Today I went grocery shopping...and spent $90...and got enough meat, snacks, drinks, and side dish ingredients to feed us for about 2 weeks. Yippee on my wallet! Dave and I usually like to cook at home but it seems like the last couple weeks we have been in a bit of a rut and we have been eating out WAY too much, not only spending extra money needlessly, but putting way too much fast food in our bodies. Anyways, today I bought all sorts of yummy stuff to cook this week and I feel so much better just knowing we will be eating a roast tonight and not something that begs the question, "do you want fries with that?".
Not too much else new around here, Nicole will be here in less than 2 weeks! Tomorrow we are having a cookout back at the pond with the fam, Linda and Tanya are coming along with Tanya's babies...so of course I cant wait :) Anything involving babies and I am in! Will try to usdate with some pictures of the cookout tomorrow!
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
Memories pressed between the pages in my mind...
Tonight I am watching home videos, crying and laughing as I again realize how lucky I am to have such a wonderful family, and facing the reality of how much was lost when my mom passed away.
Everyday I hear about children being mistreated, abused, called names, resented for intruding on their "parents" lives. Our parents never took Lindsay and I for granted, everything they did was for us. I have known this for a long time, but everytime I pop in a home video, I am reminded of how lucky Lindsay and I are. When we were very young Dad worked and went to school, and still found time to be with us and love us deeply, and my mom went without so that her children could have everything we needed, spent hours videotaping us do everyday mundane things, but I get it, they didn't want to forget the little things. We were never hurt in any way by our parents, physically, emotionally or mentally. And each day, our parents taught us a little more about being good people, caring for others and living life.
My poor sister really seemed to get thr brunt of it as a child (wink wink) I have heard at least 4 times on this tape, "Lindsay PLEASE get your sister" as I was trying to thwart my dad's attempts to study, but Lindsay was busy doing a "commercial" for the camera...very advanced that one was. It becomes obvious that my sister was my idol, she had a pretty amazing fashion sense (second only with Napoleon Dynomite's love interest), and was alltogether very advanced, writing books (which she describes as "happy, then sad, but then happy"), her dancing and singing skills were way beyond her years, and really just being an all around trend setter.
Watching these video's are however bittersweet. I see my mom and sometimes I can close my eyes and when I hear her voice, it is as if she was sitting right here next to me (power of surround sound I suppose). I miss her everyday...every minute. I do however think I have begun how to truly understand the meaning of "tis better to have loved and lost...", because while losing my mom has been the most painful thing of my life, we are all better because of her. My mom and dad together gave my sister and I a childhood that could not have been better (minus the sundae incident linds), we are both so very lucky and still so loved. I can only pray that Dave and I give our children the lives that we have been blessed with by our parents.
Everyday I hear about children being mistreated, abused, called names, resented for intruding on their "parents" lives. Our parents never took Lindsay and I for granted, everything they did was for us. I have known this for a long time, but everytime I pop in a home video, I am reminded of how lucky Lindsay and I are. When we were very young Dad worked and went to school, and still found time to be with us and love us deeply, and my mom went without so that her children could have everything we needed, spent hours videotaping us do everyday mundane things, but I get it, they didn't want to forget the little things. We were never hurt in any way by our parents, physically, emotionally or mentally. And each day, our parents taught us a little more about being good people, caring for others and living life.
My poor sister really seemed to get thr brunt of it as a child (wink wink) I have heard at least 4 times on this tape, "Lindsay PLEASE get your sister" as I was trying to thwart my dad's attempts to study, but Lindsay was busy doing a "commercial" for the camera...very advanced that one was. It becomes obvious that my sister was my idol, she had a pretty amazing fashion sense (second only with Napoleon Dynomite's love interest), and was alltogether very advanced, writing books (which she describes as "happy, then sad, but then happy"), her dancing and singing skills were way beyond her years, and really just being an all around trend setter.
