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.