One Mother with Cancer

Day +24

2009-04-11T15:20:00.012-04:00

Sorry I've been AWOL the last few days, I wouldn't have time to tell the whole story. They finally took me off the TPN, no sooner than they did that. They started sending up all of the specialist. At first they suggest that it may be VOD, and they they thought that it may be related to my Liver. They even suggested taking a biopsy of my liver. I've had a doppler ultrasound, a CAT-SCAN, they've done another EKG, and an x-ray, then they they did a biopsy of my lower arm that came back negitive for GVHD. So they put me back on the feeding line (TPN). My kidneys and my liver are currently failing, so on Monday they have me scheduled for a Biopsy of the liver, and I may have to go on dialisis to help my kidneys out.

Within 4 days last week I have gained 28 pounds (in less than a week), my legs are swollen My eyes are yellow and it looks like someone punched me right in the eye because I have a bruise all around it. If I have to go to the bathroom I have to call for a nurse to help me up off of the bed. They are going to take me off of the TPN tonight and see if I can get some food down. I currently look like I'm 8 months preganat, but it is just all from the swelling.

Today after Rick left to go home my Doctor came in to go over some results, and that they would be doing a biopsy of my liver. She asked me how I was feeling, I said to be honest I'm really scared. She said yeah we pretty scared too. Thank you...??? Nice reassurance. I am in alot of physical pain. Oh and did I mention up until about Wednesday they were talking about sending me home.

Veno-occlusive disease (VOD)

This is a complication that can happen during the first 30 days after transplantion from the high doses of chemotherapy that you recieve. VOD affects the liver and makes it more difficult for your liver to function properly. Weight gain or fluid collections in your abdomen, abdominal pain, and an increase in your total bilirubin are all signs that you will be monitored for during transplation. VOD can be mild or severe and although some patients recover from this complication, VOD can be fatal.

Please keep my family in your prayers.

Day +20

2009-04-08T14:10:00.007-04:00

I'm going to do the very best that I can as far as posting today. I've been given so many different medications, that I can hardly stay awake.By the way Joe thanks for the advice, it has definitely been worth it, and has made my time here go so much faster.

All yesterday afternoon, they pushed fluids through me, So much so that my stomach is very Swollen. The doctor last night said that everything else was looking really good. This morning When I uncovered my feet my left foot was HUGE!!! Plus I have some terrible rashes that are out of control. They are giving me some sort of water pills through my I.V. so far it's not doing it's job.

I'll be very honest, I'm scared. They have no idea whats going on, So they sent me down for a CAT-SCAN, and a Doppler ultra sound. That woman liked to have killed me. She pushed that Doppler deep in my groin, and deep into my legs. All I can say is, MAN that really hurt, I was crying like a baby when she was finally done.

Well the doctor just left and she is going to send me back downstairs to have have more tests done. The rashes seem to be GVHD related (hopefully that will be ok, as long as it stays mild.)
Needless to say I'll probally not be able to go home this weekend.

Day +18

2009-04-07T16:56:00.009-04:00

Well we finally got my nose to stop bleeding.They want me to stop getting fed with the TPN. So when they unhook me tonight, they won't be putting it back on. They want to see how I handle food on my own without any meds. So sometime in the next few days I have to get Diabetic education so I can do my own insulin shots when I get out. The doctor said that they are hoping on on sending me home by this weekend.

Today is Rick and my anniversary, we've been married for fourteen years. Um... it's safe to assume that I didn't realize that I was still going to be in the hospital, for the big day.

I have been in and out of it all day, so needless to say each and every time I was holding a glass of water I fell asleep, and only woke up when I felt the water dumping out all of me. The nurses were not mad because they had to keep changing the bedding, but instead they found it very funny. Mary my nurse for today took my blood pressure and when she went to tear the cuff off of me I about jumped out of my skin, because I had already fallen asleep sitting straight up.

Day+17

2009-04-06T13:48:00.004-04:00

What kind of drugs do they give to cancer patients? I have never been high my whole life, wouldn't even concider it. These past two days I have definately been high. I can't keep my eyes open, and when I do wake up I find myself takling out loud. I called Rick I can't tell you how many times this morning. One time he asked me, "What are you talking about? I said, I know you saw my mother she was supposed to go to the hospital, why won't you tell me whats wrong with her." He said April what in the world are you talking about.

Then I had several nurses come in and they knew that I was out of it, so they were all laughing at me. (Question: Is that professional?) I'm just kidding I would laugh my butt of if I witnessed something like that.

Finally around 1pm I woke up. my nurse came in and asked if she could take some blood for my glucose test, I looked her straight in the eye and said, nope! She just stood there dumbfounded. I said, I was just kidding. At least I got her back for laughing at me this morning.

The gel that they put in my nose is supposed to melt within 48 hours. Then I'm going to try to eat tomorrow, the faster that I can eat, and walk the sooner I can get out of here.

Day +16

2009-04-05T19:36:00.012-04:00

Well last night you guessed it I fought with a bloody nose, this morning it had finally stopped. So this morning I got ready and went for a walk, I walked the hallways twice. Went back to my room sat in the chair and then I decided to take a nap I sat down on the bed put my water on my side table, looked down and then my nose started gushing again. I called for the nurse and we had to pack my nose again, and again, and again. FINALLY they decided to call down the Ear Nose and throat specialist. When he came up he took this huge thing out of his bag it looked like a giant pair of tweezers. He ended up pulling out two huge blood clots out of each side of my nose, and two huge blood clots out of the back of my throat. They ended up putting some sort of gel up both sides of my nose it will take two days for that medication to melt. So for the next few days I have to eat, drink and, breathe through my mouth.

My aunts ex-husband, and father to two of her children died this morning, he had brain cancer, and told him that he had 24-48 hours to live. My aunt Robin had a stroke when she was 44 (she'll be 51 in June). So she has been living with my mom for the last few months, because she is paralyzed on one side of her body, she still has seizures, and strokes. So when she found out that Pete was dying it really hit her hard, because they had still remained friends over the years.

Other than that every thing seems to be going ok. They are looking at sending me home later this week.

Day +15

2009-04-04T19:13:00.004-04:00

Last night I was up almost all night for, you guessed it a bloody nose. We finally got it under control in time for Rick to visit, then he left to go pick up Ricky and Breanna. Not too long after that my bloody nose was back. (They gave me platelets at 5am) within a few hours it was back under control.

I called mom to see how the kids were last night. She said that they were fine, but they were still there, and my husband was asleep on her couch. Around 1:30 I called her again and she said that Rick was still asleep. I had her to wake him up so that I could talk to him. He finally got up and then he text me a picture of Ricky and Breanna with their new bunny. I called him back to see if it was a real rabbit or not. My mom and her husband got them a rabbit for Easter. I told her that they couldn't bring it home, that's one of the instructions they gave me about coming home. We cannot have a new animal for a year. She said that she knew that, and they were going to keep it at their house for the kids.

After that phone call I was lying down, I sat up and my nose started gushing blood again. This time it wouldn't stop. They had to use a suction tube to get the blood from the back of my throat. About two hours later I was throwing up straight blood. The nurse called the Doctor on call, and they gave me a second bag of platelets, and packed both sides of my nose. FINALLY about 1 1/2 hours later we got the bleeding to stop. I'm so exhausted.

The good news is my White Blood Cell count if finally starting to come up it's 3.1 today, and I was just given my last neuprogen shot. The doctor said that I need to start working on getting solid foods down so that they can get off of this TPN. Because it looks like next weekend I'll be going home. According to the doctor, platelets are the last count to come back up. When I first go home I'll have to come back up to the BMT unit so they can give me platelets, and red blood cells as needed.

Day +14

2009-04-03T11:19:00.003-04:00

I had a rough night last night, I had a nose bleed ALL night long. Actually it still has not stopped, but they have already given me platelets, and I'm currently receiving one of two bags of blood.

A friend of mine stopped by last night (Stacy) we used to work together. She brought my Christmas present that she had never gotten around to giving me, a really nice scarf, two hats, and a pair of gloves. At least I won't have to buy any new ones this fall. She also brought me a People magazine (YEAH) although I have to read it in segments, most of the time I can't keep my eyes open long enough to read anything.

The nurses just told me that my white blood cells are coming up nicely so I only have to take the Neuprogen shots for two more days!! I can't wait those shots hurt so bad, I dread taking them.

Day +13

2009-04-02T16:24:00.005-04:00

Finally: My counts have finally started to come up. Until last Friday my white blood cell count was <.2, Saturday it went up to .4, Sunday and Monday it went back down to <.2, Tuesday it was .2, Wednesday it reached.4 again, and today I have 1.0. Which means I have 1000 white blood cell counts. I have to have 2000 several days in a row before they let me go home.

The rest of the counts are:
Red blood cells - 8.0 (when it gets under 8 I have to have a Blood Transfusion.
Platelets - 27 (I've received platelets both yesterday, and the day before)

I'm feeling much better, still having issues with bloody noses. This morning when Rick came to visit we walked the hallways twice, he had to push my I.V. pole for me because they are making me walk with a walker for now, until I get more stable when I walk. All of my doctor's and nurses commented how well I was doing. I'm making good progress according to them. Walking with a walker is a little odd, but it was much easier.

When Rick came up for his visit this morning he said that I'm starting to get some color back onto my face, even the nurses have made some comments to that effect today. Up until now I've been a gray color with red, and black circles around my eyes.

Stacy a girl that I used to work with is coming up to visit this evening. I'm pretty excited, I've not had too many visitors since I've been up here. It does get lonely.

Day +11

2009-03-31T21:33:00.006-04:00

Last night I didn't sleep well, I was up and down all night running to the bathroom. Today I couldn't stay awake to save my life. I had a nose bleed that started early in the morning, and lasted until late afternoon. They had to pack my nose three times.

When the night nurse came in to do vitals she gave me my evening med's and went on to her next patient. No sooner did she walk out of the room did I start throwing up, and yes that included all of my evening med's.

Rick stopped by this morning for a couple of hours he took me for my little walk, actually I think that is when my bloody nose came on. He sat up here with me until we were both falling asleep. So I sent him home, since the kids are on spring break this week he said that he was going to come up everyday to spend some time with me.

He was surprised to see me completely bald this morning, I don't even have stubbles. I don't know if I'm going to post tomorrow, because that worm is supposed to attack computers. If not I will post on Thursday.

Day +10

2009-03-30T19:59:00.003-04:00

I'm still doing pretty good today. A few issues last night getting sick, and a nose bleed off and on all day today. Other than that I can't complain.

It's currently 8pm and my TPN (I.V. food) should be here any minute. I haven't eaten in four days, and am soooo hungry!!

My daughter Khrystyne got a tattoo this past Saturday. According to her dad it's not a small tattoo... Every time I go into the hospital those girls manage to do something to themselves that I don't necessarily approve of. First, Khrystyne and Courtney both dyed their hair black. Second, Courtney pierced her nose. Third, Courtney pierced her eyebrow. Fourth, Khrystyne got a tattoo, and of course Courtney now wants a tattoo... They manage to do all of this while I'm in the hospital. I don't know what to do with these kids... I guess Khrystyne is 18 so I don't have too much of a say, but Courtney is only 15 (almost 16). You would think she should listen to us.

Other than that I slept pretty much most of the day today so I don't have too many updates. I did want to thank everyone who has left comments for me, it really means a lot.

Day +9 (Ask and ye shall receive)

2009-03-29T19:08:00.006-04:00

Wasn't it just yesterday that I said that I can't wait for the day that I can post without a complaint? Well today just happens to be that day. Last night was pretty rough, so this morning after I read my Bible and had my morning vitals taken I took a nap right off the bat. When I woke up I felt great. They won't let me eat or drink anything but water, tomorrow they will start nutrition through my I.V. Other than that today went great.

Rick came up here to visit with me a couple of hours before Holly and the kids got up here. I talked my nurse into letting me have a 7up since I had not thrown up all day. She brought me the 7up, I took one sip and it felt like my whole mouth was on fire, lips and all. I guess the mouth sores are finally here. But hey I tried.

I've not had to have an insulin shot all day (of course I'm not eating), but still no shot is no shot.

Rick brought a movie up for us to watch, The boy in the stripped pajamas. Wow, what a story. I never saw the ending coming, it was very moving. Afterwards I had Rick take me for a walk around the block so to say, it was very exhausting!!

Holly brought the kids up around 2:30 and they all stayed for awhile for a nice visit Little Ricky kept pulling his mask down to give me a kiss, and he kept coming over for long hugs... At first though all of the kids kept their distance, because my whole face is red from me rubbing it all of the time, my eyes are even puffy. But eventually they came around.

Rick told Holly (my sister) to bring the kids up to the hospital so that way he could take them home from here. She told him, "Well I don't know I'll have to check and see if that's ok." He said what do you mean? Then she finally told the truth and said that she doesn't know what to say. He said, "Holly just go up there and see her, she's happy just to get a visitor." So she finally agreed to meet him up here. Which brings up the point Rachel (my other sister) hasn't even called me these past two weeks little lone come up here to visit with me.

After they all left I took yet another nap, woke up and visited some of the blogs that I follow. So all in all a pretty good day today.

Day +8

2009-03-28T14:56:00.008-04:00

I'm going to keep today's post short. This morning around 7am I was blessed with yet another bloody nose. This time though it lasted for FIVE hours!! They had to pack my nose twice, and I went through yet another box of Kleenex...

This part is gross so if you have a week stomach I suggest that you skip this paragraph. When they packed my nose the first time it was bleeding so bad huge blood clots were coming out of my nose, and a couple of times I spit up blood clots. So anyways when they packed my nose the blood had nowhere to go but down the back of my throat (GROSS!!) I told the nurse that all of that blood was making me sick to my stomach, so she went to get me something for nausea I got sick and threw up half a bucket of blood. Now another nurse had come in with Esta (my nurse) took one look at what was coming up, I thought she was going to get sick.

I haven't been able to keep ANYTHING down, but I was so hungry that I ordered Breakfast, and Lunch only to have them revisit me 1/2 hour later. They gave me a bag of platelets, and two bags of blood today. When my doctor came in this afternoon she alluded to the fact that I would not be getting any better for a few more weeks. Let me tell you I'm looking forward to the day I can post that I had a really good day, with no complaints to blog about.

To answer Christina's inquiry, the picture on my blog was taken a couple of weeks before I was admitted to the hospital (my six year old son took that picture of me), and three months after my last chemo. I do not look like that right now believe me!!

Rick and the kids are coming up to see me tomorrow afternoon, I can't wait I haven't seen them since last Sunday and I really miss them. I'll post more tomorrow.

Day +7

2009-03-27T17:49:00.011-04:00

Yesterday morning I woke up at 2:30 and couldn't go back to sleep. I knew the nurse was supposed to come in and draw labs at 3:30. Right before she came into my room my nose started to bleed. I ended up having a 3 1/2 hour nose bleed, using a whole box of Kleenex, and having to get both sides of my nose packed with gauze. They didn't even wait until my blood work came back they just gave me platelets. When the cleaning lady came in to clean my room, she went and found my nurse to make sure that they were aware that I had a whole trash can full of bloody tissue.

Last night I ended up sleeping pretty well, but when I woke up this morning I had the worse headache ever. Rick came up for a visit this morning so he was here when my two morning nurses were taking my vitals, getting approval for more pain meds, and giving me my morning meds through my I.V. When I told them that I needed something for nausea, so Beth went to get something for me, when I grabbed my pan and started throwing up all over the place. Poor Tasha, she couldn't go anywhere because the meds that she was putting into my I.V. had to be administered over three minutes. Afterwards Rick said, "Does it always come on so quick?" Of course sometimes it does.

Next the doctor comes in to check out the stomach pain, and to say Good-bye. She is going to another hospital. So right before she leaves she says, "By the way, just so you don't hear this on your way home in a few weeks, we're pretty sure that you're diabetic. When you were admitted into the hospital your sugar was 213, and you've been off of steroids for over a week and are still requiring insulin." (Gee doc THANKS) Of course Rick was still here so he heard it for himself.

I'll be glad when my counts finally start coming back up, I'm so tired of being sick. I've got another week or two for that to happen. I'm already ready to go home.

Day +5

2009-03-25T22:11:00.003-04:00

Ricky and Breanna's Easter Picture

I guess things really aren't going to improve much for me for a couple of weeks, according to the doctors. Rick stopped by this morning and I talked him into walking me through the hallway before he left. WOW I cannot tell you how unbelievably hard that little walk was. I had to hold onto the railings as I walked, Rick looked like he expected me to collapse at any moment. Every other move that I made he reached out like he was about to catch me. All of the nurses kept pointing out chairs for me to sit in along the way. To be honest if I had sat down I wouldn't have been able to get back up.

I did not need blood products today, but I am certain that I will need platelets tomorrow, I've had a bloody nose now for the past two hours. Not gushing but annoying. I'm still hardly able to get any food down, I must have blisters in my throat because as of this morning I can no longer swallow pills. They either put them in my IV or I have to take it in liquid form (YUCK).

I do feel a little better tonight than I did earlier today, at least that's something.

They have been giving me all of my insulin shots in my stomach, today I looked down when she was giving the shot and my whole stomach is black and blue.

I think my teenagers are having a hard time with me being in the hospital this time, they both call to check on me. Courtney always asks me how I'm doing, of course I tell her that I'm fine, then she says you don't sound fine, or you're lying. Today Holly (my sister) called and said that Courtney called her last night telling her what she thought, and had Holly call up here today to check on me.

Day +4

2009-03-24T16:30:00.004-04:00

Last night was another rough one, with still the same old things going on. They gave me anti-nausea medicine, not two minutes later I was getting sick all over the place.

The check my blood counts everyday so that they can adjust my meds as needed. The doctor came in this morning and said that I was a couple of percentage points away from being fed through my I.V. I kind of knew that one was coming I'm still not really able to eat, and I'm starting to get blisters in my mouth and throat, and now today I've got a nice rash started on the top of my hands (GVHD?)

I finally fell asleep this morning around 6am but at 7:15 Rick came in for a visit. But I was able to get some rest after he left. This afternoon I am feeling a little bit better, they wouldn't let me go out for a walk around the unit today because my counts are still too low.

Breanna loves to read and is on the A B Honor roll at school. She started reading Harry Potter this weekend and is already on chapter 5 all by herself, she's only in the third grade!! Rick said that he went upstairs to tuck Ricky and Breanna in last night, their bedroom light was on and they were both lying down reading a book. I'm glad they both have an interest in reading at such a young age.

Well I think I'm going to make another attempt at a nap. Thanks for checking in.

Day +3

2009-03-23T22:11:00.004-04:00

Today was more of the same, although I think they have finally worked out all of the kinks as far as my pain meds, and nausea meds are concerned. I didn't have any visitors today, but I did get a few phone calls. Everyone that I talk to on the phone always asks me if I was sleeping, Rick said that I just sound really week.

Tomorrow I think that I'm going to attempt to walk around the unit at least once, to try to build my strength up. I've literally been in bed for the past three days. When I get up to go to the restroom my legs shake like a feeble old lady.

The doctor's said that everything is looking good so far. I'm posting a picture of the day they did my Bone Marrow Transplant. My friend Shirley had come up from work to sit with me while I had the procedure done.

They had to give me a bag of platelets today, I'll probably need blood tomorrow. After the platelets my headache finally lifted a little bit. I still don't have an appetite, I probably didn't even consume 500 calories today, but my weight is still staying the same.

Khrystyne and Courtney are helping out around the house. Trying to keep the biggest load off of Rick. I'm really proud of them, they are taking good care of Ricky & Breanna.

Day +2

2009-03-22T22:15:00.003-04:00

Not a whole lot happened today just a lot of sleeping, taking meds, and getting sick!!! I finally got up after noon and got cleaned up and changed (I felt much better) I spoke to Rick and the kids on the phone all day, they were going to a cookout at my sisters house it's her birthday. They were supposed to come up to see me at the hospital after visiting with them for awhile. Finally I just got to tired waiting for them to show up, so I finally just fell asleep. When I woke up Rick was sitting in the chair looking at me, (I woke up moaning in pain) he had tears in his eyes. He had left the kids in the waiting room while he came in to check on me. He helped me to sit up and get comfortable so that the kids could come in for a minute. The looks on all of their faces said it all, you could tell that they were scared.

We visited for awhile, then I told Rick to go ahead and get the kids out of here. I don't like to make them worry. Rick hung back while the kids took off for the waiting room, he was all teared up again, he said that he hates seeing me this way. I told him that I'm getting better every day, and that everything will be ok. So he gave me a little kiss and left.

The minute they left I passed out, I was still so tired. But an hour later I was moaning in pain all over again, the nurse had to come in with some more pain meds (on top of the pain pump), some meds for nausea.

All in all I'm still hanging in there, I'm sure things will get better soon. We appreciate all of your thoughts and prayers.

Day +1

2009-03-21T16:51:00.003-04:00

Wow... That is all that I can say about last night... I felt well all afternoon, hardly a glitch, then all off the sudden everything hit all at once. Pain, vomiting, diarrhea, it wouldn't stop all night long. The nurse was constantly coming in and out of my room with one medication or another. But nothing helped. Then finally this morning around 7am things started to settle down just in time for a new nurse and my husband to come in. Esta my morning nurse is the bomb she finally got me settled in and Rick had no idea what to think. I looked like shit, I could barely move. I could tell that he was a little scared, just by the look on his face.

Esta got me settled in and gave me a whole barrage of drugs, so that I could get comfortable. Then Rick and I fell asleep. I finally woke him up so that he could go home to the kids. But I'm glad no one else came up to see me today, it was not a pretty sight. When Rick left I started to run a fever, so they had to do more blood cultures and start me on two different kinds of antibiotics.

So basically today has been a bust, and from the sounds of it there are going to be a few more days just like this. I told Rick today that if this transplant does not work, I won't be doing another one, it's just too much.

Please keep our family in your prayers.

Day 0

2009-03-20T09:22:00.006-04:00

Sorry it has taken so long to update, there is no computer access for patients unless you can bring a computer from home. My sister Holly brought me her laptop last night so that I can update from time to time.

I was admitted into I.U. Hospital on Friday the 13th, they took me straight down to surgery and had my double lumen placed. After that they sent me up to the Bone Marrow Transplant clinic until they had a room for me, at 6pm. So they finally got me set up, and ran blood work and got me settled in. They started chemo around 8pm, through the next morning. Then they did another round for chemo on Saturday afternoon. Sunday on the other hand was a day of rest so to say no chemo no radiation they just continually pumped me with IV fluids. My first day here I gained 9 pounds from the fluids that they were pumping through me.

Monday I had to start radiation three times a day for 48 minutes each session, that went for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday as well. Then about three days ago they started me on some new medications to suppress my immune system. The first night that I received the chemo cocktail it felt like a bomb exploded inside my body. My head hurt, my body ached, you name it I was feeling it.

