Happy 2013!

Boy are we glad to say goodbye to 2012.  

I know I haven't written in a while and there are a million reasons for that but most of all it's because we've been busy and emotional and the holidays were a lot more stressful than we anticipated.  In fact, Christmas sort of snuck up on us because we were so wrapped up in the emotions of the whole thing so we inadvertently ordered some things that weren't going to arrive until after Christmas.  Instead of worrying about it we decided we would celebrate Christmas in two shifts. On New Years Eve we celebrated Christmas part 2; Or as it's now known, "Second Christmas!"  It actually relieved some of the stress and we figured since everything is different this year anyway we may as well roll with that.

Even though some of our traditions went to the wayside we couldn't let the season pass without taking our annual holiday picture. Usually we go up in the snow but we decided in front of the tree would be sufficient.  I think it worked out just fine! 

Christmas Day we got up early (by teen standards, glad he's not little and up super early!) and did our first Christmas, made breakfast together and spent some time in the living room together which NEVER happens.  Later my Dad and Stepmom came over and brought dinner which was really nice.  It was decided on kind of last minute but we're thankful they came over, it was a difficult day for everyone and we're glad we could be together. David was up in the chair pretty much all day which wore him out but he didn't complain at all because that's where he wanted to be.  When he got back into bed he slept the rest of the night!  

As for how David is doing... they've changed some of his meds around. He's now on a full time antibiotic to keep infection away, he's on steroids as a kind of last ditch attempt at relieving some of the pain in his shoulder and they've increased his morphine dose at night to relieve a little more pain to let him sleep better.  We think all of those things are working to some degree.  He can actually lift his left arm a bit now because the shoulder isn't in as much pain. I counted the other day and it averages out to about 26 pills a day.  TWENTY-SIX!  Yum.

We've also noticed some additional numbness in his right hand and arm all the way up to his shoulder.  Why couldn't it be the other shoulder that went numb, the one that hurts from what we suspect is a rotator cuff problem. The right side is the bad side so it's not too big of a deal except that it's more pins and needles kind of feeling and it irritates him rather than hurting.  He mentions it in passing maybe once a day and I notice him touching it a lot with his other hand, putting pressure on the sensitive areas.  To most people that's nothing but coming from David that's a full on complaint!

We spent Christmas money from his parents on a new Blu-ray player and universal remote for the bedroom so he can watch movies a little easier than the old set-up where we had a computer hooked to the tv and the remote was cumbersome.  The blu-ray does netflix and amazon prime and oodles of other online streaming resources and he found a remote app he can use on his phone!  The man is set up with gadgets, just the way he likes it. Thanks Mom and Dad!

We expect to see David's parents here sometime this week for a visit, they're in Utah right now for the wedding of one of their Chinese grand daughters. Short story, they taught western culture/english at  universities in china for a couple of years and some of their students moved here to go to school. These students are lovingly referred to as their Chinese grand children. David is still getting treatment although luckily this will be a week off so nicely timed! 

Thanks for hanging in there for a whole year with us.  Yesterday was the anniversary (that word doesn't seem right) of David's diagnosis.  We've been wanting to post a "year in review" type of post with some thoughts from David (his family will laugh and expect about 2 sentences out of him) but as you can imagine we've been on a jumbled roller coaster of emotions lately and are having problems forming coherent thoughts. There's a lot of remembering what it was like a year ago, and that was no somewhere either of us really wants to go but it's kind of unavoidable.  At least right now things are mostly status quo with minor setbacks and we're used to this new normal.  It doesn't make it easy but it does make it predictable which can be somewhat comforting. 

Happy New Year!

Traditional Sniffles

So Owen has a cold.  Not sure where he picked up that little piece of lovely, school probably with all the rest of the germy kids but that's not really something we need around here. He's taken to knuckle bumping instead of hugs and kisses before bed. I hope he gets better soon.  Today he took a can of soup and a bowl to heat it up in for lunch (they have microwaves) I thought it was cute.  He's not sick enough to stay home, just sick enough to be whiny.  I hope Dave doesn't get it. We don't normally get sick a lot around here but when we do it's usually this time of year. Yay.

