Less happy news

As most of you know, Leonard (Penny's father) is currently in the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal. I am limiting this to a brief update of how he is and what is happening.

Leonard entered the hospital about three weeks ago with a broken arm. He did not know the arm was broken when he went in, he thought he had hurt his shoulder somehow when he slipped in or exiting the shower.

The hospital staff was a bit concerned about why the arm was broken. X-rays and scans were taken over a period of a few days. The result was a diagnosis of multiple myeloma. Bone density had been a previous problem, but the myeloma was new. This is a form of cancer within the blood, specifically malignant plasma cells. The “multiple” part means it has been found in the bone marrow in more than one place (e.g. the shoulder and the hip). Myeloma cannot be cured, but it is treatable. How far advanced it is with Leonard is still being determined.

The broken arm was repaired through an operation. Radiation treament for the myeloma has started.

A hospital is a dangerous place. While there, you are exposed to many more germs than normally. So, Poppa got a bladder infection. A course of antibiotics was undertaken to remove the infection.

But Leonard is not exactly jumping around at this time. He needs quite a bit of attention as he is rather frail and weak. Walking around unassisted is not an option, so there have been many visits to Montreal by Penny, Marilen and even Dana. Some help has been found in Montreal, but the current short-term objective is to get Leonard out of the hospital and back into his residence where he can receive a decent level of care and support. That will happen as soon as the five radiation treatments are administered – to end this week,

Or that was the plan. Last night we learned that Leonard has picked up another infection – c. difficile – so named because it is very hard to control as it does not respond to normal antibiotics. Now we have another course of antibiotics being administered and Leonard’s departure from the hospital is uncertain.

But he is quite well, considering, and sounded quite bright this evening. Visitors are allowed and welcomed, as are telephone calls. We all want him out of there as soon as possible.

Spring & Mothers' Day happiness

Here are some pictures from Sumday, May 13th. They reflect the happiness of the many mothers gathered for a luncheon BBQ with the many kids and the many grandkids. The gardens are in their Spring finery and the kids were all having fun.

Another post will follow anon.

Mutterings

So Penny is running back and forth to Montreal (by train). And Linda and Rick Creese are in town. And there was a 5k run on Sunday. And somewhere in all that, because Penny was pretty fragged out and needed some TLC, I made a nice dinner with candles and mushroom risotto. So all you need now is the pictures.

The fun news is we have new tennants. Andrew gave us a neat bird house many years ago and we dutifully (with some optomism) put it into a nice neighbourhood in the back yard. It has been looked at by several bird couples of varying types and sizes, but has always remained empty - until this Spring. We have a pair of red breasted nuthatches in residence. They are really cute, about the size of a chickadee, and they walk up and down tree trunks and flit through the back yard trees and shrubs looking for seeds and bugs.

So all you need now is the pictures. A confession: I scanned the bird picture from the Audubon field guide that Chooch gave us in 1980.