Our First Day at Loma Linda

This blog is to let everyone who cares know what’s happening with the Stirnamans as they proceed on their adventures in Loma Linda where Al is undergoing treatment for


prostate cancer.



This was our first day and what a day it was. We slept like logs last night. The memory foam topper on the bed was an absolute blessing - no more bedsprings that you can feel.

And Al (he’s such a sweetie!) brought me a dozen red roses for our 23rd wedding anniversary which is today. It almost got forgotten in all the hoopla getting ready to live in the 5th wheel for nine weeks.



Al had to be at the Proton Center by 11:30 for an noon appointment. Everything went well until then. We sat down at the jigsaw puzzle table and started working on a nearly impossible puzzle with a lady named Shirley from Oregon. Her husband’s appointment was about the same time as Al’s. As we all struggled with this insane puzzle, we started to notice that the room was filling up (apparently that is not usual, but we ‘newbies’ haven’t had time to learn that). The machine had broken down. We had heard, when we were here for the consult appointment, that this sometimes happens and appointments are delayed, or even cancelled! Lucky Al! It happened on his first day. It was about 2:00 when they finally called him in. I spent three hours working on that %$#%$ puzzle and only found eleven pieces that fit - and I’m GOOD at puzzles.



Meanwhile, Al was back in the treatment area where he didn’t have an actual treatment. They got him all fixed up for a treatment but all they did was take more x-rays to be sure that nothing had moved in the three weeks since they had originally measured him. He has to be back for treatment #1 at 3:45 tomorrow. That’s when we’ll get our green stickers on our badges indicating that treatment has begun and that we’re ‘newbies’. You don’t really feel like you totally “belong” until you start getting your stickers. It’s kind of strange that it’s set up like I’m in treatment too, but that’s the way it is. Everybody talks about ‘we’ and ‘us’ when they talk about themselves and what’s going on with the husband.



We had to try to arrange for me to get bloodwork done down here for Dr. Frazer back home. I have an appointment there on May 11th and I completely forgot about the lab stuff before we left. I think that it’s going to work out OK as long as we can find the lab. This University Medical Center is HUGE! The lab is in the eight, or so, square blocks somewhere.



We needed groceries for the few days that we can fit in our teeny, tiny refrigerator so we hopped (well, HE hopped. I have to work very hard to get into that truck) and drove about thirty seconds down the street to Food 4 Less. I got sticker shock from the prices

but we got almost everything we needed. We still needed two more things and decided to go to the other end of the shopping center - about 3 blocks away - to Wal Mart. When we got there I realized that I didn’t have my purse! Al hot-footed it back to F4L where I was sure that it was in the shopping cart next to where we had parked the truck while we were there. He was gone so long that I became a born-again Catholic and did a lot of praying (pleading?) that he would find the purse. All of our spending money (on Shell Vacation cards) was in there along with all the usual things you find in a purse. Thank God that someone had turned it in to the store. God bless whoever that was too!



After all that excitement, I was completely worn out and looked it! We were planning to out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary. I was too pooped to want to get all gussied up so we decided to try the Macaroni Grill just down the street. ‘Dinner was mahvelous darlings’ and cost enough that we should have been dressed up. We got home in time to watch “House” - a perfect end to a day that had more than it’s fair share of excitement.