeling him down the hall to the room with the scales. That is the most distance he has ventured from his bed for over a week. Of course, he went right back to bed when he returned to the room reporting that he now weighs 135 pounds. She said that she would return tomorrow afternoon (when it was warmer) to take him on a walk (using a walker). Rick and I watched the college national championship football game that night (and into the morning). We were rooting for the ACC team (Clemson) to beat the SEC team (Alabama), but unfortunately Alabama pulled it out winning by 5 points. So, I made the best of it by off-handedly claiming the victory for FSU, since Alabama’s quarterback used to go to FSU. He transferred to ‘bama because he was sitting on the FSU bench behind Heisman Trophy winner and now NFL Buccaneers’ quarterback, Jameis Winston. We returned to Palmetto on Tuesday 1/12, afternoon after I had a short visit with Dad. Just as I was leaving, I reminded him that he was supposed to go for a walk this afternoon with the pretty lady who came in yesterday and took him to weigh, but his response was “I’m not getting out of this bed!” We have a gage indicating a problem with the pressure in one of our engines, so after returning to the boat, Rick set out to find a mechanic who could take a look at it. Because we weren’t sure that we could get it checked out/fixed by Friday, we cancelled our reservations to take the boat to the yacht club for the weekend. Wednesday, 1/13, was overcast and breezy. We met Bill, Ruth, Faz and Jen at the Blu Mangrove bar for a drink, which turned into supper. Faz and the Blu Mangrove was featured on the new newscast on our local ABC station. You can see the video at http://www.mysuncoast.com/dining/videos – Click on Blu Mangrove. Faz had the waiter bring out the colossal stone crab claws that he planned to have on the show. See the fuzzy picture below.
I left Palmetto on Thursday, 1/14, and drove to Ocala to visit with Dad seeing him again on Friday, 1/15, before returning to Palmetto for the long weekend. We ate supper with the Bakers at the Riverside Café that night. We went to JP’s house for lunch on Saturday, 1/16, and then got ready for the Bradenton Yacht Club’s 2016 Commodore’s Gala that evening. Our commodore this year, Mark Berté and his wife Denise, are a very nice, laid-back kind of couple. So, instead of formal, the dress for the evening was upscale casual. The food was delicious, the decorations were lovely, the company was great and the Billy Rice Band was very good too! Everyone, including Rick and me, enjoyed the dancing very much. We left when the band quit playing at 11:00 p.m. I didn’t get any really good pictures, but below are a few to memorialize our evening.
Unfortunately, we had a weather event move into the area just as the party was breaking up. We had ridden with Bill and Ruth and she loaned us an umbrella to use to get back to the boat, but we still got very wet walking back to our slip in the wind and rain. The weather worsened all night long and we awoke on Sunday, 1/17, to lots of wind and the sad news that during the night a tornado hit just east of town, in Duette, destroying a home and killing two people. There was also a lot of damage in Sarasota, just south of us, with over 17,000 people out of power in the morning.
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Monday, 1/18, was the Martin Luther King holiday and it was cold and breezy all day long. We took the day off. Rick got off the boat to ride the bike that JP and Kellie gave him for Christmas, but other than that, we just stayed on board and relaxed. I was so relaxed, I never even got out of my pajamas. We left the boat on Tuesday, 1/19, driving to Ocala. I had a short visit with Dad in the afternoon. It is still cold in Florida – what we consider cold, anyway. The highs are in the 50’s and Ocala is further north than Palmetto, so the lows will be in the 30’s for the next few nights. I saw Dad for a short time on Wednesday morning, 1/20, and then we drove over to Ormond Beach to visit with Rick’s mother and brother for the afternoon. After eating supper, we returned to the cabin in the forest. On Thursday, 1/21, Dad sat in a wheel chair to visit with me for at least an hour. He was back in bed when I left. When we got back to Palmetto, Rick received an e-mail from one of the attorneys handling our Mesothelioma compensation suit. He said that he has been notified that we have a trial date set for the end of September.