So now we are up to day zero... My bone marrow will be here around 9 am, and then they will have to do their thing to the blood before giving it to me. So now I'm looking at transplant time around twelve, or twelve thirty today. They said that today would be pretty non eventful. Shirley from work is up here with me keeping me company until the time comes.

Rick and the kids are all doing pretty well, Rick was able to fix our van last weekend. Thank God, what a nightmare that was.

I'll try to update more after the fact, keep us in your prayers.

Quick Update

2009-03-10T14:47:00.001-04:00

I know it’s been awhile since I last posted, not a whole lot has been going on lately. Last week the day before I left for Florida the van started making a funny noise so we dropped it off at the shop, and the engine is shot so now we have to replace the whole thing. A friend of ours is letting us borrow her van until we can get ours fixed this weekend. Thank God for her; because the day that I was told that my cancer had relapsed the heads blew in Rick’s car (which we never fixed, because we were just using the van).

Anyways I had a really good time in Florida; I enjoyed spending time with my friend and her family. (Although after the second day I really started missing my family). We did go to a hotel to stay on the beach, but it was so cold, and the wind was blowing so hard that her little girl kept saying, “Ouch, Ouch, Ouch” because the wind was blowing the sand into her little legs. So we stayed for one night because it was warmer where Ange lives. But no joke it was in the 50’s and 60’s until the last day I was there, by then I was sick and didn’t really feel like going to the beach. I wanted to mind you, but I woke up and was so dizzy that I couldn’t even get off of the bed. Every time I got up to walk or sat down the room was spinning. But we did make several trips to the beach and even with my issues I had a really good time. Flying on the other hand was another story… I HATE FLYING!!

I received a call from Jay (BMT Coordinator) while I was in Florida; he stated that the donor hospital never submitted the paperwork for the clinical trial so I was denied for that reason. So now I’m having a mismatched unrelated Bone marrow transplant, and my treatment protocol has changed. So instead of five to seven days of chemo and a couple of days of radiation, I will have two days of chemo, one day of rest, and four days of radiation. The radiation is a treat, because I will have three sessions of radiation a day for 45min – 1hour each session. So I didn’t have to go into the hospital on Monday, I have to go in on Friday the 13th, (Jay said I hope you’re not superstitious) which I’m not, but I don’t think that my husband was happy about it. Then my transplant will take place on Friday the 20th.

Jay wanted me to come in last Friday after my trip, to sign the papers for the transplant, after I got fitted for radiation. The nurse came out and said, “Oh by the way Jay wants me to do a workup on you while you are here.” So she had to stick me two times just to get blood, and she had to hold the needle in a weird position so it was really quite painful, and she had to draw five tubes of blood. When Jay came in I told him about the dizziness, and they looked in my ears and said that I did not have an ear infection, and nothing else is wrong with me, so they think that I have Vertigo (Chemo induced) but almost a week later it hasn’t gotten much better. But they are going to look into the cause more when I get into the hospital.

My sister’s friend is going to loan me her laptop while I’m in the hospital so that when I feel up to it I can post from my room. Hopefully everything will go well over the next few weeks, and months. I really just want to get this over with, and get back to normal as quick as possible.

Everything is looking good

2009-02-25T11:50:00.003-05:00

I went to all of my appointments this week, and so far so good. Jay just called me to let me know that my bone marrow biopsy results had come in and my cancer is still in remission. So as far as I know all of the dates still stand for next month. Next Thursday when I get back from Florida I have to go back to the hospital and get fitted for radiation, and now I also have to get a spinal tap done for the clinical trial (that we are still not certain that I will be having due to the donors hospital not submitting the paperwork)… Yesterday I was notified that my prescriptions are going to run a minimum of $1,200.00 dollars per month post transplant. I hope my insurance covers most of that??

I had my latest bone marrow biopsy done on the bone marrow transplant floor, and they gave me conscious sedation. I thought that would be really great because my last few that I’ve had done I was not given so much as an Ativan. WRONG… The woman who did the biopsy first off started to do it on my left side (I am already having major problems in my right hip, and I didn’t want the same issues in my left hip) so my husband spoke up and told her that she needed to do the biopsy on the other side. Then she went in for the marrow and piece of bone, and she pulled it out, but then for some reason she went back in, now I was out of it for the most part but I remember this. Rick said it looked like she went all the way through my hip. He yelled out WHAT THE F**&? And everybody stopped what they were doing and looked at him. He asked her what had just happened? And she said, that either she got into the marrow, or the needle slid off of the bone. All I know is I can’t sleep because it hurts so bad. We went out for lunch afterwards and he had to help me out of my seat because I couldn’t stand up, and now I walk with a terrible limp. She will never do my bone marrow biopsy again EVER!! Oh, and by the way she pulled out two slivers of bone on the last attempt, and then threw them away!!!

Completely off of the subject… but why do people feel that it’s completely necessary to let you know that they too knew someone with the same kind of cancer that you have, just to tell you that they died?? That happened yet again to me today, I went for an eye exam and the optometrist asked me what kind of cancer that I had, I told him that I had Leukemia, he said, “Oh, my father had leukemia, what kind do you have?” I told him AML, he said, “That is the same kind that my dad had.” I just looked at him because I knew what was coming next. He said, “My father was much older than you are, I’m sure you’ll do fine with the chemotherapy.” UGGH!!!

I am pretty excited about my trip to Florida, although if I had thought about it for a little bit longer I probably would not be going. I’m going to miss my family, and then turn around and be back in the hospital for at least another month. This is the first trip I have EVER taken in my life by myself. I have to admit it’s a little weird. Ange is taking me down to Key Largo for a couple of days for some R&R, I have to admit I’m really looking forward to that.

Ricky is already getting really clingy, but he will be alright. Rick is starting to have issues with the transplant, we talked today and we are going to sit down before I go into the hospital and discuss all of the What if’s? that is always a tough talk but it’s best to have everything out of the way.

Finally some dates to post...

2009-02-17T12:13:00.001-05:00

Well I’m just going to give a quick update today. I guess the ball has finally started to roll… I finally got my appointment times set up to make sure that I’m ready for this transplant. I go into the hospital tomorrow morning for a whole battery of tests; Pulmonary Function Test, Chest X-Ray, EKG, Cat Scan, and Lab work, also I have to meet with the BMT Nurse Coordinator. Then on the 23rd I meet with the Dr. Sricastava (do not ask me how to pronounce) she is the doctor that will be heading up my transplant, and I will have yet another Bone Marrow Biopsy that day. Then on the 24th I’m scheduled for a BMT Education Class.

Jay the Nurse Coordinator stated that as of right now they have me scheduled to be admitted into the hospital on March 9th, for 10 days of chemo and radiation. Then on March 19th is my scheduled day for the transplant. All of that depends on the outcome of my tests, and the status of my lung condition, but as of now that’s the plan. He also stated that the clinical trial is not a go just yet, because the donor is not interested in doing it, but they are still trying to talk the person into doing it. I told Rick when I signed the paperwork for the clinical trial if it’s meant to be it will all work out in the end, if not then I’ll take the regular transplant. So I’m not really stressing out about that one.

I spoke with Ange (my best friend who lives in FL) she wanted to come and spend some time with me before my transplant, but my husband told me that if I wanted to go to Florida to visit her that he would pay for my ticket. So we worked it out to where she and I are going to go half and half (since she was planning a trip out here) and I would just visit her. So she has already booked my flight, and I think we are going down to the Keys for a few days as well. I’m leaving on the 28th and will be back March 4th. Then five days later I’ll be checking into I.U. Medical Center. I kind of feel guilty about leaving Rick and the kids for five days especially since I could be in the hospital anywhere from 35 days to three months, but in the same sense I could really use some down time. Just time to relax, get a little sun, and have some fun. Because God knows I won’t be able to go ANYWHERE for a year. I won’t even be able to go grocery shopping (not that I’ll miss that too much)… So that’s it in a nutshell, I’ll update again when I get some test results in.

Still Waiting

2009-02-10T11:09:00.000-05:00

Not too much has been going on this week still recuperating from chemo, and my most recent hospital stay. I called Jay from the BMT clinic and he stated that they will call me to set up my appointments for my pulmonary function test, my Cat-Scan and other tests. He stated that we were still a few weeks away from the bone marrow transplant.

I think that my appetite has finally returned I’ve gained two pounds a day for the past three days… I’m not even going to stress about it I know that I will lose a ton of weight when I go through the Bone Marrow Transplant.

I received two hospital bills last Saturday that totaled over $132,000.00. My three day stay with the collapsed lung cost me over $25,000.00, and my insurance still hasn’t paid anything on my first hospital stay so I received a nice letter from the hospital stating that if they did not pay anything in the next two weeks that I would be responsible for over $107,000.00 (for a 25 day stay). So now I have to deal with an insurance company (who is no longer my provider). I’m glad that I have nothing better to do than to deal with the insurance company…

I had my final interview with Social Security this week; I was approved for one year Thank God. It will be quite a lot less than I made at my job, but yet still a huge burden lifted. I was afraid that we would end up losing our house.

Now I just have to get Rick familiar with paying all of our bills, because quite honestly I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to do. Just regular Chemo makes it hard to keep up with bills, and household things I can’t imagine how things will be going through a Bone Marrow Transplant.

Rick and the kids like having me home for a change, they get a nice breakfast each morning. Before I was off from work we would sit down to the dinner table Saturday, Sunday, and Monday only, but now they get dinner practically every day. The laundry stays caught up through the week, I like staying at home. I’m going to dread going back to work. (Even though it’s going to be at LEAST a year before that happens).

I will officially be terminated from my job on March 8th and I have to say I’m not that upset about it. I’ve worked at that job for 10 years, and I know more about roaches, rats, mice, millipedes, centipedes, silverfish, termites, and bed bugs than I honestly ever wanted to know… Plus working in a building where they keep all of those pesticides really bothered me especially having AML (which has been linked to pesticides). Oh plus seeing all the people that I’ve worked with over the years fight cancers and brain tumors. We’ve had at least four other people with cancer, and one person with brain tumors. That’s just at a small location, and in my opinion that’s way more that a coincidence. So like I said I’m just not that upset about it. A little nervous about looking for a new job in a year or two and trying to explain why I haven’t worked/my medical issues??? I know that they legally cannot ask me about it, but still it’s going to be there. I’m the type of person who does not have anything to hide if you ask me a direct question; I’ll tell you the truth. I’ve got some time to think about it, so I’m not going to stress about it yet.

Long overdue update

2009-01-29T17:14:00.000-05:00

Sorry it’s taken so long to update; I went to the library last week and tried to post but the internet wouldn’t stay up so I basically wasted an hour.

Breanna turned nine this month, we had a small party for her, and took her to Build-A-Bear (I think Ricky liked her gift more than Breanna did).

I went to see Dr. Cripe on the 12th where another bone marrow biopsy was done, and I am currently still in remission. I still had a really bad cough so they sent me down for an x-ray. After that I went to see the Bone Marrow Transplant team. They wanted me to do a clinical trial, in which I would possibly avoid getting Graft Versus Host Disease; the only thing is that I would be the first patient at this hospital to receive this treatment. So after a week of pure torture we decided to go with the clinical trial, we have to wait and see if the donor will also agree to be a part of the trial (extra blood work involved), and if my insurance will agree to the trial as well.

The results from my x-rays showed spots on both of my lungs, so that Friday they had me come back for a Cat Scan, they called me back and told me that I had pneumonia and they wanted me to see a pulmonary specialist. So last Tuesday I went to see Dr. Lykens and they wanted to do a biopsy of the inside of my lungs to see if I have a bacterial or a fungal infection, they already had the surgery scheduled for Wednesday. Rick brought me to the hospital for that, (good thing) because they ended up collapsing my lung, when I woke up from the anesthetic I was gasping for air; and my back was killing me. So what do they do? They bring Rick in to try to calm me down, while they got the x-ray technicians up to the room, Rick looked like he was scared half to death. They confirmed that my lung was collapsed, so they took me back to the O.R. to insert a chest tube. Please let me tell you that I have had a lot of surgeries and procedures done in my lifetime, but nothing even comes close to what that felt like… I have never felt so much pain ever… plus when they got the tube inserted I could hear my lung fill back up with air. So then they had to admit me to the hospital, they had to end up giving me pain meds every two hours, because that tube was inserted in between my ribs and kept me in constant pain.

The next morning some of the doctors came in and said that I would be allowed to go home later that day. So I was pretty excited. But then Dr. Lykens came in and said that the initial biopsies had both came back negative so far (but that the cultures for the bacterial and fungal infections take up to two weeks to come back), but if in two weeks they were still negative they would want him to do another biopsy, in which they would have to insert a needle into my lung which would collapse my lung again, which meant that I would have to have another chest tube inserted. So since I already had one in they wanted to go ahead and do the other biopsy while I still had the tube in. The earliest that they could get that scheduled was Friday morning, so I had to leave the chest tube in another night. The day of the biopsy they took me down to a Cat Scan where I had to lay down on my stomach on the table with a chest tube in (painful) and they had to keep taking pictures, they were trying to get a guide just right in my back (and into the spot in my lung) so after about 18-20 tries they finally had it in the right spot, so then they pulled out a needle about 18 inches long and slid it through the guide and kept pulling it in and out over and over then they would put those cells on a slide, and do the same procedure again, and again they needed seven slides but they wanted to make sure that they had enough samples so they took nine slides, and one extra one that produced no cells. Later that afternoon they sent a couple of Doctors in to pull my chest tube, I asked her if it was going to hurt, and of course she said no. LIAR!!! But it did feel much better once it was out. I got to go home around 3 on Friday.

Saturday evening I started thinking about what one of the Doctors had said to me (at the time I really didn’t pay too much attention to) by Sunday morning everything kind of clicked (the doctor’s comments, the kind of biopsy that was performed); that last biopsy they did was to see if the cancer had spread to my lungs. So when I go back to see Dr. Lykens on Thursday, I’ll be finding out if my cancer has metastasized or if I just have a really bad infection. No stress there.

So we just kind of hung out around the house this weekend, if I went anywhere I wore my mask, to try and make sure that I don’t make myself any more sick than I already am.

Last night after Rick left for work, Ricky and Breanna were already in bed, when they both came back downstairs for a drink of water. Afterwards Ricky came over to me and hugged my neck, and gave me a kiss & told me that he loved me, and then he said, “Mommy, if you die I’ll still Love you.” (It choked me up and I almost cried), but I said, “Baby, hopefully mommy will be here for a long time.” He said, “I know, but if you die I’ll still love you.” And he gave me another kiss and went to bed. MAN… how do you handle that???

Update:

I saw Dr. Lykens today, and my cancer has not metastasized although they still do not know what is wrong with me. He wants to run another CAT scan in mid-February to see if the nodules have cleared up or gotten worse. His exact words to me today were that I am in between a rock and a rock where my lungs are concerned. If I do have some sort of infection and they don’t have it cleared up by the time I have my Bone Marrow Transplant then it could prove life ending. So I have to go see my BMT team next week, and Dr. Lykens will set in on that meeting, so that we can work out some sort of plan. Anyways God has answered my prayers, I don’t have to go home and tell my husband and children much worse news.

Things are going well

2009-01-09T14:03:00.001-05:00

I meant to update earlier this week, but I have been sick for the past 3-4 days. After dinner every night Rick makes me take a pain pill and it knocks me out until it’s time for him to leave for work.

One night Ricky and I went upstairs to wake Rick up, and all of the sudden I got really hot and had to make a bee line to the bathroom. When I got back I laid down next to Rick and Ricky came up next to the side of the bed and laid his head down on my shoulders and started rubbing my stomach. He’s such a sensitive boy, just like his daddy. He constantly stops what he is doing and comes over to give me a hug and a kiss.

Ricky and Breanna were talking about the sports that they wanted to play this spring, and trips that they were looking forward to taking. I had to sit them down and explain to them that because of what I’m getting ready to go through they won’t get to do any of those things this year. They were disappointed, but understood. I feel so bad to take that away from them.

I go to see Dr. Cripe on Monday the 12th for a follow up bone marrow biopsy, to make sure that I am still in remission, and from there I just found out that I will go to see the Bone Marrow Transplant team at the main hospital (for my interview) they will go over what to expect and see if I am truly interested in going ahead with it.

I spoke with Jay (the nurse from the BMT team) last week, and he said that they had not yet found a 10/10 match, but they had found three 9/10 matches, and they were already doing further tests to see who would be the best match for me. So it looks like everything is just about ready, while I don’t want to wait forever to get on with this, I hope that it doesn’t take off so fast that I don’t have time to get things together.

Other than that everything is fine, the kids are all doing well, Breanna made the honor roll again (she’s so smart). I get to see Courtney’s report card tonight. Khrystyne is going to be my caregiver when I get out of the hospital… We’ll see how that goes (she literally had to wash the same dish three times to get it clean this week!!) She is a good kid, but my mom will probably have to help out.

Ange my best friend who lives in FL told me that she is flying out when they do my transplant, that she wants to be here with me through that. Who has this kind of friend? After I hung up it made me cry, but I really do have great friends and family, and of course I have the Lord so how can I go wrong?

I'm home...

2008-12-30T14:26:00.000-05:00

Well after going back and forth with the home health care and my doctors, (the home health care guy said that they could not get me set up with home health care on Christmas day, maybe not even Christmas weekend) and then my doctor came in Christmas morning and said that I did not have to have I.V. antibiotics that he would just prescribe oral antibiotics. So all of Christmas Eve I was so depressed. I just really wanted to go home. But in the end it all worked out. Rick took the kids to my mothers house, and snuck out to come pick me up. When we got to my mothers house Ricky seen me first and he said, "MOMMY, MOMMY'S here, hey guys mommy's here!" I just wanted to cry…

Being home is great, sometimes I've overdone it a little bit, but Rick is all over that constantly telling me to sit down and rest. He's been really great to me.

I received a packet in the mail from the Bone Marrow Transplant, what to expect etc… I have to say I'm really scared. There are so many risks, and such a huge cost it is so overwhelming, and so many terrible things could happen. I guess that I'm just worried. I'm sure that's normal.

Hospital day 24

2008-12-24T08:43:00.000-05:00

Guess what I’ll be getting for Christmas??? A ticket home… my counts finally shot up, and the doctor’s just came in and told me and Rick that I’ll get to come home tomorrow. I can honestly say it is so about time.

In general I try to be a pleasant person, but here lately I’ve just been plain old grouchy… I page the nurses station for my meds and no one ever comes to my room. Actually on my way back to my room, I’m going to ask in person and let them know that I can wait!! Like this morning I paged them to let my nurse know that my food was there and I needed my sugar taken, I waited 15 minutes she never came so I just went ahead and ate. (She has still yet to take my sugar.)

I’ll have to go to the bone marrow clinic on Saturday to have my blood counts checked to see if I need a transfusion, and then Monday’s and Thursday’s will be my normal days to come up for transfusions. But I’ll take it.

I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed!!! My back hurts so bad. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I have to spend two months in here????

Hospital day 23

2008-12-23T19:25:00.002-05:00

Well I was down here this morning and had just started a post when my nurse tracked me down to give me my pre-meds and to tell me to head back to my room for more platelets, which in the end was a good thing, because at 6am I had a really, really bad bloody nose, and by the time I got back to my room the nose bleed started again, and didn’t stop until 11am.

Two days ago they had started me on a clear liquid diet, and I was able to tolerate that well, so today I was put on a liquid diet, the first meal I had some discomfort, but after some rest and then dinner I’ve been able to get it down without pain, and keep it down.

They did a blood gas on my wrist the other day, and now on top of my arm there is swelling and a lot of pain. So they are getting ready to do an ultra-sound to see what the problem is, I can’t even pick up a glass of water with that hand.

After my platelet transfusion this morning I was on the phone with Rick, and three nurses (who have never taken care of me) came right into my room and started looking around, I hung up to phone to see what they wanted, and they said that they have had a lot of patients check out recently and they were the moving crew, there to move me to block A (where they were moving all of the patients). Then they started opening up the closet (where all of my personal effects, and papers are at) they pissed me off. They said oh you don’t have to do anything we’ll move you, “I said oh no you won’t, you can go get me some bags and I will pack my own stuff up.” They were like, are you sure? I said, Yes. So I kicked them all out until I was ready to go. The reason they gave was 1. I was all the way at the end of C block all by myself, and they were going to move everyone close together so that they could help each other out. Yeah right. I’ve had to call over and over for the same things all day, and way more than once my nurse would leave my room to go get something and (NO LIE) would not be back for 2 hours. I’ll be complaining to night shift, and the doctors tomorrow morning. More than once today a whole group of nurses were standing outside my door gossiping in the hallway for half an hour at a time.

Ange and her family made it here ok, she has already been up to see me three times. She took Ricky, Breanna, and her little girl to Chuck E Cheese today for their Christmas gift. They had a blast, they were all asleep before they even hit the interstate. The weather this week has been horrible, icy roads, freezing cold you name it.

My cousins baby Marco had another bone marrow biopsy done to make sure that he is still Leukemia free, and he had some blasts so he has to go through the induction phase again. Although they are going to show Ashley how to administer the chemo and have her give it to him at home??? I’ve never heard of that. She is pretty nervous, but she went to the hospital today and they showed her how to do it, and tomorrow a home health care worker is going to walk her through it again. So she should be alright.

I’ll be here for Christmas, and maybe even New Years, my counts just started coming up yesterday, but that antibiotic regimen that they started me on for the bowel obstruction is a 10 day regimen.

I finally got word from our insurance companies, they agreed to pay for my treatment, and have already pre-approved me for my bone marrow transplant. So a weight has been lifted there.

Thank you for keeping us in your prayers.

Hospital Day 20

2008-12-20T09:03:00.001-05:00

The doctors came in to see me yesterday morning, and I was doing a little better (because I had not eaten anything the day before). So I asked them if I could have something to eat, he said that I could have a clear diet, so the nurse went and got me an orange Jell-O, it took me an hour to get it down, but not two minutes after I had finished eating it I was doubled over in pain, crying the works. So they gave me some extra pain meds, and sent me down for two more x-rays, and another CAT scan.

They had surgery come down to do a consult, I had an obstruction in my bowel, and they were afraid that it would swell, and perforate which in turn would fill my stomach with my bowel contents. So they said that they may need to do surgery… My blood counts were so low that I was afraid to even think about having surgery… Then another surgeon came in and told me that part of my bowels was dying!!! (All of this of course before the final CAT scan was even read).

I looked like total hell… Black circles under my eyes, my face was sunken in. So I finally called Rick and told him all of the things that had been going on so he could be prepared when he came up for a visit later, or in case the decided to go ahead with surgery.

The surgeons kept coming in and saying that they needed to put a tube down my nose to try to open up the blockage, but my oncologist kept telling them that I was Neutropenic and that if I did not have a solid blockage that they were not doing it.

