Healing

I'm finally off of constant pain medication and my leg is starting to feel a bit better.  Here's how it looks today - still pretty ugly!

A Fumble

I'm so annoyed. Last Thursday, I accidentally tripped over a curb and fell on my side onto cement. It wasn't immediately obvious, but I actually injured my hip quite severely. After spending 8 hours at the ER on Saturday, I learned that nothing was broken and I had no clots, but I was experiencing extreme pain from an 8cm  hematoma in my hip region.  I left with some strong pain meds and the hope that I was on the road to recovery.

As of today (Tuesday), the pain has not improved and the meds have only somewhat helped. I am awake every 30 mins or so at night because of the pain, yet so tired at the same time because of the medication!  I came to the hem/onc clinic today for a blood count check, where they discovered that my hematocrit (red blood cell) count had dropped to 19. (Normal range starts at 28+). The drop is due to the bleeding in my hip area. So I am receiving a transfusion today, as well as tomorrow, to bring this up. Transfusions really are no big deal except that they take a couple hours to match the blood plus 4 hours to receive it, so it'll be long days here at UCSF.  So, the combination of the transfusions and a temporary stop on my blood thinner should improve the situation. It's an acute situation, and will be fixed, but annoying (especially that I did this to myself) in the meantime!  While I'm not at UCSF, I'll be lying around at home, groggy from the meds!!

Four Cheese Gnocchi with Spicy Sausage, Spinach, & Pesto

Our dinner this evening was to die for.  We basically used this recipe from Real Simple, but added some pesto.  Also, Jonathan picked up some four cheese filled gnocchi from Lucca Deli in the Marina, which was definitely the KEY ingredient.  We saw a tip on the container of gnocchi to sautee it rather than boil, and it was great.  Jonathan also added some red pepper flakes and deglazed the pan with white wine after sauteeing the onion and sausage (right before adding the spinach).  We love Lucca!  (PS this is very indulgent!)

Bye Bye, Rara

Outside JetBlue :(  Photo taken by an airport employee collecting carts, who
never used an Iphone before.  Might be the best one yet!

Sadly, Sarah departed yesterday afternoon.  It was a quick week to say the least.  She was a great help with Nicholas and he misses her very much.  This morning he was standing up in his crib and said "Rara?" - he misses his roomie!  Thank you, Sarah, for making the long trip here and hope to see you guys again SOON!

Farmers Market on Sunday - From the Belgian Waffle truck! Da-lish! 

Trader Joe's.  The girl behind us in line was a little weirded out when Sarah asked her to take a pic. 

Costco.  Samples for snack time!

Matching Costco purchases.

A little treat I made last night.  Homemade Peanut Butter sauce atop Safeway Light Chocolate Moose Tracks. Really easy, really tasty.  

Bi-bopsy

Today was bone marrow biopsy day.  It actually hurt nowhere near as much as I had anticipated.  But I spent the whole day sleeping it off, since I had taken 2mg of Ativan in preparation!

Post-biopsy

Flowers from Jonathan and a sneak peak!

Sarah & Blair's Visit

Sarah and Blair arrived on Saturday from Cabo (see how tan....?).  We had a great time over the weekend watching the Niners and visiting supermarkets.  Blair left on Tuesday morning, and since then Sarah and I have been visiting more grocery stores and shopping.  Here are a few pics so far.

Sarah, Nicholas, & Blair

We had lots of fun at Athleta, Sarah loves asking strangers to take pictures 

She also had no problem asking someone outside of Trader Joe's for a pic 

Spices at Rainbow Grocery

This one's just cute.  No strangers involved.

Happy New Year!

Nicholas making friends at AT&T today and getting his Noon Year's kiss!