One nice part of being back in CT is consistent nights of 8+ hours of sleep. And even though I still wake up at least once during the night, they are restful nights.  

The closer to Thanksgiving we get, the busier the days are getting, as usual. 

When I woke up I ran a couple of errands before coming back to the house for a quick lunch. After lunch I drove down to Union Station in New Haven, about 50 miles away, to pick up my sister-in-law and niece. 

Pitifully, the 50 mile drive took the same average amount of time that my 13 mile drive to my office takes. 

We spent a few hours running errands including multiple stops at different grocery stores as we filled the house with groceries for Thanksgiving. 

The multiple grocery store stops had one big benefit. During the holiday season Laura and I donate a bag of food for every time we are at the grocery store. Therefore, the more times we go to the grocery store, the more families we are able to help. 

This week we have already donated five bags of groceries to families in need during this holiday season. 

In addition to running errands, I went to a local Quest Diagnostics to have my Day 21 blood work drawn.  

I was supposed to have my blood work done the Thursday that we flew back here however it completely slipped my mind. 

I was scheduled to start my next round of chemo the Sunday following Thanksgiving but I have my next MRI appointment on Friday, December 4th, so our neuro-oncology team wants me to delay until after the MRI. 

I will have my Day 28 blood work done when I’m at UCSF on the Friday that we get back even though it is not seven days following this today’s blood work. 

We spent the evening playing with my niece. Since we last saw her in August she has learned how to crawl and stand up on her own. Every time we blinked she had taken off into another room or was doing something else. 

It was a lot of fun to play with her and it will be great to hang out with her for the rest of the week while we’re here. 

Though I had originally planned on getting to the gym today it didn’t pan out because of how long our errands took. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to make it there tomorrow for my shoulders session.