They took me off of food and liquids… the only thing that I could use were a little sponge to wet down my lips, that was it. When they brought those in I thought oh great, Rick and the kids are coming up tonight, and those were the same kind of sponges that they used on Rick mom and grandmother when they were under hospice care. So I hid the package in the drawer, to keep them out of sight.

They have me on 7 cycles of antibiotics a day to try to help clear this up. Anyways Rick and the kids finally came up (I was starting to feel a little bit better in the evening), but when they walked in they all took a step back, Ricky looked scared, Rick started to tear up immediately, Breanna looked scared, and Courtney just had a blank look.

So we went over to sit down and I was dying of thirst, so of course the first thing that I did was ask Courtney to hand me my glass of water, without even thinking about it I pulled the sponge out and wet my lips down, and Rick just started bawling…. He finally pulled himself together when another surgeon (that I had not yet seen) came in and started spouting off all of this stuff about surgery, and me needing a tube put down my nose. In front of my Husband, and KIDS… I looked at her and said, “Could you hang on for a moment, so my Husband can take the kids out into the hallway?” She seemed aggravated, but I wouldn’t let her say another word until they were out of the room. We weren’t going to tell them anything unless it was for certain. Again Rick walks past me crying his eyes out. So she tells me what they want to do, and I told her fine but they would have to come back when my family leaves.

At this point my pain pump had run out of medicine, the nurse was getting ready to change it out when the surgeon cancelled out all of my pain meds. I told him no, if they cancel my pain meds then I quit. (My husband, and kids, and even the nurse got a kick out of that one, but I was serious.) So the nurse called the oncologist back down, and told her what the surgeon had said and done. And she said NO, they are not putting a tube down your nose for a partial blockage when you are Neutropenic, and I’ll re-write your pain meds.

So when Rick and the kids were getting ready to leave, Ricky clung to me a little longer, and he whimpered a little bit, then he said mommy when I come to see you this weekend you’ll wear some make-up right? (He’s six). Breanna, and Courtney gave me hugs and kisses goodbye. Then Rick gave me a kiss, and started to cry, I whispered to him to try to keep it together for the kids. So they were out the door, and he came back into the room and kissed me again and started sobbing… I know this is really hard on him, and yesterday I looked like death warmed over… I told him that I would be ok, and that he can do this.

Around midnight my pain and discomfort started going way down, the surgeons came in this morning and said that 80% of these cases clears up on their own… (Gee do you think they could have thrown that little bit of information in yesterday?) They still have me on no foods, and just tiny sips of water, they are going to try to start me on a clear diet tomorrow. My best friend and her family are coming up for a visit from Florida today, until next week, I was hoping to be home for her visit, but I’ll take what I can get…

Hospital day 19...

2008-12-19T06:08:00.000-05:00

I’ve had a rough couple of days… On Tuesday afternoon my stomach started to hurt (really bad) so they sent me down for some x-rays, and ran some blood cultures, they thought it may have been my pancreas but those results came back ok. After Breakfast on Wednesday morning I was in excruciating pain, I couldn’t lie down, I couldn’t sit up, they were still running some test but everything was coming back negative. By Wednesday night they came in to give me two units of morphine, and some oxycodone. Then 20 minutes later they gave me 2 more units of morphine. It would cover the pain for about two hours and they were giving me more morphine and oxycodone. It got to the point where they were monitoring me, because they were afraid that I would stop breathing.

Finally they put me on something stronger than morphine, (I can barely pronounce it little lone spell it.) But it finally got the pain down far enough to where I could sleep for a couple of hours. The doctor’s came in to see me yesterday morning, and decided that they were going to send me down for a cat scan. (I ate nothing yesterday, it was just too painful) The results from the CAT scan showed an obstruction in my small intestine. But of course it had just started to show the obstruction and that was where the CAT scan cut off at?? So I had to drink that nasty stuff again, and have another CAT scan. As of yet the results had not come back in yet. They told me if I do have an obstruction that I will not be allowed to eat or drink anything until they get it fixed… I made it 17 days without any real problems; I guess it was time to throw something exciting in the mix. I woke up this morning and my stomach was so swelled that I looked six months pregnant.

Rick and the kids were supposed to come up for a visit last night, but I told him to wait until tonight because 1. I just wasn’t up to it. And 2. I didn’t want the kids to see me in that shape.

A lady from the American Cancer Society came by yesterday and reshaved my head, I was shedding all over the place; she also gave me a wig and styled it for me. I’m not too sure about the wig. But I have it in case I want to use it.

Well I’m going to close up for now; I’m really tired it took everything that I had to walk down here in the first place.

Hospital Day 16 (Good News)

2008-12-16T03:26:00.001-05:00

Good News; yesterday I finally got another bone marrow biopsy (although they couldn’t get any bone chipped off and they had to do it FIVE times) to get it done, NO LIE… One of the doctor’s came in about midnight to let me know that as of right now I am Leukemia free in my marrow. Which means I will not have to take a second round of Chemo before leaving the hospital; once all of my blood counts are back up, and the fever stays away I should be allowed to go home for a few weeks. To top that off, I in no way feel as sick as I did when I had cancer and treatment before.

I just wanted to say to everyone who reads, and comments to my blog… I really really appreciate each and everyone of you. Just a few comments sometimes, even from perfect strangers it just gives you that little push that you are so desperately looking for. So I sincerely wanted to thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart.

My mother and step-father are still helping out with the kids while Rick works, so that has been a huge help. People from work have sent some nice cards up, even co-workers that I only speak to on the phone from Memphis has sent the most heart felt cards. When you are in the hospital for over two weeks every little bit helps.

My cousin brought me some yarn up and I finished a baby blanket in two days… Need I say more?? Actually I’ve started a second one as well. I’ve read six books, and I’m currently reading the New Testament. So I’m trying to keep myself busy while I’m up here.

I have a touch of insomnia currently, hence the post at 2:30 am. But all in all I’m just really looking forward to going back home to be with my family. I have my Social Security interview at 9am this morning, so please keep us in your prayers for that. I’ll be off of work for over a year for this treatment, and I only have short term disability.

Hospital Day 14

2008-12-14T10:16:00.000-05:00

I’m just going to post a quick update. Not a whole lot has been going on here… Rick was able to spend the night with me last night, but I felt so poorly that I was out by 9:30pm. Although we were both able to get up around 5am, and spend a few hours together.

Reminder to self: Do not ever eat breakfast during a shift change… it takes two hours to get your insulin injection… which leads to a major headache!!

The doctors are going to try to start taking me off of the steroids, so I can in turn be taken off of the insulin. We will see, but I don’t think that I’m having issues with nausea right now. But again we will see.

I’m due for my Bone Marrow Biopsy tomorrow morning, and I still have to get all of my medical records together so that my mother can drop everything off at the Social Security office by tomorrow afternoon. So I still have a lot of things to get together for my interview on Tuesday morning. I should only have to be on Social Security for 1-2 years hopefully if all goes well.

The doctors think that I may be able to be home in time for Christmas, but there is still no word on if a Bone Marrow Donor has yet to be found for me. S-T-R-E-S-S-F-U-L!!

Well my sister Holly is due to visit today, as well as my cousin Jennifer, and my husband and kids. My mother is due to be up here tomorrow. So I’ve got a full docket for a change…

Please continue to keep us in your prayers… We really need them.

Hospital day 13

2008-12-13T09:05:00.002-05:00

Well good news and bad news, they did not do the bone marrow biopsy yesterday, but I have it too look forward to on Monday… Which is fine by me, because I was really dreading it...

Rick’s cousin took our two youngest for the weekend, so Rick will be staying up here with me tonight. So I’ll finally have some company….

They put me on a steroid combination which has made my blood sugar spike, so now I’m taking insulin injections. My Red Blood Cell count is 7 so I’m set to receive two units of blood this morning. I’ve also got blisters going down my throat, they are currently giving me some medications for this, but it is still hard to swallow even water… But all in all I still feel pretty good even with the few complications that have come up.

My cousin Jennifer brought me some yarn up the other day, and I’ve already finished what she brought me, so Rick is bringing me some more up tonight so I can finish this blanket that I just started yesterday (and am halfway done!!) Can you tell I have absolutely nothing to do up here?

My best friend and her family are due to visit the week of Christmas; hopefully I’ll be out of the hospital for that week.

Well I’d better head back to my room, I’m sure my blood is ready for me…

Bone Marrow Biopsy Day!!

2008-12-12T06:45:00.001-05:00

Its six o’clock in the morning, I’m down at the family center I thought that I got up here early enough to hit the washer/dryer first but someone beat me down here. (I’ve been here since 5:30, and I hate to move other people’s laundry but their load is finished washing!!) Oh well I guess I can wait until later. Rick and the kids came up for a visit last night it was short but sweet. The kids spent the night at my mom’s house for a change. Grandpa wanted to spend the night in his own bed for a change.

We finally got in touch with some of Rick’s friends that have been stationed in Germany for several years, now they just live a few states over so hopefully after my treatment we will be up for a quick visit. Rick was really excited to hear from them.

I am set for a bone marrow biopsy this morning, so please keep me in your thoughts and prayers. For one it hurts like mad, and two, it will determine if the chemo has put me into remission, or if I’m up for another round of chemo prior to the bone marrow transplant. I still haven’t heard from the bone marrow transplant team to see if they have worked out my insurance issues as of yet, it is so stressful waiting and worrying about this. But I know everything will work out. I’m currently getting everything together for my Social Security interview, it’s hard to get all of the paperwork that I need from home by trying to direct Rick as to where everything is at.

Well I guess that’s it for now, I’ll update later this afternoon after the results are in.

By the way thank you all for your wonderful support.

Day 11 in the hospital

2008-12-11T10:32:00.001-05:00

My blood counts yesterday were:
WB: 0.5
RB: 7.1
Platelets: 10

So that earned me one bag of platelets, and two units of blood. So I feel much better today than I have in awhile. I still run out of breath quite easily, but all in all I’m doing fine.

Rick is bringing the kids up to see me tonight; I’m pretty excited about that. It gets real lonely up here.

They have me scheduled for a bone marrow biopsy tomorrow morning, I just got over the pain and discomfort from the one in November. So I’m not looking forward to this one.

My nurse (Katie) came to see me yesterday and notified me that my sister was not a match. So they are going to put me on the bone marrow registry list to look for a possible match. The longer this goes on the more nervous I get. I’m really not looking forward to this at all.

Just a side note two people that I have been following recently have both passed this week, please stop by their blogs to offer support to their friends and families. The first one is Derrick Dull his blog address: http://djdully.blogspot.com/ , and the next one is Erica Murray her blog address: http://ericamurray.blogspot.com/ . I’m sure their families would really appreciate your words of support.

Another update

2008-12-10T09:27:00.001-05:00

The swelling finally went away, but now the treatment is finally catching up to me. Loss of appetite, and not being able to keep down what I do eat. I guess after 7 days of chemo 24 hours a day, it’s bound to knock anyone off their feet. The doctors are currently working on getting the nausea under control.

I’ve had a few more visitors the past few days, so that’s been nice (although last night it took me a good half hour to wake up when my cousin and her husband came up to visit). The kids are handling things really well; Rick is going to bring them up to see me Thursday night.

My blood counts are falling nicely; I’m probably looking at a Platelet transfusion tomorrow and a blood transfusion by Friday. It makes me so tired, and my head hurts a lot. They give me oxycodone for my headaches, I’d much rather take Tylenol than a narcotic. But what can you say??

Sorry I don’t have more to talk about, but it’s pretty boring here. So there is not much to report.

Quick update...

2008-12-06T08:47:00.002-05:00

I’m still doing well; I’m currently a little swollen from all of the I.V. fluids, but I just spoke with my doctor and they are getting ready to cut the fluids way down.

My sister Rachel came down yesterday and had her blood drawn to see if she will be a possible match for my bone marrow transplant. I still have to contact my insurance company on Monday morning (Rick finally found the paperwork showing that we have been covered) so hopefully that will all work out.

I spoke with someone from my benefits department at work yesterday, and they have approved my leave for eight weeks, anything after that they will need updated medical records. It’s a good thing that I have nothing better to do than to remember when my benefits will expire, and to keep them updated!!!

I’ve had just a few visitors so far, but hopefully I’ll have a few extras on the weekend. It gets really boring up here. I’ve been here since Monday night, and I really don’t leave my room too often. So you kind of go stir crazy.

I’ll be honest I’m having a hard time dealing with this reoccurrence. I’m encouraged so far because treatment is going well with very little side effects. But on the other hand I’ve looked up Bone Marrow Transplants and I know the risks, I’ve not shared them with my family, but it’s really scary. I know that I’m still young and relatively healthy, but anything could happen. I guess until that time comes I really shouldn’t worry about it, but that is easier said than done.

Rick brought the kids up the night before last, it was really good to be able too see them and give them kisses. I really miss them a lot.

Post from the Hospital

2008-12-03T14:21:00.002-05:00

I was admitted on Monday but due to lack of beds it was at 6:30 pm instead of my scheduled 11am check in. At least I had that much more time to spend with my family. We decided to let the kids open their Christmas presents on Sunday night since I'm scheduled to be in the hospital until after the New Year. So they were pretty excited about that.

Yesterday morning around 7 am they took me down to have a triple lumen placed in my neck. Problem was all of the doctors were in a staff meeting, and I ended up lying on a surgery table for over two hours until the nurses could locate a doctor. When he tried to get the catheter into my neck the vein was too small. So he had to shove a spacer down the vein first to stretch it out wide enough to get the catheter into the vein. I finally got back to my room around 10:30 and I went to tie the back of my gown when I realized that it was soaked in blood. Do you think they might have noticed?? Of course my nurse walked in at the right time and I asked her for a new gown.

Then once I got settled and she came in to introduce herself; without trying to be mean, I let her know what I was, and was not going to do. She was trying to give me 5-8 pills and I made her name off everything, and what it was for. Then I let her know that I did not want any anti-psychotic medication (last time I was treated, I lost 3 weeks because they had me zonked out on meds). She probably thought I was a you-know-what, but I was irritated and I really didn’t care. Dr. Cripe’s nurse came in to see me later and I also let her know about the meds and she said that she would update my file.

They started my chemo at noon yesterday, so far so good. I was a little nauseous last night but they gave me some meds for that, and I never even got sick yesterday. Which is a big change from last time; I’m still able to function, I’m reading, filling out Christmas cards, watching T.V. and fielding phone calls from Courtney’s school letting me know that she was just suspended from school for fighting… The dean told me that if school security was on campus today she and the other girl would be on their way to girls school right now. But as it stands for now, she has a five day suspension, and if she has any other altercations this year it will lead to a more lengthy suspension or even expulsion. So I can’t even imagine how this conversation will go over with Rick later, but I’m sure it won’t be good.

Marco is scheduled to go home from the hospital next week, from what my mother tells me he is doing better.

They came in to talk to me about a bone marrow transplant, and then right after that admitting came in to tell me that my insurance was refusing because this was a pre-existing condition. So I had to call Rick and he is going through our paperwork at home to show that our insurance never lapsed. His last day was a Saturday, and that next Monday I picked up my insurance, and after 30 days with his new company he also picked up insurance. So I’m sure that I’ll be covered, but we just have to locate that paperwork. If I was at home I could have it found in five minutes, but it’s hard to relay where you think it might be to someone else… Insurance is very frustrating…

I went and had my head shaved on Friday, and later Saturday evening Ricky asked me why I was wearing a girls pirate hat?? Kid’s are cute. (He also told me that I looked like a boy)

On Sunday I was making breakfast and Breanna told me that when she grows up and has her own family, that she wants me to come over every Sunday morning to make breakfast for them, because I make the best breakfast in the world… That is if I’m still alive when she is older. (ouch!! A knife in the heart) I know that they don’t understand, but then again they kind of do.

Well I’ll update more, when I’m able too. Keep me, and my family in your prayers.

It's Confirmed; The Cancer is Back

2008-11-25T15:41:00.000-05:00

I went to the doctor’s yesterday, they drew blood and my counts were even lower than the last time. So Dr. Cripe wanted to do a bone marrow biopsy to confirm that the Leukemia had returned (note to self; Bone Marrow Biopsy’s hurt like a you know what!!)
They told us to go home and they would call us back later in the day or tomorrow. We took some books back to the library and ran next door to Subway, we no more than sat down to eat and Katie (the nurse) called with the news. They are going to let me have Thanksgiving with my family, and I’ll be admitted to the hospital on Monday, I’ll be there for four weeks. I’m not sure if I’ll have access to a computer in the hospital, but if so I’ll update when I feel up to it.

The joke is… I feel fine. If I did not have routine blood draws, you wouldn’t even be able to tell that I’m sick. Although now I walk like an old woman, because my hip still REALLY hurts.

Rick and I went out this morning to get some Christmas shopping done, and I’ll buy a few more things this weekend. Just to make sure that the kids have something to open on Christmas. If everything goes well I might get out of the hospital in time for Christmas, to spend that time with them, but I won’t be able to go out in those crowds (to get any extra shopping done) due to my immune system being too weak. Tomorrow I’m going back to work (for one day) I only had three vacation days left, and my official medical leave will start on Monday. I probably won’t be able to sit for 8 hours, but I’ll do my best.

My cousins baby Marco was due to come home from the hospital on Monday, but he is running a fever, and needed oxygen so unfortunately he has to stay in the hospital for a little longer. They diagnosed him with ALL (Leukemia). He will have to take chemo for three years, but he should be fine. Over 90% of children with this type of cancer are able to be cured. But please keep his family in your prayers, they are already having a tough time financially, and then add a sick child to that. That’s enough to discourage anybody, but their family is behind them and will see them through this.

Keep my husband and children in your prayers also. My husband is already having a hard time with the diagnosis, and my son Ricky is already starting to cling to me I probably got 50 kisses before he walked out the door for school this morning, and he hugged me forever.

Waiting...Waiting...Waiting...

2008-11-20T15:55:00.001-05:00

Marco

Other than being diagnosed with cancer… the waiting is excruciating. I’ve still got four days left until I go back to the doctor’s for more blood work/bone marrow biopsy. Last week was very, very rough… I couldn’t sleep for days; I’d fall asleep and be wide awake 20 minutes later. I finally got past the extreme anxiety and then I slept for days. So this week has been a lot better, although I still here Dr. Cripe saying, “This doesn’t look good, make sure you bring your husband to your next appointment.”

In the meantime, I’ve been packing up my desk at work just in case. I’ve went home early several days this week. Actually I called my region manager on Monday and asked him to send one of the girls from the other office over to help me out this week. I’ve felt light headed and was nervous that I would pass out, and being here by myself that wasn’t a very comforting thought. So he sent someone over to help me out this week, which has been a Godsend. Then he called me right back and asked me how I was feeling, and that if I needed to that I could just go home, as a matter of fact he told me that I could go home for this entire week, and he would make sure that I still got paid. Tempting as that was, I don’t think that I’d feel right doing that, what if my blood work and bone marrow biopsy comes back just fine next week, then how would that make me look??

My mother called me yesterday afternoon, and said that my cousin had called her and asked if she could take her and her son out to the emergency room. So my mom went over to pick them up, the second she saw Marco she told Ashley you make sure that you tell that doctor that there is Leukemia in the family. (My mother has a cousin that has Leukemia, and of course there’s me). She said that his skin tone was yellow, and his mouth and nose were white. She said that one look at him and it was like looking at me three years ago. So they took him out to the hospital, when they drew his blood, my mom said that he never moved, never cried or anything. They came back and said that he had a low red blood count. So they drew his blood again for further testing, and they told my cousin that it was one of three things:

1. He was anemic, in which case they would give him iron pills to correct.
2. He has Leukemia or
3. He has Lymphoma, in which case she would have to bring him right back out to the hospital.

So they sent them home while they waited for the results, and told her that they would call her within two hours to let her know what was going on. Two hours later Ashley called the hospital, because she still hadn’t heard anything. They told her that they were waiting on another test which would take an additional two hours. FINALLY, they called her back; she called my mom in hysterics, crying… He was diagnosed with Leukemia. They had to take him out to Riley’s Children’s Hospital last night at 10:30 pm they gave him a blood transfusion last night, and another one this morning, and they did a bone marrow biopsy this morning to determine what type of Leukemia he has. So please keep little four year old Marco in your prayers. His family definitely needs it.

Tough Weekend...

2008-11-10T16:13:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I was a complete and total mess. We’ve told close friends and family just in case I have to go back into the hospital, so we can set up a support system. We decided not to tell Ricky & Breanna at first. But with this being all everybody can talk about we decided at 5:30 yesterday morning as we were walking around Wal-Mart that Rick & I should probably just tell them before they hear it from someone else.

When we got back from the store, we gave them their new gloves/hats/scarves and we were just sitting around talking. I asked Rick if he wanted to talk to them about it now. He kind of shrugged and walked away. Then I said do you want to tell them or do you want me to do it. He said that he would just do it. (We had already told the two older kids). So anyways we told Breanna to pause their movie, and told them that we wanted to talk to them. Breanna said, “HUMPH” and flung herself back onto the air mattress. Rick teared up and had to walk away. So the ball was in my court at that point. I told them that mommy had a Doctor’s appointment on Thursday with my cancer doctor and my blood came back bad (they are only 6 & 8), so I’m going back in two weeks to have my blood drawn again, and if it’s still bad they are going to do a bone marrow biopsy to see if mommies Leukemia is back. If it is then I’ll have to go to the hospital for a month and Grandma & Grandpa are going to move in to Khrystyne’s room to stay here and help take care of you.

Well Ricky was seven shades of excited when I said that Grandpa would be moving in. Breanna on the other hand said, “I knew it was going to be bad news.” I told her that we’ve been through this before and we can do it again. Then we made breakfast, ate, and went for a walk. I kept running out of breath, and was completely light headed (I had a headache all weekend), and this morning I found some new pinhead bleeds. So unless a miracle happens, in the words of my Doctor this isn’t looking good.

After our walk yesterday Rick & I decided to take a nap, so we left the younger two downstairs with Khrystyne, and at 9:30 in the morning we went upstairs to take a nap. We had been awake since 3am so needless to say neither one of us can sleep for shit.

We were talking; because of course we couldn’t fall asleep. He would tear over, and then I would tear over. Then he kept looking at me like he was trying to take me in, and I just started crying. I couldn’t help it. I don’t like to cry in front of him, because he’s so sensitive, and after losing his mother to cancer, I know that he’s scared. But he handled the situation really well. He comforted me, and he let me know that I could cry in front of him any time that I needed to. We finally fell asleep, but no less than 30 minutes later I was once again wide awake. So I jumped into the shower, and stayed there for the better part of an hour. I just couldn’t turn off the water, it was so surreal. My fingers were all wrinkled like I had sat in the tub forever.

