Christmas 2022

This year, Tammy and I decorated our house for Christmas after a couple year hiatus.  We bought a new artificial pencil Christmas tree that fits our living room much better. We decorated it with a lot of our previously purchased vintage ornaments.  I also brought all my singing Hallmark snowmen out of storage - just three more left to complete the collection. 

Christmas was at our house this year.  Lizzy and Stas came over Christmas Eve to open our presents to each other followed by our traditional ham dinner.  The next day, Christmas, Tammy and I opened our presents from each other.  Later that day, Jaclyn FaceTimed us so we could see the grand kids open the presents we sent them.  

Tammy and I both had the day after Christmas off.  She went out shopping for post-holiday deals.  I stayed home and put all the decorations away until they come back out next year.

Friday, December 30 after work, Tammy and I along with Charlotte drove to VT for the New Years weekend and the fourth White Elephant party.  In attendance on Saturday were all the VT Beauchemins, the VT Grandparents, the NY Gangwers, Stas and Lizzy, and all the Mattaos.  The menu was homemade lasagnas and dessert lasagnas.  It was a quiet New Years Eve with mom starting a puzzle and Tammy and I going to bed by 9pm. 

Sunday we went to church, ate leftovers lasagnas, and worked on the puzzle.  In the evening we played games with the whole crew and then Lizzy, Stas, and the nephews.  When everyone, left we continued on the puzzle some more. 

Monday afternoon, we packed up for home after a few hours of working on the puzzle that we never got to finish.

Pictures https://photos.app.goo.gl/MUCatqVQ8um8umT9A

Taking the Shots

One of the things I never thought about when beginning my treatments for Hodgkin Lymphoma was the number of shots I would be receiving.  During my first round of ABVD chemo treatments, I recall getting the flu shot along with two variations of the pneumococcal shot.   Half way through the treatment, I developed clots in my calf requiring a twice daily shot of lovenox in the stomach for 30 days.  

When I had my recurrence of Hodgkin, I was slated for a stem cell transplant.  After two rounds of ICE chemotherapy, I began a course of granix shots each day for about a week and a mozobil shot right before the stem cell harvesting process.  Once in the hospital, I received a lovenox shot each morning for about a week until my platelet numbers bottomed out.   

When the stem cell transplant process was over, and I was home for awhile, I received two shots of monoclonal antibodies followed weeks later by my first then a month later second covid shot.   Several months later, it was time to begin redoing all my immunizations.  I began in August with four shots - two in each arm.   In December, I received seven more immunization shots - four in one arm and three in the other arm.  According to my immunization schedule, there are still a number more shots to come.