The marvel of $2.49 carrots

Hello, everyone!

Even though the prices are outrageous, I've fallen in love with Whole Foods. Everything from the organic veggies to the shrimp we bought has been fantastic. Since we have our own kitchen and our own car, life isn't bad at all here. I'm cooking at least twice a day, and so far the low-and no-salt food has all been very tasty. Sahara's being so good about eating fruit instead of crappy snacks. She doesn't mind the absence of salt at all, and I can't tell that much of a difference when I use the Nu-Salt salt substitute. She adores Silk brand chocolate soy milk, and has drank nearly two gallons since Thursday! It's loaded with potassium, so it's helping meet her 2400mg a day requirement for that. I swear, with traffic and crowds being what they are down here, it's easier and also so much healthier to just cook our meals here.

Funny thing happened yesterday - I had to run in to Whole Foods to grab another carton of soy milk, so I parked at the front of the store. Sahara wanted to stay in the car and listen to her Ipod. As I'm rounding an aisle, I hear honking. Incessant honking. I had this feeling that it was my car alarm (of COURSE it was MY car alarm). I looked at the front door, and outside on the sidewalk, casually looking at the display of tangerines like nothing at all was wrong, was Sahara. She'd opened the car door for some reason, which set off the alarm. She couldn't get it turned off, so she got out and walked away. She said the security guard kept driving by and staring at the car, but she acted like she knew nothing. LOLOL. We were in this highbrow swanky neighborhood, but apparently the guard really didn't care that our lowly car could've been broken into. This is the land of giant (and I mean the biggest ones made) SUV's. I think regular cars are considered inferior here. LOL. We did have a good laugh over it all.

This marks the first year in my entire adult life that I've not been able to send Christmas cards. Every year, I've had Sahara's picture taken, painstakingly cut them out, wrote her name, age and year on each one, and tucked one into each card. Last year, I made cards using a great photo of all three of us, happy and having fun at a Cardinals game. We had so many nice comments about that card.

This morning I did my first full disconnect and flush of Sahara's IV system. They asked me to do it before I took her in for her blood work and reset of the pump (which raises her dosage of medicine each day). I think I am actually going to be able to handle this. Who knew?

Tomorrow we begin at 10 am, with a complete IV change, and classes for me. Each day these procedures become a little less intimidating. I'm really pleased with how things are going; now we just have to pray and pray that this treatment starts attacking the tumor soon.

Have a great week everyone!

Love,
Amy