Oxaliplatin & Oxalis - Day 7 of this cycle

Now that I'm a week past my oxaliplatin infusion, I'm feeling better. That is one intense drug! I think one of the reasons the water has tasted so bad has been that the drug messes with my electrolyte balance, and makes many things taste funky. Thanks to the many folks who wrote with suggestions about what warm beverages to drink. Some of them I hadn't thought of! I appreciate the support and the thoughtfulness of your suggestions.

But this post is about flowers, of the family Oxalis, with two of them pictured here. From the beginning, I've been struck by the similarity between the beginning of these two words, oxaliplatin, the chemo drug I'm infused with, and oxalis, which is a lovely flower with three lobed leaves. I've occasionally grown oxalis, as a house plant (they are often sold as "shamrocks" in March, with their three-lobed leaves), but even that's not the story I want to tell. I just tried to look up the origin of the word oxaliplatin, and got nowhere. I do know that it's a "platinum" drug, so that explains the end of its name. I don't know about its beginning. So, here's my oxalis story.

When I was 10 and in fifth grade, I participated in the New Jersey State Grange Spelling Bee. Spelling has always come easily to me, and I had won for my school, and went to the state capital, Trenton, for the state spelling bee. "Way back then," in the 1950s, we didn't prepare as intensively as kids do for state spelling bees (if Akeelah and the Bee is any indication), but I think I did some practicing before going. As the spelling bee went on, I was doing very well. Then there were just two of us left standing on stage. My next word? Oxalis, except that the person reading the words pronounced it "oxy-lis." I asked for a definition, learned that it was a flower/plant, asked for it to be repeated (and wished later I'd asked for alternative pronounciations). With the pronunciation, it sounded most like oxygen, so I went with o-x-y-l-i-s. As you already know, I was wrong. The one contestant still standing spelled her word correctly, and won the state championship.

I was happy to win second place in the state, and to get my picture in the paper. When they asked me to say something, I said it was good that people would now finally hear of "Vincentown," the tiny town in NJ where my family was living. I didn't like being from someplace no one had ever heard of. Aren't ten year olds amazing? Like my getting second place was really going to make a difference! Anyway, I always like telling that story, and I'm pleased I did so well, and I've been fascinated by the flower oxalis ever since. And I wouldn't misspell it again, that's for sure! Lucy is a good speller, too, and it's been fun sharing this story with her as she has worked her way through increasingly difficult words.

So, there's probably no connection between this intense chemotherapy drug and these sweet little flowers. But I have better associations with the drug if I think of the flowers. Tomorrow begins Week 2 of this cycle. I'm hoping for increasingly less cold sensitivity, and increasingly more appetite and that food and beverages will taste better.

The Robin in My Backyard

Like many folks who have grown up in the Northeast, I have come to see robins as a first sign of spring, as they return from wintering over somewhere warmer and farther south.

This year, I have a robin in my yard that's never left! I like to make up stories about things, so the story I've made up about this robin ("my" robin) in my thinking is that it was lured to stick around this winter when the winter began so mild. I swear I remember seeing it catch worms in the yard up to mid-January, before the weather turned suddenly and deeply wintry. At first, I worried about what she was eating (Yes, in my mind, she's a "she;" see how I make up stories?), and then I noticed that the berries on the dogwood tree in the side yard were slowly disappearing. Next, she discovered the holly bush in the front yard, full of berries, and she would even sing her tuneless robin song from the front yard, as if she had discovered a great treasure. Now, I don't know of any remaining berries in my yard (although she might), but I see her almost every morning at my water garden.

So, here's a photo of my water garden in winter; no robin; she's too smart to stick around when we (or the yard cats) are outside. In order to allow exchange of oxygen/carbon dioxide for the fish in the water garden, I put in a floating water heater. It keeps the ice from freezing the entire surface of the water, and, in addition to keeping my fish (and any bullfrogs wintering over down in the leaves) alive, it provides fresh liquid water for the birds, and cats, other wildlife, and for my robin. And even for a stray bluebird (formally known as an Eastern bluebird).

A few weeks ago, I saw a bluebird at the water garden, and wondered what it was doing this far north when it's so cold. I don't see bluebirds in my yard in the summer, so I was especially surprised to see her there. My friend Richard, who has bluebird houses and loves them, too, showed me a picture in a bird book of about 10 bluebirds tightly packed in a bluebird house in the winter. The book also said that bluebirds stop eating insects in winter and switch to berries. So then I added to "my story" about "my robin," and figured that, like bluebirds, she has shifted from her usual diet of earthworms to berries.

Okay, I know this has nothing to do with my illness, or my current physical state. So how do I feel today? Pretty good, tolerating the chemo well, eating well. But I'm not going out much with the cold air and my recent infusion of oxaliplatin, so I look out the windows a lot and dream of spring and things growing and turning green again. Even though this robin has stayed for winter, and so is not the typical harbinger of spring, she makes me smile and makes my heart happy. I admire her fortitude, her ability to survive and even thrive in this alien weather. I guess her life-fullness gives me hope, makes me happy. So, I share with you her story.

Credit to Patty for going out on this cold day to take this picture. Thanks, Patty!

Later note: I woke up thinking this morning that not everyone who might read this knows what these birds look and sound like, so I've created links to some websites with photos and bird songs, and some links to water garden pictures - in full summer mode, of course!