Dave has been ridiculously tired lately.  He spent a good part of last week napping.  We think it might be the allergy medicine.  He took Allegra for a while and I've always taken Zyrtec because those work better for each of us.  Allergy season was over so he stopped taking it and then started getting migraines.  We don't know for sure that's what caused the migraines because he isn't having allergy symptoms per se and correlation doesn't equal causation and all that but we figured he should start taking it again so we can rule it out.  So... I gave him Zyrtec because I was out of Allegra.  It could be why he's been so tired. Today I'm switching it back for the A and we'll see if that fixes the napping problem.  He kept apologizing but I think it's probably ok if he sleeps.

His last big migraine was the week before Thanksgiving.  He was taking a new antibiotic (Septra) and it was making his stomach hurt with severe nausea (if he can feel it it's severe) which turned into a migraine and throwing up etc etc. I was at a PTO meeting and I got a text message then an immediate panicky phone call from Owen so I came home.  Ugh.    The hospice/dr's office have Septra listed as an "allergy" now even though I don't think it's a true allergy they don't want to risk him getting it again since he doesn't tolerate it.  That was even with the anti-nausea meds! You better believe we'll remember the name of that antibiotic!

This week Owen has a community service project at school for national jr honor society so he'll spend some part of wednesday night doing that.  I'm feeding teachers on wednesday but Dave has Chemo so I'll have to get the food tuesday and leave it in the fridge at school and someone else will have to handle it. (yay for having more than just a couple people active on the PTO this year!) Thursday I have parent/teacher conferences and Owen has a half day then friday he gets the day off.  Lucky dog. I feel like I'm missing a couple of things but I'm sure I'll figure them out really quickly. I write things on my calendar but I'm getting a little more forgetful.

My weight loss has kind of stalled out at 28 lbs lost (in 12 weeks, not bad) but I think this means I need to actually go back to the gym. I went for a while then got too busy (or lazy, whatever)It's a little frustrating that it was just falling off to begin with and now I'm actually having to work at it.  I know for sure I'd feel better and have more energy if I went but actually getting there is a whole other thing entirely. I'm putting the pro in procrastinate. ;) 

Owen and I did get a tree this weekend. I need to put the lights on it today (usually Dave's job) and we'll decorate it tonight. There are things that I didn't think would be such a big deal like getting the tree without D but they ended up being a little more difficult than I expected.  I imagine a lot of things will be like that but I'm trying to take comfort in knowing that we're not doing them WITHOUT him, he's just not physically present for some of it but he's still here to talk to and work through things with.  At some point that may not be the case and I'm hoping that because we've had transition time it will make things a little bit easier.  I let Dave pick the colors for the decorations since we kind of switch it up every year. I'll post pictures when we finish.  There will definitely have to be some White Christmas watching at some point.

We don't have a lot of traditions but that is one of them.

Oh yeah, and I don't know if we'd call it a tradition but we do have a bit of one. No angels on the top of the tree.  Growing up we always had an angel and the first few years David and I were together we had an angel on the tree... until the one year when we had a bunch of baby spiders... and one crawled across the angel's face.  HA! EW! NO! Stars... yeah...  stars are nice on the top of the tree.  I think we'll stick with stars.  LOL

Thankfulness

Amid all the upheaval this year has brought to our lives we're often reminded of all the things we have to be thankful for.  The very tangible things are kind of given. A house over our heads and food on the table, reliable vehicle, health insurance, hospice, etc etc etc. It's not that we're not beyond grateful for those things and we'd be lost without them but there are things we have overlooked in the past that seem so much more important to us. It's less tangible things we have tried to be more mindful of.

We don't know where we'd be this year without the moral support and love from friends and family. For everyone who cares enough to read this and even those who don't, for all the emails, cards, hugs, visits, phone calls, encouragement, shoulders to cry on, hands to hold, laughter and just love in general. I won't sugar coat it, this year has been the worst of our lives in many many ways, so full of loss and stress and impending doom. Heh, that was dramatic, I know.  But it's also been full of countless blessings and an out-pouring of love. We've learned to recognize and be thankful for friendships and communities we didn't realize were so important to us. Hopefully we express our gratitude adequately in the moment but sometimes we get overwhelmed and don't do that as well as we could. It's hard to sit back and accept help but we're always reminded to be humble and we've tried to be gracious about it. Please never doubt how grateful we are.


