Good For Another Three Months

Today Harold and I went to Fargo to his oncologist.  Some of you may know that Harold has been fighting multiple myeloma for the past 3 years.  He has had radiation for tumors, almost 3 years of chemo, and lots of at home drugs.  He's been in remission for a few months now, and the good news is that he still is!  From now on he only has to go to Fargo to the Roger Maris Cancer Center every three months for an IV drip of a bone strengthener and a check up with the oncologist.  And instead of weekly blood tests, he only needs monthly blood tests.  Unless something changes this will be the new routine.  He is also taking a new anti-cancer drug called Pomalyst for multiple myeloma (bone marrow cancer), and that seems to be working well for him.    This is a good deal, because driving to Fargo is not only boring, but it can be dangerous in the winter.  The land is extremely flat (Harold says you can watch your dog run away from home for 3 days), and when it is snowing and windy, the driving is always white out conditions.   Today I took a photo of the typical landscape we drive through for 2 hours to get to Fargo:

Flat, boring driving out on the prairies in North Dakota and Minnesota

Here are a couple photos of this same stretch of land in the winter.  As you can see, driving is difficult and any kind of wind at all blows the snow into near zero visibility.

North Dakota prairie on a clear winter day.

North Dakota when the wind is blowing on the prairie. (And wind chill is about 50 below zero)

So, as you can tell from the pictures, if we don't have to drive much to Fargo this winter that is wonderful news!   We don't have to drive to Fargo until February 5, 2014!  And any trips we MIGHT make to Fargo (for fun or shopping) we can do on a nice clear, calm day when it isn't snowing and the roads are not icy!
We really do love the prairie lands when crops are growing and the prairie grasses and wildflowers are blooming.  But winter on the prairie is something else.............well, us northern Minnesotans and North Dakotans are a truly hardy bunch of people, don'cha know!