I guess more than anything, I’m just really scared. Of course I don’t want to die. I want to be here with my husband and my children. I don’t want some other woman raising my babies. Khrystyne is 18 now, and Courtney is 15 ½ so those two I’m not too worried about. Although I know losing me would be rough on them, but they are a couple of real tough cookies. I know that they will look after Ricky & Breanna for me. But you know as well as I do that it’s not the same. I want to see my children get married; I want to be around to hold my first grandbabies someday. These are the things that keep me going.

Rick said well at least this time going into it we already know the good news, and the bad news. The good news is at least we know what to expect. The bad news is we know what to expect. I couldn’t have said it better.

Then to top the weekend off, Courtney came home last night (she stayed at a friends all weekend) she sat on the couch next to me and said, I don’t like lying to you, so I’m just going to tell you. I said, “What?” She said me and Allison pierced our noses today. I sat up to take a look at her, and it looked like a pimple on the side of her nose, I said, “No you didn’t, that’s a pimple.” She said. “No really; we did.” So upon closer inspection, I realized that she most certainly did pierce her nose. They bought ear piercing studs and pushed it through their nostrils. She says to me, “Don’t worry, I looked it up online, and I sterilized everything.” Yeah right, how do you sterilize the inside of your nose?? I had her put the stud back in, until I could call our family doctor today. I told her if you have to get a tetanus shot, I don’t want no screaming and crying, no four people holding you down. You had better just sit there and take it. I swear one of these days POW right to the moon!!

Bad News:(

2008-11-07T10:36:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I had an appointment with my oncologist/hematologist, after my blood work they put me in a room to wait for Dr. Cripe, and his nurse Katie. (I saw Katie in the waiting room before my appointment, and she came over to give me a hug). When Dr. Cripe came into the room he commented on how good I looked, and Katie also said that I looked really good (they tricked me with these comments) Then Dr. Cripe asked me how I was feeling? I told him that I felt real good, just keeping general conversation up. He and Katie both sat down (RED FLAG) and he said to me, “I want to show you these blood counts.” (RED FLAG) I looked down at the chart (it’s a chart of all of my blood work in chronological order) all of my counts were up UNTIL 11/6/08; currently my WBC is 3.1, my RBC is 3.8, and my platelet count is 83. I just nodded like I already knew this was coming.

He looked me straight in the eye and told me that he didn’t like what he was seeing. “This is very worrisome.” Was one of the quotes, and “We’re very, very, very concerned” was the other. He wants me to come back in two weeks to see if my counts come back up, if not then I will have to have another Bone Marrow Biopsy to see if the Leukemia is back. (Unfortunately I already know the answer to that question.) I went on to tell Dr. Cripe about finding the pinhead bleeds on my stomach, and gums last month, and that I almost passed out walking around the block the night before (several times). So I’ll go back on November 24th for my follow up blood work, and most likely a bone marrow biopsy, and then I’ll have to start back over from square one… By the way this was the appointment that he was supposed to tell me that I could start coming to see him every 4 months.

Of all days to leave out of the house without my cell phone… My husband was sleeping; my kids were at school, so I stopped by my mother’s house on my way home to kind of get that conversation out of the way. She wanted to know why I was there at 2:30 in the afternoon; I told her that I had a half a day because I had a Doctors appointment. Then she asked, “What’s wrong, what did they say.” I said, “Well, it wasn’t good.” And then went into the whole conversation with her. An hour or so later I left and went home to tell my husband. That did not go over well at all. He instantly started crying, his mother just passed two years ago from cancer. So I know that’s what he thinks of when he hears the words recurrence.

I’ve made my peace with it.

If it is, it is, and I will deal with it. I will try to make this experience (not a pleasant one) but not a horrible one for my family’s sake. At least going into this I kind of know what to expect. If you take the unknown out of the equation it’s not as scary. I’m not saying that I know exactly what’s going to happen, but I’ve been through this once before, so I know what to expect for the most part.

One things for sure, once I start treatment again. I will not be going back to work anytime soon. I will file for disability this time, and give my body time to heal. That way if I do get better I would have done something good for myself, but if I don’t get better I’ll have that much more time to spend with my children.

So that’s where I’m at today… I’ll know more in two weeks, and I’ll let you know when I know.

Have you voted today??

2008-11-04T10:16:00.003-05:00

I did... You can't complain if you don't do your part and vote!!

Halloween 2008

2008-11-01T11:05:00.002-04:00

Breanna & her Book Buddy from school

Breanna, & her best friend, & Book Buddy

Ricky & Breanna

I really want to do more than a weekly update, but it’s just not happening. (Sorry)

Not a whole lot has gone on this week, we’ve just been taking it easy (up until yesterday it’s been really cold here) so we’ve not done much more than come home, eat, and watch T.V. I know it’s a bad habit to get back into (we really cut down on watching T.V. over the summer). But then again I AM NOT A FAN OF THE COLD!!

Rick and I are going to a Halloween party (for Adults only) tonight, so I’m sure I’ll have something really funny to post next week. He got completely smashed last year (within an hour), and tried taking pictures of my cousins BOOBS (she was dressed like Beth from Dog the Bounty Hunter). He completely made an ass out of himself (along with her husband) to the extent we have not been back over to their house for this whole year because he is completely humiliated.

We took the youngest two Trick-or-Treating last night, they had a blast. I got some really cute pictures of them with some of their friends. Khrystyne’s plans fell through so she dressed up (18 yrs old) and handed out candy for us, had she got in touch with her girlfriends however she would have been trick-or-treating as well. Courtney stayed the night with one of her friends, and they went trick-or-treating, this is the first time Courtney has been in 3 or 4 years. We have two huge bowls full of candy, I’m giving them a couple of days with a few pieces here and there, and then we are going to give the rest away. (Ricky & Breanna both had cavities at the last dentist appointment.)

We are so proud!!

2008-10-22T08:37:00.001-04:00

Last night I was taking Khrystyne to Game Stop to pick up a new game. On the way there she was complaining about her incision site (where she had her tumor removed), stating that it still bothered her sometimes. Then she started telling me about when she first woke up after her surgery how she was real groggy, and VERY hungry (it’s Khrys go figure). Then she started to tell me about a woman in the bed next to her and how she was having a Granny seizure; a real bad one.

Me: A what?

Khrys: A Granny seizure…

Me: (Confused look) Oh, you mean a Grand Mal seizure.

Khrys: Whatever

Me: (Laughing)

Khrys: (Blushing) they’re both the same thing! Granny, Grandma…

Me: (Laughing hysterically) Khrystyne, Grand Mal, not Grandma.

Khrys: That’s what I said Grandma.

Me: No, Khrystyne, listen, Grand Mal

Khrys: Blank look…

Me: Not G-R-A-N-D-M-A, its capital G-r-a-n-d space capital M-a-l, (still laughing) wait until I tell your dad about this…

Khrys: (Blushing an even deeper shade of red) Oh!! (Then she jumps out of the car and takes of running for the store)

By the way she is 18 years old!!!

Artwork...

2008-10-21T10:40:00.001-04:00

As promised here are some photos of Breanna and her art work that is on display…

Dillon Dipped in my Bucket

2008-10-18T10:47:00.000-04:00

Dillon Dipped in my Bucket

That is the phrase that I heard while driving to work this lovely Saturday morning. (I brought the two youngest along.) So I turned the radio down so that I could listen in on the conversation that Ricky and Breanna were having. Apparently they are being taught in school that everyone has a full bucket, and if some one is mean to you or hurts your feelings they take a scoop out of your bucket. If someone is nice to you or makes you laugh they put a scoop into your bucket. So Dillon pushed Ricky down and was mean to him on the playground so he dipped in Ricky’s bucket. This conversation lasted every bit of 15 minutes, it was so cute.

I finally went to the Doctors on Thursday, and I have bronchitis. I came to work yesterday but our region manager was in and after an hour he sent me packing. Not because I was sick, but because he felt I may be contagious and he didn’t want any part of what I had. So I got a day and a half off this week… Yea!!

I believe I’m going to have to do some soul searching this coming year, I think professionally it is about time to make a change. I’ve worked here going on ten years, and I have to fight every year to get a pay increase, if I even get one. I’ve been gypped out of my quarterly bonuses about six times over the past two years. So more and more I feel it’s about time to move on.

My oldest daughter turned 18 on October 5th, today she is officially opening her first checking account. This is going to be interesting… hopefully she will pay attention to what I tell her, and never overdraw on her account. Money burns a hole right through her pocket; I’m trying to teach her to save some of her money for a rainy day, but so far it hasn’t stuck.

Breanna won 1st place at her school in an Art contest for the Indianapolis Children’s Museum. Her art work is currently being displayed at The Great Frame Up. So after work this afternoon I’ll be taking Breanna & Ricky to The Great Frame Up to take pictures of her artwork. I’m sure Breanna will feel very important and I want to show her that we are really proud of her. I’ll post the pictures from our trip next week.

Well that’s about it for now; have a great weekend.

I see sick people... everywhere

2008-10-13T11:54:00.002-04:00

Calling the shots; my little guy is in the green.

We have a bunch of sick people at my house, first Courtney was sick, which turned into bronchitis, and then Khrystyne and Ricky got sick. I took them to the doctors Khrys had bronchitis, and I was told that Ricky had a viral infection until today he went back for his yearly physical and he has an ear infection plus cough, so he gets to revisit the doctor in 2 weeks to give his antibiotics time to kick in. Which leads us to Rick, Breanna and myself, Breanna is starting to cough (which luckily she has an appointment this Thursday with the pulmonary specialist for her asthma) I’ve got the worst cough, and now Rick is starting to come down with something. I think I may have picked the worst year to pass on the flu shot… I had such a bad reaction last year, and my doctor’s office does not offer the nasal mist so it’s a shot or nothing.

Ricky played his last soccer game this past Saturday; they won their final game so that put them as undefeated this whole season. Which that was pretty exciting. He got to call heads or tails for the beginning of the game (his first time ever) and he won, so he got to pick which side he wanted to play on. It was so cute. After the game, we went over to the bouncy house and waited for their turn. Rick and I watched them jump, actually their time was almost up, when we saw a commotion and saw someone getting out of the bouncy, here comes Ricky. He fell and some girl jumped on his EYE!!! It’s been two days now and his eye is still swollen. Breanna keeps telling his friends that a girl beat him up, and of course Ricky gets made at her, so he punched her in the arm where she just got her flu shot at. Kids… it never ends.

Courtney got suspended from school on Friday, she was caught with her cell phone Thursday morning and the teacher tried to take her phone and of course she didn’t give it up. (She saved her babysitting money for two months for that phone, and she had just got it the weekend before) So the Teacher sent her to the office, and when she went to get her things together she apparently dropped the F-Bomb in front of the whole class. So I got my fall cleaning done on Friday without even having to be at home!! Like I said Kids…

Quick Update

2008-10-10T13:19:00.006-04:00

I've been pretty busy here at work. It's just me in the office now, so I don't have a lot of time to update. (Sorry)

I'm posting some school pics of the younger two; for my family that reads this blog.

We have one final soccer game tomorrow morning; Ricky's team so far has been undefeated this year which was so cool... Have a great weekend.

Three year Cancer - Anniversary

2008-10-03T14:33:00.002-04:00

Well it’s official; I’ve made it three years since being diagnosed with cancer. It hasn’t been the easiest road by any means but all in all any price that I’ve had to pay was well worth it for the opportunity to be given the gift of another day. So instead of going into all the in’s and out’s of being diagnosed with the big “C”, I thought I’d share some personal thoughts.

More than anything I’ve been blessed with the insight of what a day can bring.

A day can bring a phone call from your very panicked doctor warning you, “That whatever you do, do not go to work this morning, we need you to go to the hospital for more blood work, we think you have Leukemia.”

A day can bring 40 people (whom you’ve never met) into your house carrying armloads of groceries and Christmas presents for your children, while you are sick.

A day can bring a family back together, or tear it apart.

A day can bring a new baby into your life, or take your Grandmother away.

A day can bring you a walk in the park, with your husband and children. When your six year old son notices that his mommy is have problems with the hills and stays behind to let mommy hold his hand so she doesn’t fall…

So I’ve decided to take this next year One Day at a Time. (Not that there is any other way that you can take it.) But I’m not going to let things worry me or stress me out. I’m going to really focus on enjoying the moment. Taking a few minutes for myself everyday and not feel guilty about it, and I’m going to make an effort to spend more time with extended family members, because all too often we get tied up with our lives and our own kids and don’t make time for others.

Those words One Day at a Time remind me of an elderly lady from church when I was a kid, she was almost blind, and her favorite song was One Day at a Time. She rarely spoke to anyone, I think that she was very shy, but on the way home from church if you asked, she would always sing that song for us. The chorus of that song goes like this:

One day at a time sweet Jesus
That’s all I’m asking from you
Just give me the strength
To do everyday what I have to do
Yesterdays gone sweet Jesus
And tomorrow may never be mine
Lord help me today, show me the way
One day at a time.

So this is how I’m going to live the rest of my life, be it a day, or fifty more years. Not wasting my time worrying about things that happened in my past, and not taking for granted that I’ll ever see tomorrow. But by doing the best I can, for the people that I love while I’m still here.

It's finally over...

2008-09-26T12:15:00.002-04:00

Ok let me start off by saying the spots that I found went away on their own, and there have been no new sightings… If my Leukemia had returned those spots would not have went away, and more would have appeared. So a little stress has been lifted.

Next I don’t know if you remember my post from Smack down at a Funeral, but Rick’s Aunt Barb took him to court yesterday for an order of protection!! One, he only shut the door on her and Lindsey, and Two; he never touched her or threatened her. But none the less she felt a need for one (probably because she is psycho)… We put the kids on the bus and took off for the courthouse, once we got on the interstate Rick heard something about traffic on the radio, but it was turned down too low for us to hear. So ten minutes later they started with traffic news again, and the interstate that we were ALREADY on was closed at you guessed it our exit. About two seconds later we were at a dead stop. Up just a little further we saw some gravel in between the interstate and people were already turning around. So we waited our turn, in the meantime I called the court house and told them that there was a fatal accident on the interstate and that we were turning around, but that most likely we would be late. She stated that she would note our file, and gave me directions (forgetting one very important turn) so we went another 20 minutes out of our way, had to stop for gas, and ask for directions.

One the way back I called the courthouse again and she gave me some more directions (hey what can I say, we are not from that side of town) we finally found it, but wouldn’t you guess??? No parking available… So we drove all around the courthouse until we finally found a spot. We went up to the third floor, and I went to check in with the clerk. The one that I’m sure that I spoke with on the phone was on another call and the other lady in the office acted like it was a chore to see what we wanted. We told her that we were there for a notice of protection, and she replied (really bitchy I might add), “Those hearings started at 9am!” granted we were FIFTY minutes late, but I replied right back, “We called, several times, and she told us that it would be fine.” So she finally directed us to the court room.

When we first walked inside the judge was hearing another case, and we saw Tina and Lindsey so Rick sat next to them (Barb was also seeking a restraining order against Lindsey, you know because an eighteen year old girl is someone you need to worry about…)
Any ways about 10 minutes later the judge called all of their names, and they went up before him. He told them that this was how it was going to work. Barb wanted an order of protection from Rick & Lindsey; he didn’t want to get into the specifics of what happened a month ago, he asked them if they all agreed that the ties that held them together in the past no longer existed i.e. Granny had passed. They all agreed, he stated that he saw no reason for them to come together in the future, and they all agreed. Then he said that he would issue the order of protection for six months, if anything else came up over the next six months that he would extend it for longer. (I told Rick prior to going to court, just keep your answers simple, yes sir, no sir, and answer any direct questions only) So that is what he did, do you think Barb did the same??? Of course not!! She didn’t have anything additional to say about Rick, but she wanted it to be known that Lindsey and her mother both have been to anger management courses, and she wanted to play a tape demonstrating how Lindsey was brought up. The judge shot her right down, he said, “Didn’t you hear what I just said, I don’t want to go into the he said she said of what happened a month ago, I’m giving you what you want, that’s it.” She tried again, and he shot her down again. That was it. We were free to go, and we would receive our paperwork in the mail. So the minute he let them all go, me and Tina were already walking towards the door, and we flew down the steps (which isn’t easy in heels).

We walked the girls to their car; while Tina smoked we just caught up a little, because we were parked over by Barb. But of course they had to come out on the same side of the courthouse that we did. The minute she walked out she started running her mouth trying to antagonize them. Lindsey almost said something, but we told her to be quiet and let her go on. Then Barb started walking away she grabbed her daughters arm and started shaking her butt like Na, Na A Boo Boo. If I’m not mistaken I think I actually heard those words come out of her mouth?? It just goes to show, I’ve been right about her all along… NO CLASS!!

At least this chapter of our lives is finally over!!!

What do you worry about??

2008-09-16T16:18:00.001-04:00

Do you worry if your kids are going to turn out alright, or if you have just royally screwed them up?

Do you worry about bills?

Do you worry that your life is going to pass you by, without having done everything that you always wanted to do?

Do you ever worry that your cancer is going to come back?

Well that has been my worry for the past few days, not that it already wasn’t in the back of my mind constantly or anything like that… on Sunday I found a petechiae and just about lost my mind. (I had these when I was diagnosed with Leukemia almost three years ago) I had decided not to tell my husband about it unless more of them appeared, but of all days for him to come in when I was still getting ready (and I had not completely pulled myself together.) So of course the questions started to fly, “What’s wrong?” Nothing. “I know you’re lying, what’s going on? Then I had to tell him, of course he broke down crying. I told him other that finding that spot, I still felt fine. It just really freaked me out for a minute. For the rest of the weekend he acted completely weird on me.

Then yesterday I came home from work early, I only had a headache, but he completely wigged out on me. “What’s wrong, what are you keeping from me?” But really, my head was just hurting and I needed to lie down, that was it.

Today I found another spot on my gums, so if I find anything else I’m going to call my doctors office and have some blood work done, if for nothing else than just a piece of mind. But if I’m being honest it really is starting to freak me out. I’m almost at my three year mark. I can’t even imagine starting over from square one again!! Although I’ve always known that only 20-30% of AML patients remain disease-free, still that would be a very tough pill to swallow.

I’m still trying to remain positive; even though I’m scared out of my mind.

It's official... I've lost my mind

2008-09-04T16:39:00.002-04:00

Pictures of daughters room.

Quick Update

2008-08-29T16:34:00.000-04:00

Our manger at work got fired a couple of weeks ago, so I’ve been loaded up with extra work, plus with my husband’s grandmother passing away, I’ve been really busy lately. I know excuses, excuses, but I’m going to try and post more often.

Today I hit a milestone; I have officially lost 30 lbs this year, so far!! I’m pretty excited about that. Now I only have 83 more to lose… It’s my own fault for letting it go that far. This is the lowest that I have weighed in over 10 years. I’m just trying to ensure that I’m doing what I need to do, to try and keep cancer recurrence at bay for as long as possible.

Khrystyne went out on her first date this past Saturday; she’ll be 18 in October. She likes Nicholas, but they are both really shy, and actually this was the first time that they had even met. Nicholas is the son of a co-worker of mine, and he put Nicholas information on the bulletin board at work for people to write to him. He is in the Army, and serving in Iraq. So anyway they went on their date on Saturday, and he went back to Iraq on Monday. So the next possible time for them to meet will be at least December…

Ricky started soccer back up a couple of weeks ago; they don’t have practice this weekend thank goodness, because we are painting Courtney and Breanna’s bedroom this weekend.

Well that’s it for now, I’m going to try to enjoy my long weekend, you do the same.

Smack Down at a Funeral

2008-08-21T12:48:00.001-04:00

I had thought that I had seen it all, with regards to my husbands family; that is until yesterday. Rick had a feeling that his aunt would try to cause problems and he did not want to bring the kids to the funeral because of that. But I did not want them to miss out on being at their Great-Grandmother’s funeral.

Granny’s showing started at 11am for immediate family members, my family was there at 10:50. His aunts and uncles were not there until 11:20, and they had requested that no one be allowed in until they had all arrived. So we had to wait for all of them, so basically they were late for their own mother’s funeral.

Finally they allowed the rest of us to come in, and everything was going well… Until… Tina and her kids & grand-kids showed up. (Tina’s husband was Charlie, Granny’s youngest child that committed suicide a few months back) Tina & (Rick’s) aunt Barb had been into it since before Charlie died, after Charlie’s funeral Barb took out a restraining order out against Tina. So as soon as she saw Tina walk in to pay her respects (with Granny’s grandkids & great-grandkids) she started yelling, “No, no, no get that Bitch out of here now. Get out, Get out, Get out now!”

Tina was crying (because of Granny, not Barb) and she took her grandchildren up to pay their respects. Barb had already walked to the back of the room to get the funeral director to have her removed; she was being very loud and obnoxious. Everyone was trying to talk her into just letting them pay their respects and leaving, but she wasn’t hearing that. She was cussing and screaming, and the next thing I knew my husband was rushing past me towards the back of the room (I tried to grab him but I missed), once he got back there he slammed the double doors in Barb’s face. She busted through the doors and screamed at him not to shut the doors on her, he said something about the kids not needing to hear all of that, and she shoved him, then she shoved him again (trying to get him to hit her I’m sure) but Rick just threw both of his arms in the air so that EVERYONE could see that he never touched her. Then she called him a big headed Bitch. (I think he started laughing at her) but she was still yelling at Tina, then Barb and (Tina & Charlie’s) daughter Lindsey started arguing (Lindsey is 18) all of the sudden Lindsey grabbed Barb by the neck and almost flung her to the ground, Barb’s eyes were about to bug out of her head. (It was so funny) By then the funeral director and some of the men in the family took everyone outside.

I stayed put with the kids for awhile, but finally I told Khrys & Court to watch the two younger ones so that I could go find their father. When I finally found everyone, I walked outside to see two Sherriff’s cars pulling up. So they split everyone up to try and find out what had happened, by then Tina and the kids had already left. The Sherriff questioned Rick 3-4 times, and he stated that he was not going to arrest him for shutting the door in his aunts face (although she was trying to get him arrested) and he couldn’t make him leave, but if the funeral director wanted him to leave they would ask him to politely do so. The funeral director was standing nearby shaking his head no; he didn’t want Rick to leave.

So after we all wrote our statements out for the police, the funeral director approached us again and stated that Barb was now demanding that Rick be ejected from the funeral. Rick told him that if she would agree that he would stay on one side of the room and not say anything to her if she agreed to stay on the opposite side of the room and not say anything to him. They approached her with that request and she told them no she wanted him to leave. So Phil and Paul (Rick’s cousin & Uncle) went and got Pastor Mike and he spoke with Barb and her husband Larry, and finally got them to agree with it.

