Heartbreaking! The lady I have known here for 40 years decided to go through chemo again although her cancer returned as MBC. Her family talked her out of the hospice die with dignity route, so she chose to endure chemo. She told me that she thinks the chemo will kill her so she won't suffer too long.
Beth, Just read through some of your post that you were having muscle cramps I hope you're okay now I know how they feel they can be painful. I don't know why my post didn't show up in my alert I get alert for a lot of different things but some I don't. I'm still trying to figure out how to get around this site. Stay Well Tony
Thanks, Tony. I still have an occasional cramp but nothing like it was before I saw the doctor. I have never had such weird muscle spasms all over me, except during chemo for a while. I see my oncologist on the 17th so I'm wanting to discuss this with him. Does Mrs. Tony have any residual effects from her treatment? I hope she's doing well.
I got both my little galvanized raised garden beds planted; one is pickling cucumbers with a trellis for them to climb and a couple of bell pepper plants. The other has six tomato plants and a row of radish seeds. I also planted 6 more tomatoes into an old flower bed, plus the Roma tomatoes I planted in the large round planter. I ordered another galvanized bed that I'm planning to put jalapeno peppers and a couple of malabar spinach plants that will also be on a trellis. That should be about it for my gardening attempts. As soon as it gets hot outside my enthusiasm for gardening will be squashed. I was wearing a compression sleeve on my lymphedema arm but it got a bit swollen anyway. I guess all the shoveling when we moved the galvanized beds didn't agree with that arm. Plus the sleeve was hot and annoying, and if I do too much then I get those awful cramps again. There's no way I'd be able to maintain a larger garden which is very frustrating to me. I really hate physical limitations... grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. We drove over to a couple of nurseries today to try to find some new landscaping shrubs for the front yard. The first place is a mom-n-pop place that we like but it appeared to be closed down. I don't know if the harsh freeze wiped out their inventory or what. So we drove on down the freeway to a Lowe's. The nursery was quite pitiful for this time of year. Normally they have tons of stuff but it was a sad sight and hardly anything to choose from, so we came home empty handed. I guess we'll go to Houston Garden Center tomorrow and maybe swing by a Home Depot. We have dug up all the dead stuff so the yard looks quite awful. I'm anxious to get some new plantings started to spiff things up a little. Our yard used to always look so nice; it makes me sad to see it ruined.
I'm joining your club. This is what's left of my backyard hedge after the Christmas freeze. It normally stays green all winter. It's all coming out, even though I raised the plants from little cuttings. {sniff} A fence is going in, instead (if I ever get around to it).
Beth, Glad your cramps/ spasms have reduced hopefully it'll go away completely soon. My wife has neuropathy in her hands, she can't open packages continually drops things so I'm on Standby when she cooks to open packages and jars. It's a terrible condition not only can't she open things but she can't feel things. She's planning on talking to her oncologist about this but she doesn't have an appointment till May. We've seen products on the market I told her to buy them and try it but she's reluctant. Just a note on a condition I had back in the late 1990s or early 2000s. I had been sick, after all the symptoms passed and I was feeling better, one morning I suffered excruciating pain throughout my whole body because my joints were inflamed couldn't even get out of bed. That's when fibromyalgia was becoming more known. I went to specialist they said I did not have fibromyalgia but never did come up with it diagnosis. My family doctor who was new for us believe in some of the holistic treatments she gave me a list of vitamins and herbs to take, plus she gave me two different pain killers and B12 injections every other day that eventually weaned down to once a week then eventually where I didn't need it. At the same time she had researched after me giving her information about my diet and found a clinical study that was done on aspartame ( NutraSweet) that showed a connection between drinking that stuff and triggering fibromyalgia and also causing some brain issues. Back then I drank a lot of soda with NutraSweet. I stop drinking diet soda and eventually my symptoms subsided. Today I don't drink any diet drinks, I'll drink water if I have to, if I start gaining weight. I feel like I'm babbling probably just doesn't even make sense.
Sorry you lost a lot of your hedge, Nancy. Weird how things seem to survive winters for years and suddenly they don't. I have a gardenia that is special to me because my dad cut a branch from a bush in their yard probably 25 years ago and rooted it for me. Now it's looking sad and I'm afraid I'll lose it, too.