It's been about a year since David was first having symptoms and there were two days early in the year when they didn't think he would live 24 hours, they certainly didn't think he would make it a year. Now look at us. We've found a new normal, he's doing relatively well and things are a little bit status quo. There is no real sense of urgency about anything which is kind of a relief in some ways although it's the quiet, non-urgent moments that get us out of business mode and give us time to think. Not always good for morale which is a little silly and backwards.

Personally, I'm thankful that we've been touched by the lives of the people we've lost this year. Facing the first holiday season without them is daunting but knowing that our lives are better because they were in them brings a sense of comfort at a time when we could be (and sometimes are) wrapped up in the loss. I'm thankful for David's strength and love and understanding. I can't imagine what he must be going through and he constantly gives everything he can give which he says isn't much but it's more than he knows. For Owen and his ability to roll with the punches, his humor and teenagery nonsense that reminds me that life continues as normal and things do exist outside our bubble. For family who includes us in every way they can even when we can't go anywhere. For my communities, ryinburgh, virakar, Owen's school(teachers, parents, admins, pto), pacificsource and church... you all overwhelm me with your understanding and support. And for friends who, more than I'd like to admit, help keep me sane. As sane as I ever am. (David is also thankful for that because he knows that when he's not here to be a support that I still have a good support system.)  I don't know what I would do without you and I'm glad I don't have to find out.  Thanks!

Halloween: The Cute Story

This year the kids were allowed to dress up in costumes for school. In years past they weren't allowed.  Owen decided to be a shadow and wore all black. We told him he couldn't wear that out trick or treating because it was too dangerous. (all black at night? recipe for disaster!) He said he could wear it with reflective strips and be the teenaged child of helicopter parents... har har. Clever little brat. lol  I told him he could do that if he wanted but just to think about it and let me know after school.  While he was gone I thought maybe he could be Dr Who.  He's a BIG FAN and Dave has a jacket that fits Owen that works perfectly. When he got home and agreed to that choice I made a bow tie and a fez for him really quickly (good thing I'm crafty) and he was ready to go. He was going trick or treating with Josie (who introduced him to Dr Who) and it turns out that she had kind of a rough day as one of her wigs got played with too much at school and fell apart. Serious tragedy in the cosplay (costume play) world she lives in. So Owen got to her house and she took one look at him and freaked out and changed her costume to the female character from Dr Who, Amy Pond. She just happened to have a wig appropriate for that, too! It made her night which in turn made Owen's night. It's always nice to be able to cheer up a friend! Then there they were in themed costumes ready for the candy collecting! They met up with some other friends and had a good night.  I love this picture to pieces.  Their costumes, their body language, all 8 years of their friendship shows through.Owen is lucky to have a friend like her who gets his quirks and plays along and I'm happy that her mom, Laura, and I have become such good friends over the years. We're so thankful to those special ladies and don't know what we'd do without them! <3

David and I stayed home and happily ate halloween candy instead of passing it out to kids because none came to the door. MORE FOR US!  Actually, I'm going to have Owen drop off the rest in the teacher's lounge at school. Less for us! HA! It's been a mostly quiet and uneventful week otherwise and for that we are grateful!

Hope everyone had a safe and happy halloween!

Ice Cream!

This was a treatment week.  When Dave got up in the wheelchair he was hurting pretty bad from his shoulder (damaged rotator cuff?) and his neck so I gave him some extra pain meds.  This has become pretty normal for him, his neck and shoulder are always sore but the meds he takes usually manage the pain.  On days he gets in the wheel chair it's worse because he has to stabilize those areas in different ways so the pain is different.  Anyway, the combo of the morphine boost and the lorazapam kind of knocked him out.  In the waiting room I was showing him something and he was telling me he couldn't actually focus. OOPS! It wasn't really more than he's taken in the past but the two drugs together compound each other plus when they were drawing blood he was trying to take deep breaths (because that helps the blood flow easier from the central line) and he almost hyperventilated and we think that contributed to his meds hitting him extra hard.  He gets a little goofy when he's like that so at least he's sillier than normal.  That's saying something because he's normally a little silly. Quietly silly.

You may recall that 6 weeks ago or so his central line was leaking a little and the nurse was concerned about it.  That seemed to clear itself up and then this week a couple drops of blood came out from around the tubing.  They're not doing anything except watching it and so far the actual line is working just peachy so they can still draw blood from it and inject all the things they need to inject so it's alright but we're definitely on edge about it a bit.  If it's not one thing it's another!