Watching these video's are however bittersweet. I see my mom and sometimes I can close my eyes and when I hear her voice, it is as if she was sitting right here next to me (power of surround sound I suppose). I miss her everyday...every minute. I do however think I have begun how to truly understand the meaning of "tis better to have loved and lost...", because while losing my mom has been the most painful thing of my life, we are all better because of her. My mom and dad together gave my sister and I a childhood that could not have been better (minus the sundae incident linds), we are both so very lucky and still so loved. I can only pray that Dave and I give our children the lives that we have been blessed with by our parents.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Fear, Happiness and a disappearing act...
Where did I go?! Well I have spent the last few weeks praying, crying, laughing...and thinking. So here is the short (and a little long) of it....
On the Tuesday after surgery Dave and I met with Dr. D and he went through the diagnosis and treatment plan. Dave had a Pure Seminoma (which is the better kind) that was in Stage one with no metastasis anywhere else in his body, and his tumor markers (which are seen through blood work) were quite low. All of the above are incredible blessings and we could not be more thankful. The plan, as Dr. D saw it was to do 18-24 treatments of radiation, which would leave Dave with a 97% chance of the cancer never reoccurring. He sounded so sure of himself that it made us feel as though that was the only option, and that was what we needed to do. While Dr. D has been a major blessing in this ride...I was beginning to feel that maybe we needed to go one step further. Dr. D is a Urologist, although a very very good one, we were dealing with Cancer and we decided we needed to speak with an Oncologist. So we decided to see the best, we made and appointment with Dr. E....the very doctor who treated Lance Armstrong for testicular cancer.
Fast forward to this past Tuesday (what is with us and Tuesday's?!) We headed down to Indianapolis to meet with Dr. E and get his take on this whole mess. As we walked towards the "Cancer Pavillion" I could feel those fears welling up inside. I could feel things that I have never really dealt with about my mom coming to the surface...but this was not the moment for that to come out, so I smiled and took my husbands hand and we headed inside. Meeting with Dr. E was by far the best experience through this whole beautiful mess. He was easy to talk to and explained our options very clearly and spoke gently to a young couple faced with a big decision. And after much discussion and consideration we decided to take Dr. E's personal recommendation and opt out of radiation and go with a maintenance plan instead. This decision has brought me quite a bit of peace as I am NOT a fan of preventative radiation. So we left the hospital that day feeling a sense of relief and calm.
After leaving the hospital we headed to our hotel in downtown Indy and decided to treat the rest of the day and night as a vacation...and we had a blast! Just spending time with my husband away from all of the everyday stresses of life was exactly what I needed...and I know this trip is what he needed also. My only regret is that we didn't have the chance to stay a couple more nights!
Here are a few pictures from our trip...
The views from the hotel roof...
A couple of the fountain area at night...
And a pretty perfect end to a great night....
Monday, June 1, 2009
Tuesday came.
As much as I was dreading it, and anxiously awaiting it's arrival...Tuesday came. We arrived at the hospital bright and early for some testing, CT scan followed by a chest x-ray and some blood work. Dave drank the barium in what the nurse thought was record time! (He insisted that was the only way to do it, his words: "it's not like a nice cocktail that I am going to sip") after that we had a couple hours to kill (during which time we went to a pawn shop and scored Guitar Hero 3 for our PS3 for $10!) Then it was back to the hospital for surgery...a radical right orchiectomy. Dave made SURE they knew it was the right side, his right, I found that pretty humorus especially being that one was about 3x the size of the other...
We hung out in pre op for an hour or so, then before we knew it, the nurse came with the loopy drugs (for him not me....although Lord knows I could have used some at that point!) And he was taken back into surgery, after some phonecalls to family I plopped down in the waiting room with a diet coke, watching Everybody Loves Raymond on a giant LG Flat screen tv with the WORST cable I have ever seen, not that it mattered much at that point...I was mostly just staring at the clock anyways. But at 4:26PM (surgery was started about 5 till 4) Dr. D came breezing out the doors and told me everything went smoothly they were all done and he would need to see Dave and I next tuesday to go over the pathology results and decide on a gameplan. I had to waiti about 45 minutes until Dave was in "Phase 2" recovery, when I walked back he was sitting up, eating some cracker, smiling and ready to get the heck home! We were gone by about 5:45, and home by 6:30.
