The ordeal is over!!!

It’s finally over. Mom went to her final radiation appointment today. The doctor says the mass is half the size it was when she started and will continue to shrink in size over the next month or so. He said they will continue to monitor her to make sure it has not spread anywhere else. They even gave her a little box of chocolateS today. I can’t say enough about the doctor and staff at the radiation place. They have been so wonderful and caring each time mom came for her appointments.

Now both mom and dad can celebrate life as cancer SURVIVORS!!



Shampoo warning.

My mother sent this to me. I don't know if she's trying to say something, but thought I would share it with you.

Have you ever noticed that the shampoo you use in the shower (that runs down your body) says, "for extra volume and body." 

Well, that explains alot.  So I'm thinking that I'm going to start using Dawn dish washing soap. It says, "dissolves fat that is otherwise difficult to remove." Bikini here I come.

I think Tamie has found a new job...

The Handywoman!

Everytime she goes over to mom and dad's house, she ends up working on something.  Recently while she was doing dishes for mom and dad, the sink clogged up.  I think it was her way of getting out of doing the dishes, except she ended up having to help dad unclog the sink.  I will post here what Tamie posted on her blog... it's too priceless.

Dad made a wonderful breakfast for Mom and I.   Well, while I was doing the dishes, I heard a noise coming from the sink that sounded like  someone was knocking.  I told my Dad and come to find out I managed to clog up the drain, and I mean CLOGGED...  So Dad goes and gets his trusty clog opener "The Snake".  Now this weird looking thing is older then my sister and I put together.  And of course Mom is sitting there laughing at me because I was making these funny faces.  As Dad is pushing this wire looking snake thing down the drain I got the job of twisting it by hand. Okay if that wasn't bad enough I ended up breaking the Snake, I twisted it to much and it got all tangled and bent.  But being the clever man my father is he fixed it.  Which meant here we go again twisting that dang Snake.  The second round was the charm the water in the sink finally went down.  Yeah!!!!

Well, everyone is happy until Sunday when the sink gets clogged again.  Dad asks if I have a snake and if he could borrow it (since Tamie broke his) :-).  So I get our snake, bring it over and the next day when Tamie comes over to take mom to her treatment, he tells her that the sink was clogged but not anymore. He showed it my snake and it cleared itself.  Mine must have been scarier than dad's. 

Update on mom...

Last Friday while Tamie and mom were at mom's radiation treatment, mom's radiation doctor, Dr. Yang, stopped by to see her and told her that her lungs sound good and that she is doing great. Mom only has 11 more treatments left. She seems to have more energy and isn't as tired as she was 14 treatments ago.

I wanted to share a momentous occasion with you

Perla has never warmed up to grandpa.  In fact, she would never even come close to him if she could avoid it.  If he was nearby, she would not come out from her hiding place until he moved away. And he's never done anything to her to make her fear him.

Well... this was truly a kodak moment and had to be written in the history books.  Here is a picture of grandpa actually feeding Perla with his hands and she is taking it from him.  OMG!

Thought it only fair that I post a picture of Karl at age 2

Just wait till I find my picture of Tamie at age 2.

Has she changed over the years?

Tiffany - age 2

Wait till I show this photo to Izabella...

I was going through some photos a few days ago, and found this one of me holding Tiffany in one of those front loader baby holding gizmos.  I'm thinking Izabella will get a good giggle over this photo.  Of course I don't look anything like this photo now, and I'm guessing that those gizmo thingys don't come in my size now to hold Izabella... just joking. Can you believe this was taken in 1984? Now this little one is having a little one of her own.

Uncle Paul says that he wants to wait to meet Izabella around the same as as he met her mom.  And for those that don't know why, I'll tell you.  I was babysitting Tif one day and Uncle Paul came by to pick us up to go do something.  I picked up Tif and placed her in the front seat of the truck Uncle Paul used to drive all the time so that I could get in too, and she took one look at him and he took one look at her, and she burst into tears.  He says he burst into tears as well. 