We finally got the results of the genetic testing back. He does indeed have the cancer gene which means Owen has a 50/50 chance of having it. We took it in stride and come to think of it we haven't even actually told Owen yet.  Not that we're hiding it from him but we have made a conscious decision to not make a big deal about it.  He already knows that there was a possibility Dad could have it and we discussed what that would mean for him but we never actually confirmed it to him. I guess we should do that soon... The doctor told us what the protocol is for testing and for cancer screenings. It's pretty aggressive if you have the gene although thankfully David won't have to go through all of that since he's already got the least common cancer you can get from the gene.  I told him he should have played the lotto instead. Anyway, they don't recommend kids get tested before 18 and the recommended screenings start between 20 and 25.  Then you have to be tested every 1-2 years.  It's known to most commonly cause colon cancer but can also cause stomach, neurological, uterine and ovarian cancers.  The screenings for everything except colon aren't very easy.  I hope by the time he gets to that age they revolutionize the way they can screen for those things.  Not that he has to worry about two of those... but we have nieces who do. I swear Auntie Marla's gonna start nagging all the nieces and nephews over 18 soon! This is their official warning (that they probably don't read). *snicker* 

Owen and I are doing pretty well. He's busy with school, national jr honor society, video games, he's walking to and from school now although we'll see what he thinks about that when it gets colder and rainier. It's about a mile each way.  I went back to my middle school to see how far my walk was and much to my chagrin it was only half a mile.  It felt like so much further when I was 12-14! He told me he is going to do the 100 pushups and 200 situps programs over the summer.  If he does those and he'll get his braces off probably by the end of 8th grade... He'll be a new man next year when he starts high school!  He is clearly motivated if he's asking if he can walk to and from school! Ugh, I just said he starts high school next year.  Our baby isn't so much a baby anymore.

Oh yeah! And speaking of braces... I'm getting them... again. actually again again.  I had them in middle school then again in high school and now as an adult.  Spendy mouth!  My ortho I had as a kid just didn't do a lot of things right, my retainers never fit right and my back teeth never fit together correctly when he was done and I ended up with all kinds of TMJ problems.  I'm really eager to see what this new dentist can do.  Nov 8th is the day.  It's funny how excited people are to get them on... then they get really excited to get them off.  The grass is always greener?  This ortho said he would put a permanent retainer on my bottom teeth.  I should have had that 20 years ago the first time I got them off! Owen said we get to be braces nerds together.  I'm going to get a box of milk duds and savor them right in front of him before I get mine on.  I'm mean like that... plus I know he'll do the same to me as soon as he gets his off.  hahaha

Nothing too exciting going on. Having an ongoing battle with Owen about getting to bed on time and we had this playful exchange the other night. (this is a repeat if we're friended on facebook)

Me:Why are you still on the computer after your bedtime?
Owen: I'm irresponsible?
Me: What do irresponsible kids get?
Owen: Ice cream!

Yup, that's our boy! 

October is Spelled R-A-I-N

We decided to go with the third party transport place and it worked out fine, it looks like we might have to do the same thing next time. I'm super frustrated but there isn't really anything we can do about it so I kind of have to roll with it.  We're still waiting to find out for sure, should know tomorrow. I have better things to worry about.

Still no word about the genetics test.  I think he gave the blood for it over a month ago and it was supposed to take 2 weeks to get back.  Last wednesday they said 4 more days and then they have to be fed-ex'd back to the dr's office and then we'll hear. So hopefully by this wednesday? It really doesn't matter one way or the other but since that is kind of looming over us we'd like a little closure.  David had treatment again and everything went mostly ok. The blood clotted in their vials again before they had a chance to process them so they had to do a second blood draw... again.  This happened a month ago or so.  His coumadin levels are right on this time.  Last time it was very high if you recall. Now it's right at 2.5 which is perfect.  Let's keep it that way. When we got home Dave took a nap and I went to watch Tim and Rose's son play in his JV football game.  They won by a landslide.  I haven't been to a high school game since my brother played many many moons ago.  It was a lot of fun, thanks for inviting me!