The funeral director came and asked me & Rick to have a word with him privately. He told us that he really appreciated the way that we handled the whole situation, and that he could tell that we had really good character; he just wanted to let us know that.

We went back into the chapel and waited for the services to start, (with people coming up to us to tell us the obvious, THAT BARB IS CRAZY). Then Barb finally came back into the chapel and sat in the front pew on the right hand side (we were in the third row on the left had side) When all of Rick’s other aunts and uncle came in they all sat in the front pew right in front of us, Barb and her husband sat in their pew all alone. I thought that single gesture spoke louder that any words could. (Which if nothing else that whole episode kept Barb outside for almost two whole hours!)

Because of everything that went on that day, once everyone was seated Pastor Mike started the services (25 minutes early). Granny looked beautiful, much better than we had seen her in the past two weeks. She had a pastel pink dress on with a matching beaded jacket. I don’t think everyone had a chance to grieve properly because we just all wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. Which, really, was too bad.

Pastor Mike said that God had recently laid something on his heart to do with two extra acres behind the church, next year he was going to plant a huge garden and when he harvested and canned all of the food he was going to take it to the food banks around town. He told us all yesterday that he was going to name the garden after Granny; it’s going to be called the Tina Stamper Victory Garden. I thought that was sweet of him. In the past few years he has officiated over all of the funerals in my husband’s family, Tabitha, Ryan, Greg, Judy, Charlie, and now Granny, so in part he is like one of the family.

He also went into how many children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren Granny had, in all she has one hundred thirty four decedents with two more on the way! What an amazing and full life she had.

I just wish that everyone could have been a little bit more respectful at her service yesterday. She deserved at least that much. Rest in peace Granny, we love you.

Granny

2008-08-19T15:09:00.001-04:00

Well I haven’t posted for awhile, my husbands grandmother (granny) was sent home under home hospice care two weeks ago, she passed on Sunday I’ll have a post coming up on her once I have a few minutes to sit down and write it. Her funeral services are going to be tomorrow from 11-2 she made the arrangements herself she wanted one hour for the family, one hour for everyone, and one hour for the service. Short, sweet, and to the point that is how she lived her whole life, why not make your final arrangements the same way. Please keep our family in your thoughts and prayers.

Ding Dong Ditch

2008-08-08T12:50:00.001-04:00

Last Friday night Ricky went to a slumber party (with 7 other boys!!!) About 9pm there was a ring at the door, we thought oh great he didn’t want to stay so they’re bringing him home. But when we got to the door no one was there.

There is a little boy that lives right behind us, who will from time to time ring our door bell and run. So we look around the corner of the house and we see Ricky and his friends booking it into the back yard.

So Rick looks down the street and sees the little boys parents hiding behind a tree, laughing. Tosha said that Ricky looked real sad, she thought that he might want to go home, so between her and all of the boys they decided to come over and ring the door bell and take off. One of the little boys said yeah, let’s ding dong ditch… So that perked him up a little bit, and they thought it was the funniest thing in the whole world.

Not a whole lot has been on lately, I’m winning our weight loss contest so far here at work. To date this year I have lost 28 pounds, people are starting to notice which is always nice, and I’ve dropped quite a few sizes. Oh yeah, I’ve also lost my reflux issue, if I had known years ago, that a change in my diet would take that away, I would have been there with bells on!!!

Well have a great weekend…

Dreams...

2008-07-31T13:36:00.002-04:00

Okay, so I have been going back & forth on wither or not I was going to blog about this, but I thought maybe someone might have and opinion or insight on why I had this dream to begin with.

Over the Fourth of July weekend at Rick’s aunts house I had a dream one night, when I woke up I was completely freaked out, once you read it I’m sure you’ll understand why. Rick’s uncle Charlie committed suicide a few months back, I know that had been on my mind and in my heart lately.

I didn’t want to tell Rick about it, so after we made it home I wrote it down so that he could read it, of course he was just as freaked out about it as I was. But then that same night Breanna found a marker grabbed a piece of paper and drew the picture at the bottom of this post. Again, completely freaking us out, Rick turned to me and asked me if I had told her about the dream, which of course I hadn’t.

So anyways here is what I dreamt, and the picture Breanna drew. You tell me what you get from this???

I dreamt that I was lying on a hill, green grass everywhere, there was a clear blue sky, and the sun was shining bright, and from a distance was a pond down a big hill. From the hill I saw Uncle Charlie walking towards me with two young girls one on each side of him when he got to me the girls fell away (they looked familiar, but I couldn’t make out who they were) he said, “Hey baby.” and then hugged me. When he pulled away it wasn’t him any longer he had changed into Breanna, I said, “Oh baby, you’re an Angel” (almost in tears) and knelt down beside her. She said in a typical childlike tone, “They don’t call us Angels where I’m from, mom.” I was upset at seeing her knowing that she/Uncle Charlie had killed himself. And she looked at me and said, “I met Jesus mom, he took me by the hand and made me whole again. Then Jesus took me for a walk and showed me all of heaven.” I felt her chest and there was no gunshot wound and I just pulled her close to me and cried, and sobbed… Then I woke up crying.

Cancer Update: I went in for my quarterly blood draw today, they weighed me and took me back to a room, took my temperature (which was up), and took my blood pressure (which was also up). Then the doctor came in and sat down, and he asked me how I’ve been feeling. I hate when he does that, because it always makes me feel like he knows something that I don’t. But then he said, “Oh, by the way your blood work was fine.” (Why couldn’t he just say that from the beginning?) He asked, “I bet you got nervous about the second month, didn’t you?” I said, “No, I’ve been coming every three months since last fall. I’m used to it by now.” Why do they have to say stuff to make you nervous? So then he made me get on the table where he looked me over and listened to my breathing, something he really doesn’t do anymore, so again I’m getting nervous!!! He told me a while back that he will feel better about my situation once I get a few more years under my belt. I know that with AML you can fall out of remission shortly after your treatment, and I have found quite a few people who made it up to 2-3 years and then had a relapse. So I’m already nervous enough, without him making little cracks like that.

Cancer Updates:

2008-07-30T12:23:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow I go for my check up with my oncologist. I’ve been feeling very well lately, with no issues to report so hopefully my blood counts will be where they need to be at.

I wanted to write about a couple of people that I have been following for the past 9-10 months, they both lost their battle with cancer last week, and I just wanted people to know about them.

The first one I’m sure many people know about his name was Randy Pauch he was the college professor who gave “The Last Lecture”. I wanted to remember Randy today because of his vision, and his zest for life, and for making each moment count. He was an amazing man, a family man, a teacher, a true inspiration. If any of you have seen his last lecture or parts of it on Oprah, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Here is the link to Randy’s updates http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/news/index.html. It was a wonderful story, so much worth the read… Here is an article on Randy, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25848017/

The second person that I wanted to talk about was Kristy Dykes, her blog is titled Christian Love Stories. She was diagnosed with the same kind of brain tumor that Senator Ted Kennedy was recently diagnosed with. Her blog is so inspirational to me, the love that she had for her husband and the love that he so obviously had for her is something to aspire to have in your own marriage. The link for her blog is here:
http://christianlovestories.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html

Please also check out this post that her husband posted for all husbands to read: http://christianlovestories.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_archive.html (scroll down to the November 23, 2008 post titled Tough Men and Tender Romance.)

Dawn Marie Stuard

2008-07-17T16:53:00.002-04:00

Dawn Marie Stuard

March 17, 1986, I was 13 years old (almost 14) and in Jr. High School. My cousin went missing, and I remember my aunts & uncles, everyone really looking for her. Her parents went out of town for the weekend, and woke her up to take her to her aunt’s house. She had stayed up late (it was the weekend) and begged her parents to let her sleep a little longer, and that she would walk over to her aunts house when she woke up which was just a few blocks away. So her parents agreed and called his sister to let her know that Dawn would walk over later in the day. She was headed over to her aunt’s house, but made a detour to the local park, witnesses saw her speaking to some men in a car, then later they heard a car peeling out and no one ever saw Dawn alive again. They knew who the men in the car were, but couldn’t be sure that they were the ones peeling out because they only heard it, they didn’t see them leaving. My aunt Sherry went to their house and beat on the door, they had a few words but they would not let her in their house (she blamed herself for this later, she felt if she would have just pushed her way through, that she could have saved Dawn) The police were called, they questioned the Reese family, then the search started for Dawn. My uncle Dale found her body; she had been raped and beaten to death. They found her in some water several days after the fact, I remember this because she had an open casket at her funeral, and she didn’t even look like herself. She was so bloated; it looked like someone else entirely.

The police searched the Reese’s family home, and found blood and hair on a pool stick that was used to beat her to death. The father was arrested and charged with rape, confinement, and murder, his sixteen year old son was also a suspect in her rape and murder.

When the police searched the Reese family home, they did not obtain a search warrant and all of the evidence was eventually thrown out. They were released from jail and charges were never brought against them again. UNTIL THIS WEEK….

Brian Reese (who was the sixteen year old son, 22 yrs ago), was charged in three homicides this past week, and he also shot an Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Office in the head (he has not yet been charged with any crimes against the police officer).

On Tuesday night I was getting ready to go to bed and the news was coming on, they were talking about Brian/Paul Reese and how they had a connection to a murder some 20+ years ago. They kept showing a picture of a young girl and I kept thinking to myself man she looks so familiar… so I stayed up to watch the story.

They started talking about the rape/murder of this young girl, and then her father was being interviewed, it’s been quite some time since I have seen him but then it hit me that this story was about Dawn, and then they showed the video clip of the police bringing her out of the wooded area by this time I was on the edge of the couch, tears flowing down my face. It felt like I was taken back to that very moment when she was found all of those years ago. They are going to reopen her case and hopefully with DNA testing that is available now that wasn’t available 20 years ago, they can finally prove what everybody knew back then, that they are the ones who raped and killed Dawn, and that they will have to suffer the punishment for their crimes old and new.

I just really saddens me that three more people (almost four) had to lose their life to bring these monsters to justice. That’s being generous I’m sure people who have been convicted on murder as early as 1960 (the father), that have been suspected on a 1986 homicide, didn’t just start all over again in 2008. I just wonder how many other people have died at these people’s hands??? They have another son in prison for… you guessed it murder. How does a whole family turn out to be so evil? Hopefully they will never see the light of day again. And Dawn will finally be able to rest in peace.

Here’s the latest on the Reese investigation.

Our Family...

2008-07-16T17:00:00.002-04:00

List of Characters for this story:
Joanne – Rick’s aunt
Ron – Joanne’s husband
Shannon – Rick’s sister
Darren – Shannon’s boyfriend
Bub(by) – Rick’s brother
Chrissy – Bub’s soon to be ex-wife

We went to Michigan over the 4th of July it actually turned out to be very interesting this year. We have been going there for several years, and this was the first time that we ever had any problems. Rick’s sister and her boyfriend went with us this year (it’s Rick’s fathers family that we go see)

We stopped to eat before we got to his aunt Joanne’s house, Rick called her to let her know that we were almost there, and she told him that Bub and Chrissy came down the night before. (Rick had talked to bubby a few days before, and as far as we knew they were still getting divorced and she would not let him bring Carly (their daughter) to the get together) Apparently she called Bubby on Wednesday night and told him that she wanted to work on things (basically just so that she could come to the BIG PARTY, and to start trouble). I told Shannon that she was there and she made it clear that if she stepped out of line all hell was going to break loose.

Sooo… The drinks flew fast, and heavily all afternoon and into the night. Chrissy was taking prescription pills on top of drinking (without eating) I was out in the tent and just fell asleep when I heard what sounded like an explosion!!! I looked out the side of the tent and heard people yelling and screaming and heard Chrissy’s jeep start up, then turn off, then start up, then turn off. (Rick jumped in the jeep with her and took her keys away, because the girl could not even stand up) Then she dug in her purse and said, “I have another set of keys!” Rick told her that she was just stupid for telling him, because he took those away too. Then they got out of the jeep and walked around the front of the house, by this time Courtney was in the tent with me watching all of the action. Shannon comes up to the side of the tent, and says “April I told you if she tried to start any s**t I was going to whip her a**. She told me that I didn’t love my brother (Bub).” And some other stuff Shannon was drunk and was stumbling around I couldn’t make out everything that she said. So she started walking towards the house. I said, “Shannon let Rick Calm her down she is drunk, she just needs to sleep.” F that she says and stumbles onto the patio. They are from Detroit so every other word all weekend was the F word. It really got on my nerves.

Anyway I hear Chrissy shouting your sister disrespected me, and you didn’t even say anything. Courtney is telling me what happened in the house before the big “Explosion” Chrissy said all of that stuff to Shannon, and then she slapped Bubby in the face really hard and poked him in both eyes (like the three stooges, double fingered and everything). The slap by the way was already the second slap of the night.

So Shannon reaches them on the porch and started yelling at Chrissy, Aunt Joanne got Shannon into the house, Rick was still trying to calm Chrissy down when he turned around to look at his brother, Chrissy went around the other side of Rick and SLAPPED Bubby in the face (she turned his whole head around, but he never raised his hand to her) Rick picked her up by both arms and put her up against the house, and yelled, “You’re not going to put your hands on my brother again!” So she shoves Rick, then she shoves him again and says hit me mother F*er, hit me. You’re nothing but a drunk like your brother, and then she shoved him again… of course at this time I’m putting my shoes on and running out of the tent, with Courtney hot on my heals, by the time I got down there I shoved her into the house and screamed don’t put your hands on my husband again or I’m going to whip you’re a** myself!! Darren (Shannon’s boyfriend) got in between us and tried to get me into the house. But I shoved him out of the way and shoved her a couple of more times, she just closed her eyes and hung her head down. I was still screaming at her telling her to shut the F up and go to sleep. So Darren finally got me into the house, Joanne got Chrissy out by the fire, and everyone else finally came into the house. (Ron and Joanne kept giving Chrissy alcohol, so she can pass out they said) (Fuel to the fire I said) The group wanted to go back outside to keep parting and I told Rick you keep them in the house, she is not getting any attention so things were finally starting to calm down, so Rick made them all stay in the house. Bed time that night was 7am Saturday morning… I kept saying all night that she was acting like she had bipolar disorder, the next morning I found out that she does have bipolar and was taking anti-psychotic drugs… which you are not supposed to mix with alcohol… You think???

New Memories...

2008-06-30T12:51:00.002-04:00

This past weekend was pretty non-eventful, besides the usual grocery shopping, laundry, library, and just plain ole’ hanging out with the family; spotty thundershowers kept us inside for most of the weekend, but we managed to get out a few times.

I overheard Ricky and Breanna in a conversation where Ricky was trying to convince Breanna that we had done something awhile back, and then I heard Breanna say, “No we did not, remember mommy was sick, and we didn’t get to go.” Can I please say, I never wanted my illness to get in the way of my children’s happiness, and I will never again tell them that I am too sick to do anything with them. I do not want that to be their memory of me.

Yesterday afternoon it was raining, and Rick was playing Flat Out on the Play Station. Ricky was sitting in the chair with me, we were goofing off and he was laughing his head off, all of the sudden he grabbed himself and said uh-oh… I pushed him out of the chair and told him to hurry up as he ran to the bathroom. I had made him laugh so hard he almost pee’d his pants. Then he came back and we started playing around again, not ten minutes later the same thing happened.

Our puppy is housebroken, but now she wants to chew everything up. She keeps chewing up Breanna’s little stuffed animals. She has hand sewn noses, and eyes on her puppies/kitties and yesterday we even had to sew an entire head on their bulldog puppy. Anyway Breanna has taken to giving her stuffed animals baths because of the dog slobber, so for awhile yesterday afternoon I sat on the floor with her blow drying her stuffed animals (so their fur would be fluffy once again).

(These are the kind of memories I want my kids to have.)

Dentist (UGGH)

2008-06-26T15:29:00.000-04:00

Not a whole lot has been going on with me lately, just dealing with the stupid dentist/oral surgeon!! My jaw feels like it has a constant cramp in it, and my teeth are so hot/cold sensitive I can barely stand it. That has been my fear about going to see the dentist since my cancer treatment stopped, so much so that this has been the first time I have even seen a dentist in over two years. So now if anything is cold or hot I can barely eat or drink it, my bite feels off to the point if I eat something more solid than pudding I can hardly bite down (without tremendous pain), I had a wisdom tooth pulled last week and I keep pulling the stitches, I wake up every morning between 2-4 am in so much pain that I have to get up and take pain meds just to be able to go back to sleep. I think the dentist will be off of my list for a couple of years… Sorry about the rant but it has really taken over everything in my life recently, when I get home I’m ready to lay down, because I’m not getting any rest at night, and my stupid head hurts EVERY SINGLE NIGHT because of my STUPID TEETH!!! The dentist painted a solution on my teeth last night to “close the porous parts of my teeth” so they won’t be so hot/cold sensitive. Did it work?? Not even!!

We are going to see Rick’s family in Michigan over the 4th of July, just for a couple of days, but the time off is much needed. His sister is going with us this year, for the first time in eight years!! I’m sure a good time will be had by all, especially by all of those who drink (which I do not)!! So I get to watch them all make fools of themselves.

Khrystyne started a job this week; she is enjoying a little more independence. She’s right at that age where any minute she’ll be ready to go out on her own. I guess I’m a little excited and maybe a little scared for her as well. I guess everyone gets to that stage in their life at some point or another.

My sisters son made a comment about drugs in front of her, so she dragged his butt downtown and had him tested for drugs. Of course it came back positive, so starting Monday he will start an outpatient drug treatment program. He is 14 years old!!

Poor kid...

2008-06-18T14:47:00.003-04:00

Angel, Shelby, Courtney

My best friend’s daughter (Angel) fell off of her push scooter last week and broke both bones in her left forearm. She had surgery this past Monday to have two rods and one metal plate put in. I feel so sorry for her. Imagine being 13 years old and all of the sudden you need help doing even the most basic things, such as washing your hair etc… On Thursday after the swelling goes down from her surgery, she will have a cast put on from her knuckles just up to her armpit, just in time for summer vacation. She will have to deal with this pretty much up until school starts back up. They live 5 minutes from the beach, and they have a pool in their community, and she can’t swim all summer long. For a kid that really has to suck…

I’m having a wisdom tooth removed on Friday; let me tell you it hurts soooo bad. I’ve had issues with it for about two weeks, and tomorrow (the day before the surgery) I can’t take Ibuprofen, Tylenol or anything, I don’t know how I’m going to make it. Rick is taking off of work to take me up there and kind of take care of me all day, which I plan on sleeping it off, if nothing else at least I have great drugs from having cancer (which I hardly ever use, but for this I will make an acceptation) I hate going to the dentist… with a passion!!

Khrystyne has found a job, she will start this week, and it is perfect it’s right down the street (within walking distance) so if we’re not home she can hoof it!! She is pretty excited about starting the next phase of her life, we have decided to let her drop out of school (she would be starting her senior year with 17 credits out of 41), but she will be enrolling in the local GED program this fall instead. It is not what I had in mind for her when she was little, but for her I think this is the right choice. She has dealt with learning disabilities since before she started school, and has struggled all the way. She seems much happier that we have agreed to let her do this, and excited to be getting on with it.

I still haven’t spoken with my sister, every time I think about what she said I still get furious!! I know at some point I will have to deal with it, but not today…

Please stop by Why Mommy and offer some support, she just had bone scans done they think her cancer may have metastasized. I guess that’s why we are all here to share our stories, and to offer support when we can.

Are you ever anxious?

2008-06-12T08:15:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I can’t help but wonder; will I make it to five years without having a relapse? Will I even be alive 10 years from now? I know that these fears are normal for any cancer survivor, but sometimes they keep me up at night. How would my family handle it? Would Rick ever remarry? Would my kids HATE their new step-mother, or would they just forget about me? These are all questions that sometimes fill my mind, I wish that I wouldn’t have these thoughts but sometimes I just can’t help it.

Cancer is a scary situation; it puts a lot of the unknowns (that have always been there) and shoves them right in your face. You have to deal with it on a much deeper level than most people who are going through life acting like there will always be a tomorrow. When people who have had cancer or a heart disease or whatever the case may be, know when they wake up in the morning they have been truly blessed with another day that was never promised to them in the first place.

Every time we celebrate a birthday, or an anniversary on one hand I’m elated that I have made it to just one more, but on the other hand in the back of my mind I wonder will this be the last one I’ll ever get to see?

Don’t get me wrong as far as I know I’m still healthy; I saw my oncologist back in April, and am due to see him again in July. But with each bruise that lingers a little too long, or with each new ache and pain you always wonder; is it back? Do I have a different type of cancer? When I took Chemo for my Leukemia, they told me that what they were giving me was a very strong toxin that would most likely cause another form of cancer 5-10 years down the road (most likely breast cancer). So it feels as if I’m constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. On one hand it “cured” my cancer, but what if it gives me something much worse in the future that I can’t beat? I don’t know, I guess I’m just trying to work these fears out, but I’ll tell you one thing for sure, I think I’m the youngest patient my hospitals sees for annual mammograms… I always get these looks from the other patients and sometimes even the nurses that I am in the WRONG section of the hospital.

I truly thank God that he has blessed me with an additional 2 ½ years that I honestly never thought that I would see. I just pray that my next 2 ½ years goes as well. And until that day when I hit my five year mark and my doctor proclaims me cancer free, I will wait patiently with much anticipation; hopefully able to put these fears to the back of my mind, and live life to the fullest. OH and HAVE A HUGE PARTY!!!! My family and I will deserve it after all that we have been through.

You said WHAT??

2008-06-10T16:38:00.002-04:00

Ricky Making his car

With the finished product

Water gun fight!!

June the 1st we had Ricky’s birthday party, which ended up in a huge water gun fight. Which the kids thought that was just a blast. We took Ricky to Ridemakerz to build his very own remote control, green Mustang, Monster Truck, with a big motor!! That is all he talked about for weeks, Rick tried to talk him into another car/truck, but Ricky wasn’t having that!! He knew what he wanted, and he was getting it. All in all he had a really good birthday.

This past weekend was the first weekend in MONTHS that we didn’t have Soccer games, or parties (birthday/graduation/baby showers) to go to. It was so nice just to hang out and do absolutely nothing. Most of the time I hate being lazy, but if I ever needed a weekend off this was it.

Me and my sister (Rachel) are currently not speaking, to make a couple of very LONG stories short she told my 17 year old daughter that she should have a boyfriend by now, and that she should be having sex otherwise she might as well be going out with girls!! Oh, and also she should be pregnant by now. (Note: the gay thing does not bother me I have a half sister who is gay) (The thing that bothers me is that my sister who is an “ADULT” told this to my seventeen year old daughter.) Then her son pipes up and asks Khrystyne, “Well are you a lesbian?” Khrystyne told him, “Not that it is any of your business, but no I am not.” Then she told Rachel, “Just because your kids are whores doesn’t mean that I have to be!” Go Khrystyne!! (P.S. Watch your mouth) this is one of those things that you are proud of your kids for standing up for themselves, but on the other hand you kind of cringe when you hear it.