Updates on mom's radiation treatments

Just wanted to share with you how mom is doing with her radiation treatments.  She is holding up remarkably well.  Since she has been doing the radiation treatments she has also been drinking one of the containers of Boost and taking liquid Vitamin D and she seems to have more energy now than she did before.  She only has 12 treatments left and I'll bet she'll be glad when they are done. She had a little scare recently with bronchitis, but that was nipped early and she's doing much better now.

...and speaking of dad, he's doing fine as well.

Can't keep either one of them down for long.  They are constantly going and doing something.

How does he do it?

The battle between grandpa and Tiffany is continuing.  My rose bushes have failed me again, but  I always have hope for next year.  Anyway, here is a recent photo of grandpa's roses.... Can't you just smell the fragrance from this photo?

Also, I wanted to share with you recent photos of his outside "farm".  His $1.50, almost dead, tomato plant is unbelievably enormous now. He definitely has the green thumb.

It's watering day at the "farm"

Here is a photo of dad watering his indoor "farm" of plants.  He knows exactly how much to give each plant and has them on a watering schedule.  In fact, I guess Tamie or somebody must have tried to help dad with the watering and over watered one of his plants that is not supposed to get a lot of water and it almost died. It's the wilted looking one  on the right side of the bench, poor little plant.

Grandpa's blooming cacti

Everything that grandpa touches here lately, blooms.  I'm serious.  Even weeds are blooming.  Here is a current photo of his cacti in bloom.

Mother's Day weekend

We all decided to spend our Mother's Day/birthday party as one and go to the Fort for crablegs this past Saturday.  Although most of us didn't come home winners (except grandpa), we had a great time and had great crablegs.

Tamie got a new camera from Tiffany and Karl as her mother's day gift, and Grandpa and Uncle Paul got beautifully handmade birthday cards with gifts inside. Tiffany is so creative with her cricket, I'm so jealous.  I have one, but I'm not as spontaneously creative as she is. Speaking of creativeness, I almost forgot that Tiffany made Grandma two t-shirts that say "Great Grandma To Be".  Naturally, after we got done eating we had to go to the ladies room and put one of them on.  Now normally one would take off the top they are wearing and put on the new top.  But noooooo, mom puts the t-shirt on over her top that she was wearing. What was the sense in going to the ladies room to change?  Oh well, it's her t-shirt and her great grand child that she was bragging about, and she can wear it however she wants.

Yesterday, I went over to pick up mom to take her grocery shopping and brought her the flower arrangement I made from Tamie and I.  Here's some pictures, I really liked the ceramic pitcher and colorful beads. (P.S. These don't have to be watered. They will stay pretty forever.) When mom gets tired of the flowers, she can use the pitcher for something else.

Guess who took this photo?

As a side note, these pictures were taken by Tamie with her new camera. Nice quality don't you think? Anyway, I wanted to let you know the reason for the first up close photo of the purple flower.  Yep, Tamie's favorite color is purple, and yep, it was her camera. Need I say more? Nice photos Tamie.

This Sunday is Mother's Day!

Updates on mom and dad

I'm taking some of what Tamie wrote in her blog to post here for everyone to read. 

Tamie takes Mom to her radiation appointments everyday since I have to work, and Monday morning was no different except... the radiation people called and told her not to come because their computers were down. There was only one problem, they were only a mile away from the radiation place by the time they called. So they decided show up and wait to see if the computers started working. They hung around for over an hour and nope they couldn't fix the computers. They ended up canceling Monday's treatment and adding another day on the end.

Poor dad has had one problem after another with getting his prescriptions filled.  Last Friday, he goes to the doctor, they prescribe a new medication and tell him they will call it in.  Tamie takes dad to the pharmacy, and there is no prescription ready.  OK, no problem, they go back the next day, still no prescription.  This is not the first time he has had trouble getting his prescriptions, but this time Tamie called the doctor's office and made sure they called it in before she went back to the pharmacy.  I think dad has something to do with the problem getting his prescriptions, since he hates to take prescriptions anyway. :-)

Last Friday when Tamie took Mom to her radiation appointment, Tamie asked the doctor to check mom out because I had mentioned that mom sounded like she was wheezing when she breathed. As it turned out, he thinks that she has bronchitis and gave her a prescription for antibiotics. The doctor is hoping that he caught the infection early before it turns into pneumonia. Mom seems to be doing much better.