Visiting in the Heat and Travelling Home

Joyce and I had an uneventful trip home yesterday. She is an excellent traveller.

San Antonio was wonderful if you can tolerate the heat. I read somewhere that it is growing at the rate of 30,000 people a year. It is one of those cities that has no natural boundary surrounding it to prevent growth. Miles of open land Neast toward Houston, west toward El Paso and north but west of I-35. I has been growing so fast that just normal commercial infrastructure is limited. It was five miles from Missy's house to the only gasoline outlet in the area. All that being said, where she lives has a clean fresh look to it. I can see why so many people like to live there. Did I mention it was hot? Dry too.

For all of us, it was as good a visit as you can have. We did some sightseeing, a lot of eating and Joyce got to spend some quality time with Missy and Marie. It took Joyce the first night to become comfortable in the house and from then on, while she paced some, she also sat for long stretches. She seems much calmer toward the end of the injection cycle than towards the beginning. The other side, to me, is she is less cooperative near the end of the cycle, although Missy had a lot of success with her. We go back to Lake Charles for an injection Thursday on our three week cycle.

While our trip was uneventful travelling with Joyce can present some problems. Society's norms have no problem with a mother taking a little boy into a women's restroom or a man taking a baby in the men's room. Unless the facility is a one at a time restroom, everyone is uncomfortable if I go in with Joyce or take her in with me. Luckily she is able to still go by herself but when she does I don't know if she needs anything or actually does the business needed. Believe me there are no certainties. When we arrived in San Antonio her "depends" was still dry. When returning I had to change it after arriving home.

This past week convinced me that we can still travel and that it is good for both of us to do it periodically. It certainly refreshed my spirits and allowed us to visit some extended family as well as close family. Again the enbrel treatments have allowed us to do this by making Joyce more self sufficient than she was last December. Thank you all

PAL