I have a couple of blogs that I read both women are losing their battle with cancer, Please check out their blogs and offer some support. Thanks.

http://www.christianlovestories.blogspot.com/

http://www.freewebs.com/jenniferwilley/myjournal.htm

Suicide part 2…

2008-05-29T17:27:00.003-04:00

Today was Uncle Charlie’s funeral. To say that there wasn’t a dry eye in the house would be putting it extremely mild. People were sobbing like babies. Charlie had a way of touching your heart, making you laugh, making you feel at home. Every time I saw Charlie he would come up to me hug, and kiss me, and ask, “How you doin’ baby?” If there was a stranger in the room Charlie would seek them out and talk to them, he always made every one feel welcome.

I’ll be honest; today I was very conflicted about the way I felt about him committing suicide. My father was a manic depressive, we found him sitting in the basement with a gun in his mouth crying like a baby more than once. He told my mother one time that if he didn’t fear going to hell for killing himself, he would have already done it. (My father eventually died in his sleep December 1989). We were raised in a very strict Baptist Church; we were always taught that if you committed suicide, you had committed a mortal sin for which there was no forgiveness. But within my heart that just did not make sense to me, because we were also taught that when you accepted Christ into your heart that he forgave you of ALL your sins, past, present, and future.

Rick had an associate at work that overheard his conversation about Charlie yesterday; and he asked Rick how could he even justify going to a funeral service for someone that had killed himself? Rick asked him if he had ever lost a cousin, father, brother, or mother to suicide? Of course he answered no. Rick told him then you wouldn’t know.

After the service today I googled suicide and the Bible; there were a lot of articles that I found helpful. I found a quote from http://www.bible.com/ that fits our very situation;

Suicide is a grievous sin that seriously hurts both the heart of God, and those who loved the deceased. The pain of losing a loved one who took their own life is not easily healed, and often isn't fully healed until Heaven. Whether you are contemplating suicide or know someone who killed themselves, God wants you to know there is hope and life for you. He is the great Healer and Restorer of what has been lost or stolen.

I fully believe that is so very true.

This morning when the showing first started some of the relatives started arguing and fighting, and they were going to call the police. When an unexpected person stood up and told everyone that this was not the place or the time (the main culprit was his own mother). It was Rick’s cousin Mark, who by all accounts has been in and out of trouble all of his life, but today he finally took a stand and did the right thing. I was really proud of him.

All of this fighting between the family started when Judy (Rick’s mother) died, this was the first time that they all were under the same roof in almost two years. Rick’s other cousin by marriage stood up to talk about Charlie during his service today, and towards the end of her speech she told them that they needed to come together and forgive one another. While I was researching what the Bible says about suicide I found some passages about depression (which can lead up to suicide) and it just fit our situation as well:

Depression is often anger, and a host of other emotions that have turned inward and become frozen. If you are carrying anger, resentment, bitterness, unforgiveness, frustration, jealousy, despair, worthlessness, hopelessness, fearfulness, vengeance and/or self-pity in your heart, you can turn these things over to God and begin to receive your healing right now, in faith. If you don't know how to let them go, confess it to God and ask for His help in releasing it to Him. No one can overcome these things by themselves. We all need the power of God to set us free from sinful and hopeless ways of thinking. That is why the Bible tells us that we must be "transformed, by the renewing of our mind (Romans 12:2)." The Holy Spirit is the only One who can help us break free and be healed of these deadly emotions.

So if you have family out there that you have not spoken to in awhile, you may not even remember what you were arguing about in the first place. Please consider how you would feel if you lost that person unexpectedly, and you did not work things out between one another, and forgive each other. When it would just take a simple “I’m sorry” or a phone call just to see how they have been. It would release you from that inner struggle, even if they didn’t return the gesture.

My husband was so angry the night we found out about Charlie, because we all saw where Charlie was headed with the drugs and the alcohol abuse. Rick was really beating himself up over the fact that he never said anything to Charlie that everybody just accepted it as “that’s just the way it is.” He says that he really wishes that he would have said something to him about what he was doing and who he was hurting while doing what he did. If you have a family member who is struggling with an addiction please say something to them, before you run out of time. Don’t live with the “What if’s”.

Rest in Peace Uncle Charlie, we are going to really miss you.

Happy Birthday Baby…

2008-05-28T10:47:00.001-04:00

Today is my son’s birthday; he is officially six years old. Last night when I was tucking him in he asked, “Tomorrow can I pick out my own clothes? I’ll be six you know!” So this morning when I woke him up I asked him if he would like to pick out his own clothes, and he jumped up and said “Oh yeah, I’m six now. I can do it.” Now what good am I, I can’t even lay his clothes out for him anymore!! It sucks having your babies grow up in the blink of an eye. My oldest child will be eighteen years old in October. I just wonder when it was that I got so old…

Because of my cancer it will never be possible for me to have any more children, I think deep down I kind of mourn that. I love my kids, and I would love to have more. Rick keeps telling me to wait; I’ll be a grandmother before I know it. Which I know that will happen soon enough. (At least 5-10 more years KHRYSTYNE & COURTNEY do I make myself clear?) Still deep down I don’t want to be an empty nester someday, I know some (most) people look forward to the day when their children are all grown up and moved away. But me personally I dread that day, our house is always so lively, so loud. I think that the silence would be deafening. But I wouldn’t hold my children back from making their own way, and hopefully finding great happiness.

I was talking with my sister this morning, and she said that there are two girls out there claiming that they are pregnant by her sixteen year old son… She doesn’t believe that he is the father, hopefully paternity tests will prove otherwise, but if not my sister is going to be a GRANDMA!!!! Oh crap, that means I’ll be a great aunt… Oh well she will be a grandmother first, Ha! Ha!

Happy birthday son, don’t grow up too fast.
Love,
Mom

Suicide

2008-05-27T12:21:00.002-04:00

We received the dreaded call yesterday right before noon. Uncle Charlie (my husband’s uncle) had committed suicide. His eighteen year old daughter had found him lying in his bed with family photos all around and a gun shot through the heart. Two years ago we received a familiar call, but at that time it was Ryan who had killed himself, Charlie’s second child. He was 22 years old; he had suffered from depression for years, as well as drug and alcohol abuse. Charlie really was never the same since Ryan’s death, and he battled his own demons of depression, drug and alcohol abuse as well.

In part I’m sure Charlie felt somewhat responsible for Ryan’s death, because Ryan pretty much did whatever Charlie was doing. Charlie’s wife Tina finally left him a few months back, she just couldn’t take it anymore (after 27 years). Watching him kill himself slowly, and she even said yesterday, this was not what she wanted. She still loved Charlie, and she never wished him any harm.

On our way to Charlie’s house we saw fire trucks and an ambulance in front of Granny’s house. So we stopped there first. The police Chaplin had just come by to give her the news of her youngest child’s death. She has heart problems, and her chest was hurting, and she couldn’t breath. They took her blood pressure and gave her some oxygen, but then they left. She may be 91 years old, but she is still a tough old lady. I stayed with Granny and one of her daughters, while Rick went on down to Charlie’s.

Family started coming in one by one; Uncle Paul flew in yesterday (his plane landed around 9pm). Granny is getting so frail that she is constantly cold, so her house was burning hot. I went out to the front porch to get some fresh air, and one by one Rick’s Aunts came out and talked to me about Charlie, they all just wanted to know why? Which in reality no one will ever have the answer to that question. I would hug them, and tell them that everything will be alright. That sister would go in, and then another sister would come out. Within two hours I was emotionally drained. It broke my heart to hear his grandmother cry.

Emma said that it wasn’t fair. That Judy (Rick’s mom who died of cancer two years ago) wanted to live so badly, and she fought so hard. And these guys are just killing themselves left and right, and that they don’t have that right, they should want to be here for their families.

When Ryan died his four year old daughter found his body. How traumatic do you think that is to a child?? Ryan’s wife is also a drug addict, so Charlie and Tina fought for custody of Ryan’s two children a four year old girl, and a two year old boy, and they won custody. Now what? They have to tell those babies that their papa is dead. When Tina left Charlie the kids wanted to stay with him, and they had already been through so much that Tina let them. The 18 year old daughter who found him is graduating high school this week; her open house was going to be this coming up Saturday at their house. Instead we will be burying her father. C.J is only 15 so he will have to go live with his mother, along with the two grandbabies.

Since Judy died two years ago, the family has been divided over what some of the aunt’s pulled with Rick & Shannon, so getting everyone together under one roof will be a first in two years. There is already talk of fighting etc… Which is really sad, because Charlie’s children, and grandchildren should be considered, and all of their bullshit pettiness should be put to the side at least until we bury Charlie.

We went home and had to tell our youngest two that Uncle Charlie had died; Ricky (who is five) just asked to go back outside to play. Breanna cried for awhile. But later while I was making dinner Ricky came back in the house and crawled up on his dad’s lap and asked, “Is Uncle Charlie really dead?” with tears in his eyes. He loved his Uncle Charlie. Which Charlie always had a way with children, they all loved him.

Please keep our family in your thoughts and prayers, this is going to be a rough week.

What to do??

2008-05-23T17:08:00.004-04:00

Ricky being silly

A thousand things have been going on all at once; it’s been hard for me to find a moment to myself, little lone find time to write. Both my husbands and my jobs seem to be up in the air. It looks as if we both may end up losing our jobs within one to two years. His company will be downsizing, and mine is outsourcing. So we have been trying to decide what we want to do. Rick has an opportunity to work at Stout Field (military) as a civilian working on Humvee’s, but the job is temporary until some of the reservists come home from Iraq next year. But its good money, and it will put a fire up his butt to lose weight and get into shape, because (wait for it…) he is going back into the Army next year. We have been out of the Army for ten years, but I think we both really miss it, and are ready to get on with it. When he goes back in he will have to go through 3 weeks of basic (a refresher really) and three weeks training, then we’ll get orders and get the hell out of Indiana…

I think that I’m going to re-try my hand at this stay at home mom thing. Plus I’ve decided to go back to school; I want to be a nurse when I grow up. I’m pretty sure that I want to be an oncology nurse. Who better to take care of a cancer patient, than someone who knows exactly what they are going through??

The kids are a little unsure of the whole thing; scared is probably a better word for it. Like I told Rick if God decides it’s your time to go it doesn’t matter if you are in Iraq, or crossing the street, it’s your time!! Rick is not scared, he’s just a little worried if something were to happen to him how it would affect the children. Which is 100% a normal thought, but the longer he has thought about it the more he just wants to do it.

The kids will be out of school next week, and Ricky will be a GREAT BIG 6 years old. I can’t believe he is that old. He was just 3 when I was diagnosed, and I thought he wouldn’t remember me if something were to happen. Well that is at least one answered prayer… (that was my main prayer actually, just let my children remember how much I loved them).

Speaking of prayer, please visit Kristy Dykes at Christian Love Stories she was diagnosed with the same kind of brain tumor that Sen. Ted Kennedy was just diagnosed with, back in November, and it doesn’t look as if she has much time left. But her story, and that of her family is so inspiring, please visit.

Have a good weekend.

Quickie

2008-05-16T16:53:00.001-04:00

Okay, just a quick run down from the past couple of weeks. I’m posting some pictures from the 500 Mini-Marathon (Gatorade station) that we worked, also a picture of me and the kids from our 1st 2k ever!! It was a lot of fun, Ricky & Breanna ran the whole thing, me & the girls just walked it.

My son had a program at school today, Stacy was off so I couldn’t get off of work to go. But my husband and mother went. My mom email this picture of Ricky to me, we didn’t even know that this was his Kindergarten graduation program!!! So I missed it. Ahh, the working life (HOW I HATE YOU!) More and more I just wish that I could be a SAHM.

Summer

2008-05-02T16:17:00.003-04:00

Khrystyne and her dad Pre-Prom
Khrystyne and her BFF Joslin

I still have not heard back from my Doctor yet with the results of the MRI. Although the numbness seems to be spreading throughout my entire body; it’s not so numb that I can’t feel anything, but it feels like (say your foot is asleep and it’s just starting to wear off) well my whole body feels like that. The top of my head, bottom of my feet and everything in between; it feels like something has gone haywire in my body, or I have a short circuit. I don’t know that is the best way that I can describe it. It really sucks when you have a 45 min commute to and from work and BOTH of your hands keep falling asleep, and it feels as if you keep getting these little jolts of electricity throughout your entire body. I came thisclose to having my husband take me to the emergency room the other night.

My seventeen year old (Khrystyne) is once again requesting to drop out of high school. She currently has 17 credits and is a junior, she’ll need 41 to graduate next year which won’t happen and she does not want to put in the extra year of high school that it will take her to get everything done. She wants to take her GED and (get this) join the Military to get money for COLLEGE… If kids could just hear how STUPID they sound sometimes… I know that she has a really bad learning disability, and I feel sorry for her, but I don’t know if I could just let her drop out like that.

My FOURTEEN year old (Courtney) has a new boyfriend, he’s seventeen years old. She is not allowed to date until she is sixteen, she only see’s him at school. But I know what is coming… She’s going to want to start going out with this kid, and she’ll have yet one more reason to HATE ME!!! I’ve been told this no less that 20 times this past year. Eh… Ask me if I care… My job right now is to mother her not be her BFF!

Ricky scored his first goal during last Saturday’s soccer game. His skill level is really coming along this year; he can control the ball better than anyone on his team. But then again they are only five…

Breanna brought home paper work for a 2k fun run for her school, so next Saturday all of the kids and me will be participating in a FUN RUN… Then we’ll have to RUN to Ricky’s soccer game. Ahh… Summer was I just begging for you to begin???

Courtney, Jordan (a friend at works little girl) and myself are volunteering for the LLS tomorrow setting up Gatorade stands for the Indianapolis 500 Mini Marathon. I did this last year and I had a lot of fun doing it. Jordan’s mom Stacy is participating in the Mini this year, and so is Tony (my boss).

Hope you have a great weekend.

Weekend Update.

2008-04-29T17:06:00.001-04:00

Ok, so I had a really good experience at camp this past weekend. I enjoyed catching up with past campers, and even got to know a few new ones. Rick and the kids came up for family night (minus Khrys, she was at prom); Ricky and Breanna had a blast!!! They tore up the Candy dishes, and they love playing Bingo. You wouldn’t think that a five and eight year old would LOVE bingo but they do.

We did yard work on Sunday. Man it really needed it. We put in new plants, took out the dead ones, and put weed killer on our grass!!! It was starting to be overrun with dandelions.

Yesterday I went to see my oncologist for my quarterly check-up, normally when he comes in to give me my results; he kind of runs in, “Hi, how you doing? Everything looks fine see you in three months!” Yesterday not so much; he came into the office with his nurse Katie, they both took a seat, and he asked me, “So how are you feeling?” I told him that I was feeling fine. Then he said, “Well when we tried to get a smear of your blood it wouldn’t take, we had to do it three or four times before we could get it. We don’t quite know what that means, but everything looked fine.” ???????? WTF does that mean??????

Me: Well actually there have been a few things lately that I wanted to mention, I’m not sure if it means anything. I keep getting a pain in the right side of my head and in between my shoulder blade that feels like someone is stabbing me. My finger tips keep going numb, not for a little while either for hours sometimes 7-8 hours. I can’t keep my balance either.

Dr. Cripe and Katie both look at each other????

He comes over and pushes on my spine in between my shoulders, and then he pushes my head down (and asked if it hurt) then he had me turn my head to the left and then to the right while he pushed down. Then he said, “It sounds like you could have a spinal cord disease, who is your family doctor? You are going to have to have an MRI done. I’ll send him a note, and we’ll go from there.”

GREAT!!

We leave the cancer pavilion and head home everything is fine until about an hour later I could not lift my arm or turn my neck; nothing… and I was in so much PAIN!! All from him just touching and pushing on me.

I emailed Katie this morning with all of my family doctors info and asked her to send the letter to him as soon as possible, then I explained what happened last night. She called me an hour later and said that Dr. Cripe doesn’t want to wait that long and had her schedule me in for an MRI tomorrow morning. She said, “I hope the time will work for you.” I told her that I would make it work. So after the MRI they will call and let me know what on earth is wrong with me now!!!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot I got the distinct pleasure of going to court yesterday over medical bills!!! Thankfully I had copies of the checks where I had already paid these bills, so I didn’t have to go before a judge. Thank God!! I should get a release of debt in the next 30 days through the mail. Until the next time that is… We are drowning in medical debt. It really is a shame that insurance isn’t as good as it should be. Out of all of my medical bills my insurance has paid 2/3; I’m still responsible for 1/3 (which now is over $100,000.00). Good luck to them with trying to collect all of that!! I can’t give them what we don’t even make…

Anyway, all in all I had a really good weekend. My husband managed to get off from work on Saturday, and we just had a really good time hanging out with the kids. I got to hang out with some pretty amazing cancer survivors, I got to do some much needed yard work, and I’m pretty well rested, so what more can you ask for?

Kids....

2008-04-25T16:27:00.004-04:00

My goal this year was to blog at least 1-2 times per week. I think that has kind of gone out the window at this point. Although I can at least catch you up.

I took Khrystyne to see Dr. Goulet last Wednesday, and he had her pathology report back and the tumor was benign. A huge burden was lifted at that point. She doesn’t have to go back, so that was great news.

The puppy is almost completely housebroken. Thank God!! I can’t stand house training a dog. But she is really intelligent, and she is a good dog.

Courtney has once again turned into the problem child. She has been suspended from school, suspended off the bus, put in ISS (in school suspension), and now she gets to serve Friday school next week (in which I get the very distinct pleasure of picking her up from school at 6pm). All of this since school started in August. She is a freshman and all of the police officers, vice principles, Principle, and admin staff know her by name. There is something very wrong with this picture. Infractions range from fighting girls, fighting a boy, being disrespectful, cussing, throwing a chair, and wearing pajama’s to school (a dress code violation). I honestly have just about lost all patients with her. Some days she is good as gold and I really mean that, but some days you have to fight the urge to put her through the wall.

This week her and some friends decided that they were going to wear pajama’s to school, so that they could all service ISS together, and not go to class. The Freshman Dean called and left a voice mail explaining the situation, I cannot tell you how pissed I was. She had just served ISS last week for throwing a chair. So I called Rick to let him know what had happened, and he is currently putting together a list of chores for this weekend (she’ll be begging to go to school Monday), then I called work to let them know that I was going to be late. And I took myself straight up to her school. I brought her a change of clothes and explained that I did not want her in ISS today, because that is what she wanted that she could serve it Thursday or Friday (or both as far as I was concerned). I wanted her to go to class. So they paged ISS and had Courtney sent to the office. Her eyes were as big as saucers when she saw me sitting there. There were two boys waiting to be seen, and they both knew who Courtney was, but one of them yelled out YOU AGAIN!! WHAT DID YOU DO NOW?? (They did not know that I was her mother) until she walked up to me, I told her to see the secretary, who then handed her a bag of clothes and told her to go to the nurse’s office to change. The secretary noticed that I was busting at the seams to say something to her, and she offered up an empty conference room if I thought that I might need it… Of course I told her, “I’m defiantly going to need it.” When Courtney came back I lead her to the conference room and let her have it… Tears were streaming down her face when we walked out of the room, and I’m sure EVERYONE in that office heard every word that I said, because I was not quiet about it. I left and she went back to class. So now she is grounded and hating life. I took her phone to work with me and left it in my desk until school is out, and she is grounded to the house sentenced to hard labor for the next two weeks, AND I am going to volunteer her for community service through her school to make up for being such a pain in the ASS!!!!

Please let me tell you life has not been pleasant the past few days, her anger management courses are not paying off…

I am getting ready to go to Camp Bluebird tonight; it is a retreat for cancer survivors. After each one I go to I always say I’m not going back, yet six months later I feel it’s the place to be. I still have a hard time opening up to people about my cancer experience, I don’t know if it will ever get any easier, it still feels raw even two years later.

I have to go home for part of the afternoon tomorrow to help Khrystyne get ready for the prom. She is going stag this year, but she really just goes to hang out with her friends anyway.

I like your world.

2008-04-15T16:44:00.001-04:00

Okay, Okay, Okay, I know that it has be AWHILE since I posted, but I really have had a lot on my plate lately.

First off, we finally had our first family vacation since December 2003!!! It was amazing!!! We visited my best friend Ange and her family in Naples, FL. Perfect days, beautiful sunsets, and lots of sunburns!! No but we really did have a great time. We both needed a vacation more than I could even possibly begin to tell you.

The second day there Ricky tells Ange, “I like your world better!!” “Mommy, I don’t like our world, I want to live in Ange’s world.” (So do I buddy, so do I)

We basically drove two days each way, and of course on the way back we hit terrible weather, and we all had a stomach virus. So that first day headed back we stopped about 100 miles before we wanted to. (By the way one way the trip was 1200 miles!!)

We got back to town Sunday the 6th around 4pm, we dropped off the kids and Rick & I went grocery shopping, (So NOT the thing that you want to do after spending over 11 hours in the car).

Look how cute!!

I went back to work on Monday, but then on Tuesday Rick and I both had to take another vacation day, because Khrystyne was scheduled for her surgery, and I had to take Breanna to Riley Children’s Hospital to be seen for her Asthma. Breanna’s appointment started at 9am and I just made it over to IU Medical in time to see Khrystyne off to surgery. Her surgery took about ½ hour, but then we had to wait another hour and ½ for her to wake up. As soon as we were allowed back to her room she was already eating. I take her back tomorrow for her follow up, and to get the results of the pathology report. But so far so good.

I have to take Breanna back to Riley Children’s Hospital in two months for several tests, which include an Allergy Test, an Upper GI, and a Cat Scan of her sinus’. So yes, you’ve guessed it another vacation day will be burned!! It’s a good thing that I actually took a vacation this year, because the days are getting used up fast.

One last note: we got a dog last night… Her name is Bella, she is cute but not yet housebroken!!

Tribute to Judy

2008-03-21T16:16:00.002-04:00

Well it’s been 1 year and 7 months since my mother-in-law passed away from cancer, and I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately. I just wanted to put a few things down about how I met Judy, how we became friends, and how we became so much more than that. This is more for me and my family than anything, but here goes.

I was a co-manager at a local pizza place throughout high school, I first saw Rick one night when I came in to pick up my check. He had just started working there. Ange (my best friend) was helping out at another location, and had just come back to work at our store. Ange and Rick started dating a few months later. I know GROSS, I’m married to a guy that used to date my best friend; you would really think “GROSS” if I told you that we all lived together as roommates straight out of high school. But they only dated for a year and me & Rick started dating 3-4 years after that, so it wasn’t like I stole him away or something.