Owen is having a hard time keeping up with all of his homework. It's not that he gets a ton, it's that he doesn't always do all of it or he can't find it in his notebook to turn it in (messy!) or he gets a take home quiz and gets a 60%.  Seriously there's just no excuse for that. I'm kind of at my wits end. I know in the grand scheme of things it's not the most important thing in his life but we all have things we have to do and school is his only HAVE TO thing. Plus, to be morbid, if/when Dave passes he's going to want a buffer when his school work does take a backseat to whatever else is going on. I'm not incredibly concerned about that but the thought crosses my mind. When he's barely getting A's in half his classes it's a very different kid from the nearly straight A+'s he was getting before.  Well... plus he's 13 now and there are GIRLS at school. *snicker*  He even wants to start working out and asked me to get him some weights. Maybe when I go back to boot camp I'll take him with me! HA!

Speaking of... I've been slacking on the gym. On the bright side I just hit my first weight loss goal and lost all the weight I gained since David's diagnosis. About 15 lbs. (in 6ish weeks, not bad) Gaining and losing 15 lbs in a year is probably not so good for my heart I can imagine.  It's actually been really easy and I'm encouraged that it's been 95% changes in what we're eating rather than working out like a fiend.  Some day the fiend behavior will return but for now it's baby steps. I still have quite a way to go but these are sustainable changes and I think Dave and Owen benefit from the changes as well. That also makes it easier.

I've been so tired and stressed.(ironically I'd probably have more energy if I were working out and eating more but whatever..) Nothing major just a lot of little things.  Some of them not even bad things but just things that occupy space in my brain and my heart.  I think I've mentioned this before but Dave and I call it thrashing. It's a computer term that basically means there's so much going on the processor can't focus on one thing because it's swapping so much information around.  It can make the whole system freeze up and nothing really gets accomplished. We kind of froze up a little in the last week. I think things are calming down on many fronts, the stack is popping and features are functioning "as intended" and blah blah other nerdy references I could make but will spare you...  We should have rebooted... twice... ;)

I'll share something that touched my life pretty deeply this week.  How to explain... heh. When I was 16-19 I dated a guy who I ended up getting engaged to. I know, we were kids, it was ill-advised and things worked out well for us both in other directions so no hard feelings.  ANYWAY... his dad passed away just over a week ago. I was just a kid and his family really took me in. I looked to his parents as role models and truly as parents. They never treated me as less than one of their own, praising and scolding alike as any good parent does. hehe It made an impression on me then and helped me stay on a good path at a time in my life when things could have been very different. It's been a very very long time since his family has been a part of my life in any tangible way, or I theirs, but the appreciation and respect I feel for them will never change. I'll always remember Ron as a very warm, welcoming, soft-spoken, quietly hilarious man who gave good, timely advice and support whenever you needed it, especially if you didn't know you needed it. I'm glad I had the opportunity to be touched by his life and my heart hurts with their family as they grieve this loss.  I know he is missed.

So... I'm kind of done with death this year. Dear Grim Reaper, PLEASE STOP!  Love, Everyone! It would be so easy to be angry about the pile up of events but for some reason I feel the opposite. Anger really hasn't touched my mind much at all. It's more resignation. Yup, life kind of sucks, just keep swimming. It's made me more sensitive (is that possible?) and affectionate and willing to tell my friends and family how I feel about them, even if they're like please, not another mushy message! (no one actually says that) It turned off my brain to mouth filter in as far as holding things back, not in a negative way.  It encourages me to be more willing to be patient and forgiving because what if I'm not and something happens? It makes me try to be the best person I can be in whatever way I know how. I have to tell you though it's not easy. Ironically I'm the one I'm not patient and forgiving to. Anxiety sneaks in and weakness sneaks in and I've spent a couple of days in bed snuggling my boys and napping off and on and that's ok too.  It helps me be better when I'm actually awake. haha  Sometimes everyone needs to recharge in whatever way they know how.

This week it's raining. David was telling everyone that the forecast says "Rain starts friday and never ends!" He was right so far.  I guess that's what we get for having 3 or so months of NO rain.  We even had a fire warning in October. That's ridiculous. It figures it starts raining now because David's parents are going to make their way through town to visit for a bit. It will be a busy week. Owen has an ortho appointment where they are moving a couple of brackets AGAIN (does this mean they're fine tuning and he's almost done? Pretty please?), I have a PTO meeting I need to write the agenda for oh and shoot, I forgot about 2 more meetings I need to set up that I forgot about, oops. Thank goodness Dave doesn't have to go in for treatment this week!