On Friday, January 22, 2016, we drove to Tampa to the Moffitt Cancer Center on the USF Campus. Dr. Tan told Rick that his cancer continues to grow. Today’s CT scan showed it was 1 cm in diameter which is still relatively small, but now measureable. He told us that Moffitt is in the process of negotiating for a new clinical trial with the Bayer Company. The contract should be signed within the next few weeks. He says that in earlier trials, the patients have experienced a 50% success rate. He showed us the CT scan and there is more fluid in Rick’s lungs than two months ago, both at the top and bottom of the left lung. He gave him a couple of prescriptions for pain. Rick agreed to try to get accepted into this new clinical trial and the doctor said that he would have the coordinator call when the trial is open for participants. He said that this new drug, anetumab ravtansine, would be administered by IV infusion – but it will not be chemotherapy and; therefore, should have no side-effects. Rick will have to go for tests weekly for the first month and then get the infusion once every three weeks for as long as it continues to help. If Rick does not get into this trial, Dr. Tan said that there is another trial that he could qualify for, but it is chemotherapy along with all of the expected side effects. We returned to the boat just after noon in the rain and wind. Florida is getting just a little dab of weather this weekend compared to the rest of the East Coast of the US where they expect two feet of snow to fall in the Washington D.C. area overnight. We are getting rain and wind with an increased possibility of tornadoes. When this front moves through later today, our temperatures will drop with highs in the 50’s for the next few days and continued windy weather. We had an early dinner with friends, Ken and Jackie, and started planning our trip together to Compass Cay near the end of February.
Saturday, 1/23, was super windy. We had a wonderful supper and lots of catching up with our friends, Randy and Pauldie that evening at their home. Sunday, 1/24, the high in Palmetto was predicted to be 54 with a low of 39, but at least it wasn’t as windy as the last couple of days. After church, Rick walked over to the Manatee Convention and Civic Center to check out a small boat show. We met friends at the Blu Mangrove later in the afternoon to watch the professional football playoff games.
We were on the road again Monday, 1/25, driving north on I-75 to Ocala. I dropped Rick off at the cabin and went to visit with Dad for a while. He signed a letter authorizing and automatic bank draft to pay for his room and board at the Rehabilitation Center as it does not look like he will ever leave there. And we talked about making me a co-trustee on his investments to make it easier for me to handle his business for him. While I was visiting with Dad, Rick was firming up our reservations to fly home to Compass Cay. We will fly on Watermaker Air out of the Ft. Lauderdale Executive Airport on Friday, February 19 and will be staying in the Lilly House on Compass Cay until we return to Ft. Lauderdale on the afternoon flight, Saturday, February 27th. After a short visit with Dad on Tuesday, 1/26, we drove south on I-75 returning to Palmetto. We had lunch with our son, JP, and his 2-year-old daughter, Emma, and then returned to the boat where Rick facilitated while Jamie made some repairs in the engine room. I made arrangements with my other granddaughter, (17-year-old) Vanessa, to pick her up in the early evening for us to go to rehearsal for the Easter Contata that our church will be presenting on March 20. Wednesday, 1/27, was rainy and breezy. We stayed inside most of the day. It continued to rain over most of Florida on Thursday, 1/28. I drove to Ocala and stopped to see Dad for a couple of hours and then drove out east on SR 40 to get to the cabin in the forest. I went in to the rehab center early on Friday, 1/29, to accompany Dad to see a cardiac doctor. Unfortunately, when we arrived we were told that the doctor had left the practice and the appointment had been cancelled. They apologized for not calling us and said that there was another cardiologist who could see Dad, but not until next week. So, we scheduled an appointment for next Thursday afternoon and called for the handicap transport bus to return to pick us up, After I got Dad settled back at the rehab center, I drove to Palmetto. Rick called when I was about a half-hour away to let me know that Bill and Ruth were picking him up at the marina at noon and they were going to a pizza place for lunch. I told him that I’d meet him there. We went back to the boat after lunch and them met them again at the Blu Mangrove for an early supper. On Saturday, 1/30, we went to the yacht club for a late lunch then went to the house to pick up our mail. We met Ken and Jackie at the yacht club for an early supper and to discuss our upcoming trip to Compass Cay. We talked about the possibility of staying over one night in the Ft. Lauderdale area so that we could get together for supper with Tokkie and Gail. They are there outfitting his new boat. We met Bill and Ruth for brunch at Pier 22 on the south side of the Manatee River in Bradenton and then moved to the Blu Mangrove for drinks and a lite supper.
