Part 1. My health status.
A few days ago, I was thinking to myself that since I began radiation treatments, I have never felt better. My cough and shortness of breath have significantly improved. My exercise tolerance has improved. I even climbed 3 flights of stairs at one point during this cruise. But peripheral neuropathy has changed little, but I think that the extent of the neuropathy has decreased in that there is less loss of sensation in the mid-calf level than there was. Before the cruise, I complained of some pain which appeared to come from the area one of my right lower ribs. Of course, whenever there is unexplained pain, one immediately thinks that it may be metastatic disease. However I think that I must've pulled a muscle while coughing, as the pain has gone away.
At the end of the cruise, on Friday night, I began to have severe heartburn. This became substantially worse on Saturday and Saturday night. I have had some difficulty explaining this. It felt like heartburn in that it was a burning pain centered on the lower chest, just like heartburn that I used to have before I began taking Prilosec. However it did not seem to be related to acid reflux as I have been on full doses of Prilosec, and the pain seemed to be at its worst right after and during eating. On about 2 occasions, the pain was so severe that I was postulating that may have torn the mucosa of the esophagus. Of course, when this happens, one immediately becomes convinced that there is now metastatic disease or that the tumor in my lower esophagus has again begun to grow. However I am now theorizing that this was due to viral infection as I was exposed significantly during this cruise as I will describe below. In fact, I am feeling significantly better, and this pain has almost completely gone away.
In summary, I am back to thinking optimistically, that, knock on wood, I'm feeling about as well as I have ever since I began radiation treatments.
Part 2. The Family Cruise
The photo above was taken on the 2nd formal night of the family cruise. Standing from left to right, are Mike, our youngest son, Leanna, his wife, Brian, our middle son, Dana, Gary's wife, and Gary, our oldest son. Sitting are Judy and me. To my left is Eva, our oldest granddaughter, Age 10 1/2. The bottom row consists of Sara, Eli, Bel, and Sammie. Sara, 4 1/2 and Bel, 2 1/2 belong to Gary and Dana. Sammie 3 1/2 and Eli 1 1/2 belong to Mike and Leanna.
The cruise began with numerous fiascoes. Mike and his family together with Judy and I all stayed at the Holiday Inn in Long Beach. There was supposed to be a free shuttle going to the terminal from the hotel, and we could park the car for a week at no additional charge. It turned out that the shuttle only went to the Long Beach port and our cruise was taking off from San Pedro. we needed to get a shuttle to take us to the cruise terminal, and it was quite a job fitting all the luggage into that shuttle, (not free).
There was a virus going around, and Sara was sick, and we were not sure that we would be able to get onto the ship. They do have a health questionnaire, and they have the right to bar access to the cruise if they feel that a person may be a health risk to passengers. However everybody managed to meet on board ship and get underway.
The premise was that for the family cruise, everybody would be on their own, but we would all meet for dinner. In fact, most of the time, we were together. This was very nice, but did involve more babysitting for Judy than she had anticipated. The 1st two family dinners were terribly disorganized. The wait staff was particularly slow, and this exceeded the patience of the grandchildren. There were lots of requests for special orders for the small children, and this somewhat overburdened the waiter and his assistant. By the time we had the 3rd dinner, after I spoke to the maître d', the situation was fairly well resolved. However there were many instances where grandchildren had to be taken out of the dining room and food for the parents was sent to the room.
There is an excellent children's program on board the ship. However 2 of the grandchildren were too young to stay there without adult supervision. Much of the time, the adult supervisor was Judy.
In the middle of the cruise, Sammie ran a fever of up to 104. She did not seem nearly as sick as that number would indicate. However clearly, there was a virus involved.
In Cabo San Lucas, Brian took Eva ziplining, and that was a highlight for them. On the last night, there was another fiasco. Eva and Sarah disappeared and were nowhere to be found. There is nothing so terrifying as the disappearance of children. We had the whole ship's crew searching for them, and they turned up at a dance club, where they were having a great time dancing as everybody else was searching.
At the end of the cruise, we all went our separate ways. However everybody but Brian ended up meeting for lunch just south of Bakersfield on the way home. Mike and his family stayed over at our house as it would be too long a trip to drive all the way to San Jose where they were going to stay with her parents for a week. This is the time when Eli became ill. He spent the whole night crying and could not be soothed enough to get some sleep. On Sunday morning, they took him to a pediatrician, who said that this was a viral infection. We had suspected that it might be an ear infection.
By Sunday at noon, our house was finally quiet. The cruise was over. We were left with fond memories, and viral infections.