Sorry about your wife's neuropathy, Tony. A lot of people have it after chemotherapy, unfortunately. It's a shame that the treatments that saved our lives cause so many other unpleasant side effects. As far as I know, there isn't much to be done about the neuropathy, though some people get relief from Gabapentin or other nerve medications (Lyrica??) Do you have fibromyalgia? I have a friend who suffers with that. I've never heard of the artificial sweetener connection but I know they are finding out a lot of unfortunate results of that stuff. I have never liked diet drinks; I'd rather have water. I freak myself out with the muscle spasm stuff because I know the heart is pretty much a muscle and I don't want my heart to be affected by whatever is causing the cramps. (And I have no idea what I'm talking about so I'm babbling, too.)
No I don't have fibromyalgia, I had just come off being sick with mono (Epstein-Barr), so it's possible it was another condition that resulted from the mono. I have a very vague memory of it I slept a lot. Part of the reason I brought it up was too alert about the side effects of artificial sweeteners. I too suffer from muscles cramps and spasms, I usually get them at night they wake me up. I keep a bottle of potassium/ magnesium right next to my bed along with a bottle of water. I also keep when I can get them a packet of mustard close by, it works pretty quick. I had the same thoughts about the heart being a muscle, can it be affected by cramps? With my wife's neuropathy she was told to try the the treatment I can't do the name it's the one where they put needles in you you become a pin cushion acupuncture yeah that's it. Apparently there's been some success with that when she checked into it finds out we don't have coverage for it from our insurance. I told her I got a whole 5 gallon bucket of nails but she didn't want to try that oh well.
Today we headed to the closest Home Depot and found it much better stocked than the Lowe's we went to yesterday. We bought new shrubs for the front yard and several plants for the pots on the patio. We didn't buy mulch today since we were in the Jeep and filled it up with plants, so we'll pick up mulch tomorrow. The third galvanized raised bed is coming tomorrow so we'll get it assembled and filled with soil.
The galvanized raised bed just arrived a little while ago so it's too late to deal with it today. My husband will probably assemble it tonight while watching TV. After another trip to Home Depot for mulch, we cleaned out one small bed in the front yard, planted a pretty azalea bush, and put new mulch in that bed this morning. Our yard crew comes on Wednesday and we didn't want to be out there in the way of them cutting the grass and edging, but they were running late so by the time they left it was too hot in the front yard (house faces west) to plant the other shrubs and add fresh mulch. That will be on the agenda for tomorrow for sure. I'm anxious to get the yard looking better, so we'll put out lawn fertilizer, too. Every spring I buy a new Boston fern in a hanging basket for the patio. Home Depot had some pretty ones but they were nearly $40! This freaked me out because I already had sticker shock from buying shrubs and mulch. I remembered that last year I bought a fern from HEB in a grocery order and it was a beauty for about $15. So I checked HEB online and sure enough, they have the ferns for $15. I added one to my grocery order for this week. I have bought several really nice plants and flowers from the grocery store.
Here are the front foundation plantings that we did today. We removed all the old stuff, raked out the old mulch, planted the new shrubs, and laid down new mulch. It doesn't look like a lot but it kicked my butt. And the azalea... My husband assembled the last galvanized raised bed last night so we will be positioning it and filling with soil later when it's shady in the back yard. We also have to move some garden stepping stones and re-arrange them since they are partially in the way where I want the raised bed. Nothing seems to be easy; things have a way of snowballing and one "simple" task turns into a production.
It all looks really nice, Beth! I always loved it when we laid fresh mulch down around our landscaping. Everything always looked cleaned and refreshed. A few years ago, we put down decorative rock around all the landscaping so we wouldn't have to mulch every year; all that bending over, raking, rearranging the mulch, and hauling mulch bags got to be exhausting as we have gotten older, and OH, the sore muscles!
Thanks, Krys! I agree, I am beat. I just got out of the shower and already have my nightgown on. This old gal just can't run with the big dogs anymore!! That's the second time we have had to redo that bed in the past 2 years... both times a hard freeze took out all the shrubs. If it happens again I might have the yard paved.
One does wonder how much of all of this is inflation and how much is price gouging. I have been cutting back on a lot of things. Told hubby it was almost time to cut back on coffee and he put his foot down. Will be putting down new mulch this year but I wait till June when they put the stuff on sale. My places definitely don't look as well groomed as yours, though.