Sunday, April 22, 2007

Day +46: Silliness and Lepidoptera


Keith continues to feel well and is in good spirits, thanks in part to Scott spending the weekend with him at RM House. When he acts silly, we know he is feeling ok and it didn't take too much encouragement for him to act the part for the quick series of photos above.


The overnight rains cleared out leaving us with a beautiful Sunday morning in Palo Alto. We managed to get Keith motivated to take a walk along a nice multi-use trail along Sand Hill Road. Along the path we spotted a caterpillar in the leaves of a nearby branch and then noticed that the tree was covered with them. When we got back to the RM House our curiosity led us to look up what kind of caterpillars they were and our best guess is that they are Tussock moth larvae (Orgyia pseudotsugata). Any lepidopterists out there?

Later Scott and I grabbed a trash bag and retraced our walk again, this time picking up trash along the trail as our Earth Day duty. Sadly, we filled a large trash bag in a matter of minutes.


Monday is back-to-business day for Keith and he resumes school at the hospital followed by his radiation treatment. He will also stop by the clinic and have his labs drawn. As the radiation therapy will most likely lower his blood counts, transfusions are expected in to keep his counts up and he may indeed need a unit of platelets fairly soon.


3 comments:

Tami said...

Steve,

You are absolutely spot on with regard to the pesky caterpillars. We here in the PA, MP & Stanford area are quite fed up with them! This seems to be an unusually heavy year and they are everywhere creating havoc. When they land and made contact with your skin, one may have a reaction with redness and itchy skin. Just steer clear of the oaks. =) More here.....
http://www.nbc11.com/news/12530871/detail.html

Keith, I am so happy to hear you are getting more outdoor time and returning to the gourmet you are! You and your family remain in my prayers and I will be dropping off some platelets this week in your name at the BB on Welch.

All Best,
Tami
(mom of Marisa who worked with Uncle John)

Linda Bemis said...

Hi Keith,

I have been away, but the first thing I did on returning home was to catch up with your activities.

Good news that everything is going well.

God Bless,
Linda B

Julie Whitsitt said...

It seems like the season for all types of caterpillars. Tom Applebaum (the Park Pool manager) had a cool inch-worm in his hair last week. I was tempted to just leave it there because he has that large mass of wire hair - the worm would have had a great time. Tom has been such a help with the darn heaters and getting the pool ready for swim team that I could not do that to him, so I plucked it out of his hair and set it free on the oak tree.
Trevor started Ratios in math today. I guess it was too easy to stay on Geomentry for more than one week. We are also studying the states and capitols. I made flash cards and know all except for the East Coast (oh! I really mean Trevor knows). HaHaHa!! I would never survive the show "are you smarter than a 5th grader?"
The weather is finally getting nice again and we are expecting some heat this weekend. I am truly a summer person, so the rain just puts me in a bad mood. I could never live in show (sorry Michigan Family) but snow is just too much for me.
John & Brad say "HI!!" and send big splashing waves your way. They will make the kids do an extra 100 butterfly for you in warm ups.
Take Care
ps. I think I finally got this new message site undercontrol. Thank you Steve.