Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt is one of those people from history that if I could spend the day with, she would be one of my first choices.  She was an amazing individual and I could learn so much from her.

26 Glacier Cruise.
Wonder what those guys are looking at?

For the past month, it seems to have rained constantly here in southcentral Alaska and this weekend is no exception.  There are still several bridges out on CIRI land which we are slowly beginning to either repair temporarily and/or develop plans for permanent fixes.  As everyone is saying, we need to take advantage of this time to build better roads and bridges if we can.  And as far as I am concerned, YES WE CAN.

Sam is doing ok.  His final chemo treatment for this go round was Friday (I was thinking it was a week earlier, but obviously I was mistaken.)  He is sleeping a lot this weekend which is normal and pretty much keeping to himself.  Of course, it probably helped that yesterday I did not get up until about 10, hung out for awhile, then left for about 5 hours.  It was not my intention to be gone for so long, but it certainly worked out well, probably for both of us.  He is complaining about ongoing chest pain and no one knows if it is from the tumor behind his heart, the multitude of other tumors throughout his lungs or what.  A PET scan is scheduled for October 17 and then he will see the doctor on the 18th.

College Glaciers

Sea or Harbor Otters

Sea Lions

The anger is still there, thankfully not as forceful as it was earlier.  Even though people in the medical field and  other caregivers say this anger is common, especially among men Sam's age and stage of cancer, it certainly does not make it any easier to deal with.  I am so lucky that work is extremely busy and creates an escape for me; however, I do often forget to prepare myself for anything when I come home from work and that does create a few intense moments, sometimes lasting for the entire evening and into the next day. It is a learning lesson, to say the least.

The other day I took the trailer in to be winterized and started wondering what next summer will be like.  Sam struggles walking but forces himself to keep going because he understands that exercise is not only important, for him it is imperative.  I sometimes wonder if that is really what all this anger is about, that he is unable to do all the things he likes to do.

More than anything, I am just extremely glad this chemo is over.  If he decides to do more, I hope it it is without the carboplatin because I am convinced that is what is behind the personality change.

Anyway, enough of that!  How about those Oregon Ducks?  And Oregon State Beavers?  And darn those Longhorns!  Losing to West Virginia?  All I can say is...they better not lose their next game as it is OU Weekend (for all you non-Longhorn fans, that would be Oklahoma).  You can lose all the games in the season, just do not lose to Oklahoma.  Needless to say...we have had some pretty down years in Austin. And now, my Denver Broncos.  Hopefully they can win two games in a row.  Peyton looked awesome last weekend and I only got to see it in replays!

Whittier, Alaska

Speaking of last weekend, we were on the final glacial cruise of the summer out of Whittier.  If you have never taken one of those cruises, I highly recommend that you do.  It is phenomenal.  Our fourth time and we still saw things we had not seen previously. It truly is stunning.

q'ua