Day 249 – More Bucket List Fun and Tooth Troubles

We took care of another item on the Bucket List - a long weekend trip by train to Boston.  We walked miles each day because the weather and our energy held and because Jeff preferred traveling on foot rather than the subway.  We also used a sightseeing trolley bus to get around town but, of course, it only made a loop in one direction. 

Jeff's appetite impressed me, even considering the steroid factor.  Waiters offered advice on what the hungry man ought to order and he was never disappointed.  Our favorite meal was at a small Italian restaurant called Euno in Boston's North End.  Dino took good care of us there.  We shared an antipasto, quite a lot of food - cheeses, prosciutto, olives, arugula - and then Jeff ate a 24-ounce rib eye steak!  I had zuppe di pesce which Jeff finished for me, just like he always used to do.

While we were enjoying our meal, we heard Dino tell the diners at the next table to return on February 27th for their Leukemia and Lymphoma Society fundraiser; fifty percent of the proceeds would be donated.  Later, when Dino stopped at our table, I thanked him for supporting the L&LS and told him that the healthy appetite Jeff was busy demonstrating was newly re-acquired.  Dino was so happy to hear Jeff's story that he offered me another glass of wine, on the house.  I declined with the confession, "I'm a cheap date."  When we ordered dessert, though, Dino decided that would be on the house because Jeff was "doing so well."  We then shared Tiramasu, probably the best we'd ever had.  It was at least as good as Theresa's!  Jeff still had his reading glasses on the table when we finished our meal.  He put the glasses on and pretended to search his plate and the table around it for any crumbs he may have missed!  No chance!

Of all the restaurants in Boston, we managed to go to two of them twice.  One was the McDonald's near our hotel where we had breakfast twice.  We rarely go to McD's when we are at home - imagine that! - and Jeff was eager to have Egg McMuffins, plural; he ate 3.5 of them this morning!  We also had lunch twice at a German restaurant near our hotel, Jacob Wirth's, the second oldest restaurant in Boston.  

The only complaint we can make about the hotel was that they offered free, warm chocolate chip cookies.  Oh, boy.  Jeff enjoyed one of these big beauties every night, even if we had just had dessert with dinner!  I would have preferred free Internet but I have to say the cookies were very nice.

Other highlights of our trip included seeing the Blue Man Group (a feel-good, high energy show), visiting the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Kim's recommendation), lunch at Cheers (it sounds tourist-y but the food was actually good), walking and touring parts of the historic Freedom Trail, and visiting the Museum of Fine Arts from opening to close and still missing lots and lots of it.  We were on the move as much as we ever were on vacation and we enjoyed our hikes around town - plenty of conversation and a good deal of laughter.

On all of our family vacations in the past (usually car trips), I was the map-reader/navigator while Jeff's magnetic nose oriented us to the direction we intended to travel.  We made a good pair.  Interestingly, we noticed on this trip that he no longer seems to possess that magnetic nose.  Trains seemed to him to approach from the wrong direction, causing him concern over whether we were headed in the intended direction.  Unfortunately, he also did not seem to be able to consistently follow our routes on the map which kept him disoriented and distrustful of my navigation.  Poor guy!

At our last Gilda's Club meeting, we told the group we were planning these two Bucket List adventures, ice-skating in NYC and a weekend trip to Boston.  Connie asked Jeff if he worried about getting sick while we were away.  Evidently, that had once happened to her; her husband nodded vigorously as they remembered that terrible trip.  Jeff hadn't thought much about that possibility but admitted to me later that he worried that I would get sick and we wouldn't have a car.  For some reason, the idea that we couldn't drive home on our own schedule bothered him.

Jeff didn't get sick but he did lose part of a tooth.  Other cancer patients have told Jeff that chemo wrecked their teeth and he was naturally hoping to avoid that problem.  Our new friend, Jeff R., did not typically have trouble with his teeth yet after his stem cell transplant - and something like 30 chemo treatments - he had five cavities!  The broken tooth did not seem to bother Jeff much.  He will be off to the dentist in the next day or two, though.

Jeff thanked me a few times for making the arrangements for this trip.  He is such a sweetheart!