Anyway when Ange & Rick were dating, we always ran around together. One day we stopped by his grandmother’s house to visit, and I met Granny, Judy, and Shannon (Rick’s sister). Judy and I became fast friends; we talked like we had always known each other. After Rick & Ange broke up I didn’t see Judy for awhile. But when I had Khrystyne and Courtney I would go by Granny’s house to show the kids off, and visit but that was really about it. Rick joined the Army and was in Germany for a little over two years.

One night I was walking home after work and someone pulled up beside me honking their horn, I thought that it was some pervert at first (I was maybe 19 at the time) but I looked over and it was Judy. She pulled over and offered me a ride home, and from time to time we would meet up this way. She would fill me in on Rick and Shannon, and sometimes even give me pictures of Rick. Now that I look back at it, getting me & Rick together could have been her master plan all along. I’m just kidding, but stranger things have happened.

After I left my first husband, I brought my children home on a 19 hour bus ride from Rome, NY. (I had never rode a bus before, and it was during Christmas so there were a lot of interesting people on that bus to say the least) After getting settled in; the first stop that I made was Granny’s house. Of course who do I run into? Rick, he was home for the holidays, we talked a little then and started a very long distance relationship (all of this at his grandmothers urging, she never liked any of the girls that Rick dated)

So fast forward another year, Rick had been stationed to Lawton, OK, and we finally got married. The first four months that we were married he lived in Lawton, and I stayed in Indiana. No sooner than we got married Judy had me and the girls going here and there to meet their family, she was so excited to have me as a daughter-in-law and to become an instant grandmother, Courtney turned two just after we got married and she was stuck to Judy like glue.

Judy took me & the girls on a trip to (Detroit) Michigan to meet some of their extended family. It was a little after 9pm when we arrived, and all of the lights we off inside the house. They had a padlocked 9 foot fence around the whole house. Of course (1994) we didn’t yet have a cell phone, so after throwing rocks and sticks at the windows with no luck, we decided to find a pay phone so that we could wake them up. Detroit on a Friday night is not the friendliest place. So we drove around from one phone booth to another until we found one that actually worked (the first few had the phone cords cut, and one had NASTY bubble gum stuck to the earpiece). After all of that excitement all I wanted to do was go to bed. So I took our suitcases upstairs and laid them down on the bed, as soon as I looked up I noticed that the house across the street was on fire, not just a little bit either but a rolling blaze. I ran downstairs to let them know, they called the fire department, and assured me that the house was already vacant. After all of that craziness I took the girls upstairs and went to bed, shortly after midnight the same house was on fire again, called the fire department, went back to bed, 7am that stupid house was on fire again. I went downstairs and told them to call the fire department again, her two teenage sons ran outside to watch it. I said somebody really wants that house to burn down. She said, that the car manufacturer next to her house was buying out all of the homeowners in her neighborhood (actually she was one of the last few there) and it was cheaper for them to hire the neighborhood thugs to burn the houses down than to have them demolished. So that was my first experience with their family in Detroit, that weekend couldn’t be over fast enough for me.

When the girls and I finally joined Rick in Oklahoma, Judy would visit us at least once if possible twice a year over the next four years, and she and I really bonded. Rick always joked that she liked me even more than him, but it was just that kind of friendship.

Once we were back home in Indiana, within six months I was pregnant with Breanna, she was Judy’s first grandbaby, but she never treated my older two children any differently than the children born of my marriage to her son. We were all family, Judy was just like that.

Judy had battled cancer more than once since she was 25 years old. By the end she had had well over 23 surgeries, but she never complained, and just accepted any and all sorts of treatments so that she could be here with her family just a little bit longer. Right before we had Ricky, Judy had to go in for a surgery now that I think about it we really didn’t know what she was having this surgery for. About four hours later a doctor came out to speak to the family, Judy is one of nine children so to say the least the room was full of people so I just stayed in the waiting room while the doctor spoke to them about her. A few minutes later Rick and Shannon both burst out of the room running for the door. I looked into the room and saw a lot of sad faces, they were already crying etc… so I followed Rick out of the hospital, by the time I caught up to them Rick was holding Shannon and they were both crying so hard that they could hardly speak. The doctor had told them that Judy’s cancer was so far advanced that there was nothing that they could do, so they just closed her up without doing the surgery. “CANCER” she didn’t even tell them that she had cancer. She didn’t want them to worry. And though a little warning would have been nice, we delt with it as best we could. Rick was really angry with her for awhile for not telling us sooner. But we finally moved on from there. She sought a second opinion and went through yet another surgery. This time they took almost everything, her gallbladder, bladder, almost all of her colon, part of her rectum, etc... I’ll spare some of the other things that they took, because you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. When she finally came home a few weeks later she came with attached to her colostomy, and urostomy bags. She did all of this to see her last two grandbabies be born, and to hopefully be around for as long as possible. Ricky was four when Judy died; (I was pregnant with him while she went through Chemo). It was rough but we all managed.

Judy called us daily if for nothing more than to just say “hi”, she stayed many weekends at our house just to be able to spend time with the grandkids. If she wasn’t with us she was with Shannon and her two kids. Almost every time our phone rang I would say, “It’s your mother!” and 95% of the time I would be right.

In August 2005 I started getting sick, they finally diagnosed me with Leukemia September 28th after six weeks of pure hell. Judy was with me the night that I got all of my hair cut off for locks of love, I was going to lose it anyways, might as well donate it. I won’t say that she was excited that I had cancer; I think maybe she was relieved that she didn’t have to go through it alone anymore. She started talking to me about attending Camp Bluebird, a cancer survivor retreat. I went with her that next spring, but by the time the one in the fall came around she was already gone.

Shortly after I got sick, Judy’s blood counts were all over the place her potassium was so high at one point they thought that she was going to have a heart attack. So she was at Wishard hospital while I was at I.U. Medical, Rick was going back and forth to see us in between working 12-14 hour shifts. At least our hospitals were next door to each other so he didn’t have too far to travel.

The Forth of July in 2006 we went up to Michigan to visit Rick’s family like we always do. Judy came with us, as she usually did. I had only been done with chemo for six months, and she was still really sick so we were both major staples on the couches that weekend. When we got home I was hospitalized due to blood clots and unbearable pain. Judy had similar symptoms; she was in more pain than usual.

When I started feeling better towards the end of July, she wasn’t, it actually seemed as if she had gotten worse. I said something to my mother to the effect that I didn’t think Judy was going to make it to the end of the year. That’s when my mom said; “She probably wont the doctors gave her six months to live and that was three months ago.”

Of course Judy did not want any of us to know, I guess she thought that she was sparing us from seeing her deteriorate. But had we have known we would have made sure that we went on that cruise that she begged us to take with her earlier that spring. I guess everyone has regrets, I don’t have many but that is one that still bothers me. I wish she would have just told us. We already spent almost every weekend together, so it wasn’t like we were not close or something, but I wish that we could have done that for her.

Around the first of August the doctors started mentioning Hospice; by August 30th she was gone (she died on Ange’s birthday). I still miss her more than words could ever say. If you have not seen someone die of cancer, pray to God that you never will. Because it is nothing less than pure torture to see someone you love die in that manor. It’s especially hard to watch if you have had cancer yourself, and you know watching your husband hold his mothers hand that he is thinking to himself what if… someday this is my wife lying here?

I fell asleep on the couch next to Judy’s hospital bed in the family room, I had a dream that she had died and when I woke up she was gone.

She left knowing two things:

1. She was not alone.

2. She was loved.

I loved her, and I miss her. But she is no longer suffering, no longer in pain and she’s waiting for us, to someday join her in heaven. Who could ask for more?

The Tumor has to go...

2008-03-14T16:04:00.001-04:00

I took Khrys to the oncologist on Wednesday, they sent a student doctor in first (IU Medical is a teaching hospital, and one of the best in my opinion). He left to confer with Dr. Goulet, when they came back into the room they brought two more students and the nurse (I guess they don’t see (breast) tumors in 17 year olds that often). Dr. Goulet said, “So you want this thing taken out, huh?” to which Khrystyne replied, “Yes, It’s driving me crazy!” So he examined her and said, “OK we can do that.” The nurse started rattling off how to schedule the surgery, and the doctor looked over at me and said, “It has gotten a lot bigger since November.” He asked her if she just wanted a local or if she wanted to be put out, and of course she replied that she did not want to be awake. He just laughed and told his nurse to get it scheduled.

So sometime in April, Khrystyne will have the tumor in her breast removed. They did an initial biopsy in November and at the time it was begin, they will have to do another biopsy again after the surgery to make sure that it has not turned cancerous, but I have faith that everything will be alright. I’m not nearly the wreck that I was last fall when she first found the tumor.

After we talked awhile the nurse took us back for a blood draw, and I had to talk Khrys all the way through it (she like many others is not a fan AT ALL of needles). She gave us some brochures on what to expect for the surgery. After we left the hospital, on the drive home we were talking about her requesting to be put all the way under, I told her that if she could be awake for the surgery it would be so much better for her. At first she didn’t want to hear it, but I think that I have talked her into just having a local (she wants to be awake to see the tumor). Whatever works I guess!! Back in November her tumor was almost 3 inches long, I don’t even want to think how much larger it is now.

Shortly after our conversation I hit a small pot hole (Indiana for you) and Khrystyne yells OW!! Of course I look over really quick to see what is wrong, and she is holding her arm and says, “My arm hurts where they drew the blood from.” OMG!!! Please feel sorry for me now, because her surgery will be a TREAT!!

Here we go again.

2008-03-12T12:46:00.002-04:00

Khrystyne this past Christmas...

My 17 year old daughter Khrystyne has been complaining of a constant itching on the side of her breast (where her tumor is) she has been asking me to take her back to the doctors because she thinks that it has gotten bigger. Since I just had her checked out in November I’ve been trying to put it off thinking that I’ll get her in to see the family physician in October for her yearly check up.

I don’t know if it was something that she said, or did, but on Thursday night I had a dream that she had breast cancer and that we did not get her to the doctor’s in time. I woke up Friday morning with just the most sickening feeling you could ever imagine. So I email Dr. Goulet and he told me to schedule an appointment for this Wednesday, he said that he may have to go ahead and remove the tumor and have it tested just to make sure that everything is ok. So I get to leave work a little early today to run her up to the cancer center. I have to say this time around I’m not nearly as nervous as last time. But I just want some answers!!! She is not able to be in a room for ten minutes without scratching constantly. It’s driving us all crazy…

My sisters husband had open heart surgery almost two weeks ago, and is in heart failure. Before the surgery he only had 17% function of his heart. The scar is so nasty… All the way down the center of his chest up to his belly button. But he’s home now (with oxygen) so hopefully he’ll be able to heal in peace. He is still smoking though, even in the house. I told him that he is going to blow everybody up, but he is stubborn and won’t listen.

Well I’ll update tomorrow with how Khrystyne’s appointment went.

Cancer Survivor wins iditarod

Breanna visits the doctor...

2008-03-04T17:14:00.002-05:00

I took Breanna to the doctors last Thursday for her annual check-up; and on the way she informed me that she would not be getting a shot today. I told her that she wasn’t due for any shots this year and that she would be fine.

So we got to the doctors’ office, got settled into her room and she had her blood pressure, weight and height recorded and then the doctor came in we discussed how she has been doing since her latest asthma episode last month, and as he was wrapping up the visit he mentioned that some states are now requiring a second chicken pox shot. Indiana is not one of them yet, but will be soon and he recommended that she go ahead and get that out of the way, and then she will not need another vaccine until she is 11 or 12. She immediately started shaking her head “NO” while I told the doctor sure let’s just get it over with.

As soon as he walked out of the office she said, “I’m not getting a shot, and you can’t make me!” She then crawled under the exam table and refused to come out. The nurse comes into the room with shot in hand and we could not persuade her to come out from under that table. The nurse asked, “What do you want me to do?” I said, “You’ll have to come back.” So she left and I threatened Breanna with her life, no I’m just kidding, I talked her out from under the table and convinced her to sit on the table to put her shoes on, let’s just say that I have never seen her put those shoes on so fast in my life!!! As I reached to open the door and call the nurse she finished putting her last shoe on and jumped off of the table. There was a chair in the corner of the office and she slouched down between the wall and the chair and would not come out.

So the nurse comes in (with reinforcements, another nurse) and we all three tried to pull her out of the corner with NO SUCH LUCK!!! Nurse #1 leaves the room to go get the (male) doctor to see if he could help us, at this point the only thing that I can do is laugh, BECAUSE THIS CHILD IS STUBBORN!!! Finally the nurse comes back into the room with the doctor in tow, and all three of them were trying to put her on the exam table then she just went limp and fell to the floor so the doctor sat on her and told the nurse to just give it to her on the floor, nurse #2 held her arm still and nurse #1 finally injected…

Mission accomplished right? WRONG!!! They all left the room and I told Breanna that it was all over and it was time for us to go. The girl would not get off of the floor for anything. So of course I do the mom thing and say, Ok, well I don’t know about you but I’m leaving and I walked out of the room and around the corner 5 minutes later I go back to the room and the girl had not even budged. I told her that they needed the room for other patients, and of course the nurses had already come by a few times so I coaxed her out of the room. But that was as far as she would go, finally I told her to stay because I was tired of messing with her. So she started to scoot on her behind all the way down the hall, then the next hallway, and then the next hallway ALL ON HER BUTT!!! So I finally make it to the check out counter and am ready to leave, but the girl would not move!!! 20 minutes later they started turning the lights out in the other waiting room and I told her, “Breanna we have to leave right now they are closing up.” Finally that did the trick, on the way out to the car she asks, “Can we still go to Target to get my bathing suit?” SAY WHAT!!!! NO!!!!!I took her straight home, to which my husband asks, what took you so long??????

Kid's can be so cute...

2008-02-27T15:57:00.002-05:00

I came home from work last week and went upstairs to change out of my work clothes, and noticed my bed had already been made (Rick is the last one up and usually I have to make it when I get home) Ricky had followed me into the room and beamed up at me, “Mommy, I made your bed all by myself!” I said WOW you did a really good job; you didn’t have to do that. To which he replied, “I knew you and daddy would be really tired when you got home from work, so I wanted to help you.” Isn’t he so sweet? He will make a good husband someday.

Last night I went home early (we had training at work) and my back was killing me, so I greeted the kids and told them that I was going to lay down for a couple of hours and went upstairs. The two younger kids followed me up, and when I got to my bedroom

Ricky says, “(Yawn) I’m really tired to, can I lay down with you?”

Me: Sure, but you’ll have to lay on daddy’s side mommy’s back really hurts.

Ricky: Okay

Breanna: I didn’t have rest period at school today can I lay down with you too?

Me: Yeah, I guess.

Breanna: (Under her breath) I don’t really have rest period anymore.

So I put a movie in for them and I slept for about 1 ½ hours. My kids are so silly, but I love when they are little like that and want to be around you all of the time.

Just Thinking, and Reflecting...

2008-02-20T14:28:00.002-05:00

I have to say a few things have been weighing on my mind lately. I’m not sure that I can put everything to words just yet, but I’m going to try.

When I was first diagnosed with cancer, besides being afraid that I was going to die, and leave my children without a mother, and my husband without a wife… the only other thing that I could think about was getting through my treatment as quickly as possible (try not to complain), and get back to normal as fast as I could. I don’t know, I kind of treated Cancer like a bump in the road of life, if you will. But it seems the faster that I try to get away from Cancer, the quicker it catches up to me. The truth be told my normal now, is nothing like my normal prior to cancer. I have bone and joint pain, and have recently been diagnosed with PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome,) and Rheumatoid Arthritis. So it feels as if I’m trying to go uphill and something rolls by and knocks me back down, over, and over, and over again. But I’m still trying, and I keep moving on, like I said I now have a new normal.

As more time goes by I find myself thinking about everything that has happened to me and my family these past two years, and I find myself wondering how on earth we found the courage and the strength to get through all of the things that kept getting hurled our way. But we are still here, still a family, and we all still love each other very much. So for that I have no right to complain, and actually I am very thankful for the lessons that Cancer has taught me. Enjoy every moment, and don’t sweat the small stuff!! That basically sums up my new outlook on life.

I am thankful that I was given more time to spend with my friends and family. Are there things that I still need to work on personally; yes, of course there is. But that could go for anyone, we constantly grow and change throughout life, lessons learned, that sort of thing. But all in all I’ve not done too bad, and I’m proud of my family, how well they handled me being sick, and how my extended family all worked together to make sure the kids were well cared for during my hospital stay (or should I say my multiple hospital stays, 9 weeks total.) My friends were another source of encouragement, and I realized how fortunate that I have been in my life to be surrounded by such great people.

The Lord has truly blessed me. Trust me I have not been a perfect Christian by any means, but I thank God all of the time for being with me, and never leaving me. Just this morning I found myself amazed at the sight of snowflakes, I can not tell you the last time I stopped long enough to really pay attention to something that small, but it was so beautiful and well worth the few minutes that I took out of my day to really pay attention.

This is not everything that I have been thinking about, but it’s a start.

Ricky & Breanna

2008-02-19T16:17:00.000-05:00

Last night we made chicken fajitas for dinner, little Ricky usually does not eat what we make and settles for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But Rick asked him if he wanted to try some big pepperoni’s (which was actually salami) and Ricky said yes, so he tried some and then he wanted some more. So we got him a plate out and gave him some more, then he asked for more when it was all said and done he ate almost ½ pound of salami. I finally told him that he was not eating pepperoni, that he was in fact eating salami. He screwed up his face like he didn’t like it. I said, “Don’t even try it, he kind of giggled and went back to eating his salami.”

Breanna was irritating her sisters all day yesterday; she kept going into their rooms just to hear them yell I’m sure. Khrystyne was trying to physically put Breanna out of her bedroom pulling on her but Breanna would not let go of Khrystyne’s blanket so Joslyn (Khrys’ friend) started pulling on the blanket. The next thing you know Breanna is screaming and has a mouth full of blood; they pulled her tooth out. Luckily that tooth had just come loose over the weekend; she wasn’t ready to have it pulled by any means, but at least it wasn’t a permanent one.

MTV's True Life Calls For Stories of Survivors Battling Insurance Hell

2008-02-15T08:38:00.003-05:00

MTV's documentary series True Life is looking for young adults struggling to fight cancer without proper health coverage. The show is interested in following cancer patients and survivors who are without health insurance during treatment, and how they face the issues of expensive surgical procedures and treatment.

You can e-mail MTV with your story at uninsured@mtvn.com

Be sure to link this to your blog...

Ricky and the curse of the glasses...

2008-02-14T14:22:00.002-05:00

I took my son to the eye doctors on Saturday, and of course he needs to wear glasses. So Ricky started out being a little excited about getting glasses, UNTIL he realized that he would have to wear them to school.

To which he responded, “I won’t wear them!”

I said, “You don’t have a choice, you have to wear them when you read.”

Ricky: I won’t have to wear them if I don’t take them to school!

Me: Well lucky for you, starting next week daddy has to go to work early and I will be putting you on the bus before I leave for work, so you will take them to school, and I’m going to email your teacher to make sure that you wear them!! (Which I’ve already sent her that email.)

As soon as we got home on Saturday Ricky’s friend Ericson came over and I overheard him say, “I have to get glasses because I can’t see very well. I know I’m going to look silly!!”

So yesterday the optometrist called to let me know that his glasses were in, so I left work a little early so that we could go pick them up. He let the employee fit the glasses to his face, and wore them out of the store. Two steps out of the doorway…

Ricky: Can I take my glasses off now?

Me: No, you need to wear them for awhile to get used to them.

Ricky: I’ve had them on for awhile now, Can I take them off?

(What am I going to do with this kid?)

This morning as soon as he got up he went downstairs and put his glasses on without being told, I left for work but then awhile later I was talking to my husband who said, “you know, he wore those glasses all morning until it was time to leave for the bus, and I noticed that he wasn’t wearing them, and I asked him where are your glasses bud?” to which he replied, “In my book bag.” Rick made him put them on and asked him if he was afraid that the kids would make fun of him. Ricky said, “Yes.” Then Breanna chimes in he looks like a NERD!!

UUGGHH!!!!

What does Love mean?

2008-02-14T10:14:00.002-05:00

A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, "What does love mean?" (Be sure to read the very last answer)

The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:

"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore.
So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too.

That's love." Rebecca- age 8

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth."
Billy - age 4

"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other."
Karl - age 5

"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs."
Chrissy - age 6

"Love is what makes you smile when you're tired."
Terri - age 4

"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK."
Danny - age 7

"Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss"
Emily - age 8

"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen."
Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate,"
Nikka - age 6
(we need a few million
more Nikka's on this planet)

"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday."
Noelle - age 7

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after
they know each other so well."
Tommy - age 6

"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore."
Cindy - age 8

"My mommy loves me more than anybody You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night."
Clare - age 6

"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken."
Elaine-age 5

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford." Chris - age 7

"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day"
Mary Ann - age 4

"I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones."
Lauren - age 4

"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you."
(what an image)
Karen - age 7

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross."
Mark - age 6

"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget."
Jessica - age 8

And the final one -- Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge.

The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.

The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife.
Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.

When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said,
"Nothing, I just helped him cry"

Different drug problem…

2008-02-12T16:09:00.000-05:00

The following letter has appeared on the internet…

The other day, someone at a store in our town read that a Methamphetamine lab had been found in an old farmhouse in the adjoining county and he asked me a rhetorical question, “Why didn’t we have a drug problem when you and I were growing up?”

I replied, I had a drug problem when I was young: I was drug to church on Sunday morning. I was drug to church for weddings and funerals. I was drug to family reunions and community socials no matter what the weather.

I was drug by me ears when I was disrespectful to adults. I was also drug to the woodshed when I disobeyed my parents, told a lie, brought home a bad report card, did not speak with respect, spoke ill of the teacher or the preacher, or if I didn’t put forth my best effort in everything that was asked of me.

I was drug to the kitchen sink to have my mouth washed out with soap if I uttered a profanity. I was drug out to pull weeds in mom’s garden and flower beds and cockleburs out of dad’s fields. I was drug to the homes of family, friends and neighbors to help out some poor soul who had no one to mow the yard, repair the clothesline, or chop some firewood, and, if my mother had ever known that I took a single dime as a tip for this kindness, she would have drug me back to the woodshed.

Those drugs are still in my veins and they affect my behavior in everything I do, say, or think. They are stronger than cocaine, crack, or heroin; and, if today’s children had this kind of drug problem, America would be a better place.

God bless the parents who drugged us.

More on my cousin and his daughter.

2008-02-08T10:16:00.000-05:00

Okay, so as the days go on more and more information is coming to light as to what happened to my cousin and his daughter. Without saying too much because the police have agreed to reopen the investigation into what really happened. It looks as if it they could have both been murdered, we did find out that she was not shot, she had been strangled, and he was shot with a riffle behind his right ear (he was left handed), without giving anything extra away that is all I’m going to say on that. It doesn’t bring them back by any means but knowing that there is a HUGE possibility that he did not do this makes our family feel so much better.