Recovery has been a little rougher than I expected, mostly with a great deal of fatigue and pain in his incision. Work for him has been difficult being that he is on his feet the whole time, and slowing him down has been no small task!
So here we are...another monday night, awaiting another tuesday, if it is possible I have a bit more fear about tomorrow than I did last week. Last tuesday was procedures and scans...tomorrow brings answers and reality and uncertainty.... sometimes I think that if ignorance is bliss than I would be happy to be a fool...
We hung out in pre op for an hour or so, then before we knew it, the nurse came with the loopy drugs (for him not me....although Lord knows I could have used some at that point!) And he was taken back into surgery, after some phonecalls to family I plopped down in the waiting room with a diet coke, watching Everybody Loves Raymond on a giant LG Flat screen tv with the WORST cable I have ever seen, not that it mattered much at that point...I was mostly just staring at the clock anyways. But at 4:26PM (surgery was started about 5 till 4) Dr. D came breezing out the doors and told me everything went smoothly they were all done and he would need to see Dave and I next tuesday to go over the pathology results and decide on a gameplan. I had to waiti about 45 minutes until Dave was in "Phase 2" recovery, when I walked back he was sitting up, eating some cracker, smiling and ready to get the heck home! We were gone by about 5:45, and home by 6:30.
Recovery has been a little rougher than I expected, mostly with a great deal of fatigue and pain in his incision. Work for him has been difficult being that he is on his feet the whole time, and slowing him down has been no small task!
So here we are...another monday night, awaiting another tuesday, if it is possible I have a bit more fear about tomorrow than I did last week. Last tuesday was procedures and scans...tomorrow brings answers and reality and uncertainty.... sometimes I think that if ignorance is bliss than I would be happy to be a fool...
Saturday, May 30, 2009
The post I never imagined....
My husband has cancer. I cannot believe I just typed that. He was diagnosed with testicular cancer on Friday May 15(sort of), I just haven't had the strength (or courage?) to blog about it yet. Sooo here we go...
He has had a mass on his right testicle for a while now, just a little to busy and a little too stubborn to go to the doctor. Well two weeks ago, he wasn't feeling well, sort of like the flu but mostly his compliant was "just not feeling right". Working a job that requires very long hours and 6 day work weeks...he needs to be at his best, so he decided to go to the doctor. What happened then is sort of a blur. Dave called me after his appointment to tell me he was heading to the Hospital for a testicular ultrasound, so I headed over to be there with him (even though he swore he was fine and I should stay home...yeah right!) After the ultrasound, we had an appointment made for us for a urologist about an hour later. After meeting with him we were even more confused than we were before we spoke with him. To say the least, he was a very poor doctor who did not have any answers and seemed to keep skirting around the truth. I was sitting in the office fighting myself, because I wanted to scream at him to stop dancing around questions and what do we do next?! He scheduled bloodwork for that day and surgery for Tuesday May 26th ...over a week later. At which time he said he was going to biopsy THEN remove the testicle, this made no sense, especially because about 3 minutes on the Mayo Clinic website will tell you that is NOT what you want to do. That was when we decided it was time for a second opinion...
Enter Dr. D, our own personal angel (okay I am getting carried away, but he really is great) We had an appointment with him on Friday May 22 and he examined Dave for somewhere around 5 seconds and without seeing the test results that I brought he told us that there was no doubt in his mind that the mass was a tumor. (which we pretty much knew but it was so nice to finally have someone affirm this without avoiding our questions) He immediately scheduled surgery (for the 26th because monday was a holiday) he was shocked that the first doctor was willing to wait so long for surgery and that no tests had been run. So after a whirlwind of scheduling and phonecalls...tuesday came...
To be continued....
He has had a mass on his right testicle for a while now, just a little to busy and a little too stubborn to go to the doctor. Well two weeks ago, he wasn't feeling well, sort of like the flu but mostly his compliant was "just not feeling right". Working a job that requires very long hours and 6 day work weeks...he needs to be at his best, so he decided to go to the doctor. What happened then is sort of a blur. Dave called me after his appointment to tell me he was heading to the Hospital for a testicular ultrasound, so I headed over to be there with him (even though he swore he was fine and I should stay home...yeah right!) After the ultrasound, we had an appointment made for us for a urologist about an hour later. After meeting with him we were even more confused than we were before we spoke with him. To say the least, he was a very poor doctor who did not have any answers and seemed to keep skirting around the truth. I was sitting in the office fighting myself, because I wanted to scream at him to stop dancing around questions and what do we do next?! He scheduled bloodwork for that day and surgery for Tuesday May 26th ...over a week later. At which time he said he was going to biopsy THEN remove the testicle, this made no sense, especially because about 3 minutes on the Mayo Clinic website will tell you that is NOT what you want to do. That was when we decided it was time for a second opinion...
Enter Dr. D, our own personal angel (okay I am getting carried away, but he really is great) We had an appointment with him on Friday May 22 and he examined Dave for somewhere around 5 seconds and without seeing the test results that I brought he told us that there was no doubt in his mind that the mass was a tumor. (which we pretty much knew but it was so nice to finally have someone affirm this without avoiding our questions) He immediately scheduled surgery (for the 26th because monday was a holiday) he was shocked that the first doctor was willing to wait so long for surgery and that no tests had been run. So after a whirlwind of scheduling and phonecalls...tuesday came...
To be continued....
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Calling all angels...
Cancer. So not ready to hear that word again....How do we do this? Dear God...please...PLEASE don't take him from me...
"Calling all angels...walk me through this one, don't leave me alone, Calling all angels...Calling all angels, we're trying, we're hoping....but we're not sure how..."
"Calling all angels...walk me through this one, don't leave me alone, Calling all angels...Calling all angels, we're trying, we're hoping....but we're not sure how..."
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
What is perfect anyways?
Dave and I have been married for something to the tune of 8 months, and we have been together for just over 4 years. Obviously I am not anywhere near far enough into my marriage to give my advice or opinions, but...I do anyways...
It seems that lately there have been lots of relationship troubles all around me. Anything from constant bickering to money problems to really immature behavior. At first I found myself wondering when this will happen to Dave and I, when will we be tested, when will we have to fight for each other. Then I realized...that is exactly it, we fight FOR each other instead of with each other. We are tested daily as a couple, with long work hours, demanding jobs, a bad economy,and numerous other issues. If we did not fight for each other we would have lost each other a long time ago. When we disagree we say it right then, we tell each other if we are angry...and we get over it. My sister and I often talk about these things, she has a wonderful marriage and we really never talk about "what's wrong" buth rather, how we habdle things in our marriage's. We both feel strongly about not holding on to anger, and to not bring up past issues during an argument, don't hold grudges against the one you love!
Anyways, everything I am thinking can be summed up pretty easily...go, hold on to the one you love and fight FOR each other.
It seems that lately there have been lots of relationship troubles all around me. Anything from constant bickering to money problems to really immature behavior. At first I found myself wondering when this will happen to Dave and I, when will we be tested, when will we have to fight for each other. Then I realized...that is exactly it, we fight FOR each other instead of with each other. We are tested daily as a couple, with long work hours, demanding jobs, a bad economy,and numerous other issues. If we did not fight for each other we would have lost each other a long time ago. When we disagree we say it right then, we tell each other if we are angry...and we get over it. My sister and I often talk about these things, she has a wonderful marriage and we really never talk about "what's wrong" buth rather, how we habdle things in our marriage's. We both feel strongly about not holding on to anger, and to not bring up past issues during an argument, don't hold grudges against the one you love!
Anyways, everything I am thinking can be summed up pretty easily...go, hold on to the one you love and fight FOR each other.
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