Her funeral was very hard, it was my step-dads birthday and this was the first child’s funeral that he had ever been to. Everyone was civil, and tried to get through things the best that they could. You can bet that there was not a dry eye in the whole place. It was so sad.

Not as many people showed up at his, but a lot of people were still under the assumption that he had killed her. But everyone that knew and loved Dwayne showed up so that is what is important.

His mom, dad, and brother took him back to Tennessee to bury him next to his brother Jeffery he died in a car accident just after high school graduation a few years ago. Dwayne and Jordan were killed on his only living brother’s birthday. So this past week has been especially hard on all of them.

Why?

2008-02-01T09:58:00.001-05:00

Well so much for me hoping for a peaceful evening. I got home Wednesday evening, hung out with the kids for awhile and got them off to bed. I usually hang out downstairs until Rick gets home at night, and I had just started dozing in and out when the phone rang… My mom was at the other end and she jumped right into her story, I stopped her and told her to start over that I didn’t understand what she was saying. She said that (my cousin) Dwayne had killed his daughter Jordan (Boogie) and then he killed himself. Of course to say the very least that woke me right up, I said, “What do you mean, he killed Boogie? What are you saying?” She went on to tell me that two weeks ago Jordan came home and told her dad that, “Mommy took me to her boyfriends house and they were hugging and kissing like you and mommy do.” So he confronted his wife about the affair, and she admitted it and told him that she wanted a divorce, and full custody of Jordan. He has been trying to talk her into going marriage counseling, or to at the very least to give him joint custody of Jordan. I guess Wednesday she was supposed to let him know if she would agree to marriage counseling or if she just wanted to get a divorce. He went home early from work, and I guess she told him that she wanted a divorce and that she was going to take Jordan and move into her boyfriends house, they got into an argument and then she left around 3:00 pm. Somewhere between 4-4:30 Jordan got home from school and by 5pm Ginger, her mother and Ginger’s two other children came home. Mom told me that Johnny (her son) came running out of the bedroom yelling call 911 it’s really, really bad. (He is partially mentally handicapped so he probably didn’t understand fully what had happened). Dwayne had shot Jordan with a riffle, and then turned the gun on himself.

Today I am still in disbelief; I would have never guessed that he would have been someone to do something like this in a million years. He loved that baby; he was always hugging her and kissing her, ruffling her hair. And anytime that he spoke about her he would grin from ear to ear. What could have possibly been going through his head, for him to point a gun at his child (someone that he loved sooo much) and then kill her? You can’t help but to think what that poor baby had to have been thinking at that moment when her father was pointing a riffle at her?

After I hung up from my mother I called Rick, and he said I’ll be home in a few minutes. He was home in like seven minutes; he works all the way across town. He was trying to be strong for me, but every few minutes he was wiping away tears as well. Dwayne was his friend; he really was a good man. All you had to do was just mention that something was coming up and he would volunteer to help out. Dwayne was a little slow mentally, he had learning disabilities, but he was always in a good mood, always joking and laughing. We just don’t understand what happened… WHY?

My mother had seen something on the previews for the news that there was a murder on Fletcher Ave., she told her husband Terry, “That’s close to where Dwayne and Ginger live.” Terry said, “You know, Dwayne was supposed to be here already.” So they started calling him with no answer, which was unusual. So they jumped into their car and went over there. And their house was the one already taped off by police. There were news crews set up, and my mom asked them what was going on? One of the reporters said that the man in the house had killed his 8 year old son, and then killed himself. My mom said, “SON?” “She’s a girl, not a boy.” I guess they had been told the name Jordan and assumed that she was a boy. So then they ran home and called Terry’s sister Donna in Tennessee (Dwayne’s mother) and told her over the phone that her son and granddaughter were dead. She had just lost her youngest son a few years ago, he had just turned 18 and was driving home late at night and drove off of the side of a mountain. As they were telling Donna about Dwayne, her oldest son Jeremy had just come into her house because it was his birthday, and his mother had to tell him that his brother and niece were both dead.

So Donna, Dwayne and Jeremy are all on their way here to make arraignments for Dwayne. And we are all here just wondering why? We have a large family, why didn’t he ask for help? Why did he have to kill that little girl? Because I’ll tell you one thing NO ONE saw this coming!!! NO ONE!!

Now here’s part of the story that didn’t make it into the news. Ginger told her son Johnny that he needed to find a job and find somewhere else to live. (He has just turned 18, but is still in high school and mentally handicapped) and Ginger has been trying to talk her 16 year old daughter Kayla to move in with her boyfriend, but she didn’t want to, so Ginger was talking to Kayla’s boyfriend trying to get him to talk Kayla into moving in with him. So that all she had when she moved into her boyfriend’s house was Jordan. I guess Dwayne told Jordan’s babysitter that it would happen over his dead body. Of course she was on the news and said that she never thought that he’d meant it literally. To me that’s a figure of speech, who would have thought that he meant it that way?? I just hope that that poor woman doesn’t think that this was in some part her fault, because Lord knows it wasn’t.

Breanna and Jordan were the same age, my mom used to baby-sit for both of them, and they would stay the night at her house. Jordan was Breanna’s first friend. I just don’t have the heart to tell her. I know that I probably should, but I just can’t. Especially given the way she died, and at her own father’s hands. I just can’t do it.

I’ll update when I find out more.

Rest in Peace Jordan.

Rest in Peace Dwayne.

Lord please give us the strength to get though this.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008801310488

Do Over...

2008-01-30T13:17:00.000-05:00

I'd rather be here!!

I guess I’d better post… it’s been awhile. I called in sick on Monday, I had a really bad headache, by mid-afternoon my hip and leg started hurting so bad I could barley walk, and it kept me up most of the night. Last night we had a really terrible storm, and this morning at 7am one of my kids woke me up and said, “Mom did you set your alarm?” Of course I did but with the storm we must have lost power overnight. So I had to hurry and wake everyone up, and I had to drive the two older kids to high school they had already missed 1 ½ classes. I had to call my boss for the second time this week and let him know I was going to be an hour late. Then on my way in someone almost hit me on the interstate. CAN I HAVE A DO OVER FOR THIS WEEK? Nothing seems to be going right.

I’ve just been catching up on some of the Blogs that I read and Why Mommies margins have come back clean. Her link is on the right side of my blog (for some reason I haven’t been able to add links to my posts). Megan unfortunately has lost her battle with cancer you can find her blog under Memoriam. Please check out Christian Love Stories as well Kristy has been having a rough time lately and could use some encouragement.

Hopefully the rest of the day will be uneventful, and tomorrow will be even better. Next week is going to be a pain, but I’m not going to dwell on that until then (appointments with the rheumatoid specialist and my oncologist) Hope you have a good one.

Heath Ledger

2008-01-24T13:18:00.002-05:00

You know with the sad passing of Heath Ledger I have been thinking. What in my life would I have missed out on if I had died at such a young age, he was only 28 years old as all of you probably already know. I have kind of made some mental notes as to the things that I would have been cheated out of, so in no particular order here is a small list of things that have happened in my life since the age of 28…

1. Of course I turned the big 3-0
2. My son was born one month after I turned 30, and he has been such a blessing in my life.
3. If I had passed at 28 years old my daughter would only have been 1 years old at the time, and would never have remembered me at such a young age. My other two daughters were only 10 and 7.
4. I was diagnosed with Leukemia
5. My mother-in-law (Judy) passed away from cancer
6. I was able to be there for my husband and his mother the month up to her passing, and helped take the pressure off of their family during that terrible time.
7. I went on a trip to Las Vegas (just me & Rick) for our 10 year anniversary (we never had a honeymoon, and he was an instant dad when we married because I already had two children)
8. My best friend finally had a baby. (She’s named after me!!)
9. I’ve learnt the true meaning of a volunteer, and how important they really are.
10. I was made to realize very quickly if there were never people who donated blood, some of us would perish very quickly (I had over 60 blood transfusions during my cancer treatment)
11. I have been blessed with many days, sunrises, and sunsets. That I now hold a deep appreciation for.
12. I have found an inner strength within myself that I never really knew was there.
13. I have really loved my family, with all of my heart.

Now I can’t help but think what in his life he is going to miss out on. #1, I’m sure will be his daughter, his family, and friends. Who knows what else he could have accomplished. I truly feel bad for his family, and I hope that they will be granted peace during this difficult time.

Weekend madness

2008-01-22T14:58:00.000-05:00

I finally conceded and joined Weight Watchers this past Saturday, after my treatment for cancer I was put on a steroid treatment plan and gained an enormous amount of weight (over 60 pounds) and of course I have not lost but 6-10 lbs on my own. So I finally admitted that I needed some help on this one. I’ll be 36 years old in April and I’m tired of being fat. Hopefully I will learn some things find some encouragement and get on with the business of living.

My mother called me Sunday night and asked if the kids could spend the night (due to the fact they were out of school on Monday). As is just so happens the older two girls already had plans and mom & dad got to spend one glorious night alone… It was nice, and QUIET. I told Rick what are we going to do one day when we are empty nesters it’s going to be too quiet… He said oh we’ll figure something out, by then you should be a grandma and we can borrow the grandkids anytime that you get lonely.

Khrystyne is finally getting back on track with her studies, (she was throwing around the old I’m almost 18, I’m going to move out and drop out of school line.) I finally talked her into at least getting her GED, and she was going for that but we kept working on her here and there until finally she realized that I would really benefit her to stay in school. Especially since she has a 3 centimeter tumor in her breast, if she is not a full time student when she turns 18 she will automatically be dropped from her dad’s insurance. Kids what the hell do they know?? (Which reminds me she is the exact age that I was when I got pregnant with her, What the Hell was I Thinking??)

Courtney has gotten herself back on track with her studies as well. She want’s to go to IUPUI and get a nursing degree from Purdue. She was goofing off too much the first semester this year, but has decided that she really wants this and she has been working really hard to get it. I’m proud of her. At 14 years old I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do when I grew up.

When Christmas break was almost over Ricky tried and tried to talk me into letting him stay at home for school… I said. “What do you mean, do you want to be home schooled?” he said, “Yep, that’s it, I want to be home schooled.” I told him that was just too bad that daddy and I both worked and that he had to go to school, he then proceeded to pout around for several days. When the time came he went back to school, and that first night I asked him, “Did you have fun today? Did you get to play with all of your friends?” he excitedly told me all about his day. At which time I said, “See you really do like going to school.” He just gave me a very disgusted look, because he knew that I had beaten him at his own game!! HE IS IN KINDERGARTEN!!! WHAT AM I GOING TO DO??

Breanna keeps on puttin’ along; she draws pictures on everything, and has gone through several reams of computer paper. Her new favorite past time is agitating her brother and sisters. She is actually getting pretty good at it. Last night she made all three of them yell at her and tattle at the same time. That takes a lot of talent.

Please go check out Why Mommy (she is the first one under my Cancer Blogs) and leave her some supporting comments, she is having a double mastectomy today, and has two young children.

Thinking about cancer...

2008-01-17T12:18:00.000-05:00

I’ve still been under the weather here lately. I didn’t even bother coming into work yesterday, I have a terrible cough (deep in my lungs) and my throat has been sore and swollen. This has been going on since mid-December. Hopefully it has just about ran its’ course. I wonder how long my immune system is supposed to be suppressed. My last chemo treatment was two years ago last week, and every time I get sick it doesn’t seem to want to let up. I’ve been taking vitamins and calcium pills, and seem to feel a little better but not much.

My induction chemo put me into remission the first month of my treatment in October 2005, but then I had follow up treatments through January 2006. Most stories that I have read have Leukemia patients falling out of remission either months after their initial treatment or around the three year mark which I am quickly coming upon. I try not to worry about my cancer coming back but sometimes I feel as if it might, maybe it’s normal for a cancer patient to think those kinds of thoughts. Although I really try to think positive, and I do try not to worry.

My next appointment is February 7th I really don’t have any doubts that everything is going to come back alright, but like I said I can feel something in my lungs, and it feels as if my lymph nodes are swollen in my neck. So I think I’m going to tell my doctor and see if he wants to run another cat scan it’s been about a year since my last one but I think that I would just feel better if I knew that everything was still ok.

The Bucket List

2008-01-15T12:04:00.000-05:00

Iguazu Falls

With the new movie The Bucket List (Morgan Freeman & Jack Nicholson) I was wondering what would be on my list when I was given the news that I was going to die. Being a Cancer Survivor I of course have already faced my mortality once before, but my main concern then was beating the cancer and making sure that I could be here for my children. But if I was given the news that I had six months to live with no possible cure what would I want to do? More like where would I go, and what would I see??

1. Hawaii (No question about it this is my #1 pick)
2. The Great Barrier Reef
3. Iguazu Falls
4. Machu Picchu
5. Great Wall of China
6. Australia
7. Amazon Rainforest
8. Mount Rushmore
9. The Grand Canyon
10. The Statue of Liberty

Of course I would like to visit all of those places with my family and enjoy seeing them happy one last time. Also I’ve always wanted to sky dive but when you become a parent you seem to not want to take that chance.

So what is it that you would want to see or do before your demise?

Insurance Rantings

2008-01-11T11:28:00.000-05:00

I am so pissed right now!! Stupid insurance companies... I went to refill my daughter’s asthma medicine last night and it will cost me $186, I guess my husbands company changed the way their benefits are and you have to meet your $4500.00 deductible before the insurance kicks in, including doctor’s visits, dentist appointments the works... Only after you meet the $4500 deductible will the plan kick in 80/20. Why do we pay over $400 a month for this coverage?

So now we are talking about the possibility of Rick finding another job, so that he can lose his insurance and I can file for insurance through my work as a change of status. Rick almost quit the other day but I talked him out of it saying, “Don’t quit this is the best insurance we’ve ever had.” The insurance reps that explained the new benefits completely mis-represented the coverage, they made it out to be something that clearly it is not.

I called Breanna’s doctor’s office and told them that I was having problems with my insurance, and asked if they had a sample of her medicine until we could figure out what was going on. They had one sample Advair left that they are going to give to me. Ten minutes later we found out about our huge deductible…

Last night when I tried to fill the prescription and found out the price I called Caremark to see what the problem was. The first issue was everyone in our household had the third (III) behind their names (Which is only supposed to be behind Rick’s name). The second issue that they came across was our deductible was showing $99,999.99. She stated, “Clearly that’s wrong!” I said, “You THINK???”

I hate insurance companies...

Happy New Year!!! (A week late)

2008-01-08T10:55:00.000-05:00

Well we had a very restful time off last week; we had Christmas Eve Dinner at my house and minus some of the bad ass kids that came it really turned out pretty nice. Here’s a list of everything that I made:

Ham
Mostacholi
Sauerkraut and Kielbasa
10 lbs of Mashed Potatoes
6lbs of Potato Salad
Turkey Gravy
Beef Gravy
Green Beans
Corn
Rolls
Baked Beans
Stuffing
About 50 Peanut Butter cookies with a Hershey Kiss in the center
About 50 Snicker Doodles
Ooey Gooey Pumpkin Cake
2 Apple Pies

My mother brought Stuffed Cabbage, and Cole Slaw, and my cousin brought chocolate rum balls (they did not taste very good to me, because I don’t like the taste of liquor) That is about it, we may have had more but I just can’t recall at this moment. On the 23rd I started baking cookies, after midnight we went to bed, and then I was back up cooking at 5am. Let’s just say by the time everyone showed up I was already ready for them to leave. Everything that I made was from scratch minus the stuffing, Rick only likes Stove Top, I like the real thing but I’m not going to argue about it.

Christmas Day we went to his grandmother’s house for dinner, we didn’t stay as long as we did on Thanksgiving Day but the kids were ready to leave and I was still worn out from the day before.

Rick had to work for the next two days but on Friday we went out of town with the kids, we took them to the Wildwood Inn the kids had a blast and Ricky finally learned how to swim without arm floats. Then the next morning we got up and went to Newport, KY (to the small mall there by the Newport Aquarium) and we watched National Treasure it was a pretty good show no boring parts… which is a huge plus with 4 kids. Then we went to Dewey’s Pizza they have the best pizza we have ever had!!! Actually that is why we planned our trip out there because Rick was having withdraws over their pizza.

I have to admit I haven’t checked my email for this account in over a month, when I logged on this morning I had 250 emails. So I am trying to respond to as many as I can, as quickly as I can. I have to say once again I am happy that I found blogging there are so many kind people out there that normally you would never have the chance to meet.

I am once again experiencing some great pain, but this time it is in my muscles. I’m assuming that it is from the Rheumatoid Arthritis but I feel so week, and my arms and legs are so sensitive you can barley brush against me and I’m howling in pain. I go to see my Rheumatoid specialist on February the 5th hopefully he’ll be able to give me something to make this better.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years!!

2007-12-21T16:23:00.000-05:00

Well this work day is almost over. Then I will be on vacation until January 2, 2008. I am so excited I haven’t had a vacation since the 4th of July. We have a lot to do this weekend, cleaning, cooking, shopping; I’m not quite looking forward to all of that. But I am looking forward to having dinner with our family on Christmas Eve. Then taking it easy on Christmas Day, and hopefully going out of town for the weekend.

I have eaten sooo much junk food this week, people at work were bringing in cookies and candy all week long, but we had fun.

I got some pictures of Shelby; it must be nice to live in Florida during the winter. Look at that TAN!!!

Well I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, and a Blessed New Years.

Memories

2007-12-18T13:38:00.000-05:00

I found this picture recently; it was taken the first week that I got to come home from the hospital after being diagnosed (a three week stay). Then I remembered this story, this was after my second round of Chemo and an infection:

I was at the grocery store with my 3 yr old son. It was obvious that I had cancer, I had no hair, and (I was going through chemo at the time) so my skin tone was gray, I just looked sick. An older lady walked up to me out of nowhere and started talking to me and asking me questions. She asked me if I had cancer, what kind I had. Then she shared her story with me of how she lost her sister to breast cancer the previous year and how close they were. Before she walked away she told me that she felt lead to give me a hug, and asked me if that would be alright. It was a little strange but I told her that it was okay. That little old lady hugged me with everything that she had, I could feel it. It brought tears to my eyes, and later I realized that I really needed that hug. I had been so focused on my husband and children, making sure that they were alright I forgot about myself. That woman did more for me that day than she could ever have imagined. And I’m thankful that even though we didn’t know each other she followed her instinct and reached out to me.

Snow... Snow... and more Snow...

2007-12-17T13:09:00.000-05:00

This past weekend we were warned of all of the snow to come, so I went grocery shopping on Friday night to get that out of the way, and then I stopped by the video store to check out some movies. So for the rest of the weekend we did a little house work, washed some laundry and watched a lot of T.V.

Yesterday afternoon we bundled Ricky and Breanna up to go out and play in the snow they weren’t outside for 20-30 minutes and when they came their little faces were beet red. So of course this morning when I was waking them up for school, Breanna’s asthma flared up so I was late to work this morning. I ended up calling her school to let them know not to let her go outside for recess today.

I watched Survivor off and on last night and I could not believe that Todd won it. I could not stand him. Oh well it’s not my money. Tuesday night is The Biggest Loser finale I’m pretty excited to see what everyone looks like. I’m such a loser… On the other hand I’m glad that everything is going into reruns I’m tired of trying to remember which shows that I want to watch which night, and honestly I'm just plain tired of watching T.V. all of the time.

I started shopping for Christmas Eve dinner this weekend; I still have about $200 worth of food to buy. Rick owes me big time. I’ll start cooking Saturday night just to have everything ready by Monday. He has picked out 3 big Polish dishes that he wants me to make, and has picked out about four deserts that he wants. So I will definitely need next week off to recoup from all of the work that it takes to make some of this stuff. I’ll put up a list of everything that we made with recipes next week.

Well my lunch is almost over, I’d better get back to work.

Getting ready for Christmas

2007-12-12T13:57:00.000-05:00

Not a whole lot has been going on lately, just working and trying to get ready for Christmas. Can you believe that Christmas is just two weeks away?? We are going through all of our polish recipes trying to decide which ones we like the best. We were going to have a traditional Christmas dinner when my husband asked if we could make polish dishes for the dinner instead. So I agreed and we actually tried out one of the recipes this past weekend and it was awesome!! For the family members that will not like those dishes we are still going to make a ham.

Ricky stayed home from school today sick, he’s been trying to stay home all week (can you imagine what I’ll have to deal with when he is a teenager?) already trying to make up excuses to stay home from school in kindergarten. Yesterday he came into my room holding his stomach saying, I don’t feel very well I don’t think that I can go to school today. He climbed up in my bed and I asked him, are you sick or do you just want to stay home today. He (still being new at this) said, I just want to stay home. So of course I had to make him go to school yesterday. This morning Courtney came into my room and said, “Mommy, Ricky is sick.” I told her to send him into my room; she said that he was in her bed. So she brought him in and put him in bed with me and Rick and he was burning up. So after a week of trying he finally got to stay home from school today.

I walked Breanna down to her friend’s house last night, and then went down an hour later to pick her up. About halfway to her house it started to rain so I hurried to their house. Of course Breanna didn’t have her shoes or socks on and had to get her coat on. I kept telling her to hurry up, and as soon as we got outside she said, “It’s raining mommy!” I said, “Why do you think I kept telling you to hurry up?” so we started for the house and no sooner than we got onto our street it started pouring down rain, and it seemed like with every step the temperature would drop another five degrees. I didn’t have a hat on so I was soaked to the bone. I told her to get upstairs and jump into the shower; actually I ended up doing the exact same thing.

Well I hope that everyone is doing well, and that you are having a fun and exciting holiday season.

A Miracle on Monday

2007-12-07T12:36:00.000-05:00

I stumbled upon a blog yesterday that is really touching and well worth the read. If you go back to November 7th and read on you will understand what I’m talking about. Kristy’s husband Milton is posting on her blog while she recovers from surgery and has asked that people put a link to their blog for A Miracle on Monday.

Here is his request:

Christian Love Stories

A Miracle on Monday

Would you join with us at 3:30 this Monday, Dec. 10, 2007, in prayer at the time of her first radiation treatment? Thousands are praying around the world for Kristy.

It just seemed to dawn on me that while the concentrated radiation was being shot into her brain that focused prayer of thousands of believers around the world praying at this same time would also have powerful impact. Do you agree? Will you set this time aside to pray for her? Surely God would hear our combined, united prayer for her healing.

If you have a blog site I humbly ask you to put this Miracle on Monday request on your blog site to request prayer, this would mean so much to us.

If you are a pastor could you put this request in your bulletin or mention it to your people?
If you are a prayer leader/intercesser then please share this prayer request with your group.