I guess it's time to bust out the halloween movies and Dave and I's annual mandatory discussion about whether Nightmare before Christmas is a Halloween movie or a Christmas movie (the answer is probably yes). I still have Monster Squad that I still haven't made Owen watch, what a classic. (not that good but I watched the heck out of it growing up) Why can't I think of any others? I'll pass on the actual "Halloween" movies. Ew, no thank you. Anyone have any halloween movie suggestions that are appropriate for a 13 year old and his parents who aren't big on gorey grossness?

No Decisions Today!

I feel like I've had no time at all to write lately. I have emails upon emails to catch up on and people I want to stay in contact with that I just haven't had time or energy to do. This is why I love texting. Part of my email issue (and my blogging issue to be honest) is that I have to do that at the computer. If I'm at the computer that means I'm not in the bedroom with David. We have an ipad and a laptop but the lappy is tiny, it's great for travel but it's not great to type on, and the ipad is just not fantastic for making long posts because you can't touch type. That sounds like I'm making excuses, mostly I'm just venting.

Since the migraine I posted about last time Dave has been doing fairly well. It took a full week to recover from the dehydration and we think his stomach shrunk because he's not eating as much.  That means his coumadin level was too high.  WAY too high.  His INR (blood thinness) is supposed to be around 2.2 ish and it was 4.4  YIKES! I even knew that was going to happen so I was giving him 1/3 of his dose for a couple of days while he wasn't eating much but it was still too much when I went back to his normal dose.  I'm glad I didn't give him the full dose the whole time. I told his nurse I did that and she didn't say I should do it any differently so I guess it wasn't a big deal that I changed his med schedule.  I think once you're on hospice they give you a lot of leeway as far as meds go.  What's the worst thing that could happen? heh, that's kind of morbid but I get the impression that's the mentality. As long as people are comfortable they're not too worried about anything else.

Treatment went pretty well last time but we were supposed to get the results back from a genetics test and when we got there, all geared up for the answer, we found out they hadn't run the test yet because of a mix up with insurance. That was a little deflating. It hadn't been pre-authorized or something.  I have confirmation now that it has and it's being run so by next appointment (next week) we should have an answer. It really doesn't matter if Dave has this bad gene but if he does it gives Owen a 50/50 chance of having it but if the Glioma is a random occurrence Owen doesn't have to ever be tested for it. We wanted to be sure before we subjected him to that someday. He'll have the chance to decide for himself if he wants to be tested after he's 18. One kind of comforting thing about it is that since David's sister has it (I don't remember if the others were tested) it means that one of their parents HAS to have it, it's not recessive. While that's scary too at least we know that you can live a good long life without ever getting cancer from it so it's not a death sentence. That's good for all the kids in the family to know when they make the decision to get tested.

One little oddity at the end of David's treatment last week was that when the nurse changed the dressing on his central line she noticed it was leaking a little. There is kind of a scab around where it goes into his chest and was just leaking fluid just a little bit.  It could just be from the scab getting bonked around when the dressing was being changed but it's something they're keeping an eye on.  Because he needs more to worry about.  It's a few months old now and they said that's not really uncommon but if it starts to fail they'll have to remove it and I'm not sure what that would mean.  Since it's torture to get an IV it might mean he's done with treatments. We'll cross that bridge if we come to it.

Last night he got another migraine and got a little nauseated. I dosed him up before it had a chance to progress into what it was last time. Crisis averted although he's basically been asleep for the last 12 hours.  I'm so jealous. I'm getting about 1/3 as much sleep as he is! Friday Owen had the day off of school and I pretty much stayed in bed all day so maybe I caught up on a little. I was worried that maybe it was depression, you know where you don't even want to get out of bed? But mostly I think it's just exhaustion because normally I'm not quite that glued to the pillow.

Yesterday was a scary day. David's brother, Chris, has been having a lot of pain and was having trouble walking.  His doctor was worried about a tumor pressing on his spine and they scheduled scans for tuesday (tomorrow). Over the course of a couple of days it got so bad he ended up in the ER. After a very long day of waiting it ended up being some bulging/ruptured discs and he's having surgery this morning to fix it.  Thank goodness it's not what David has. They've been through so much they shouldn't have to go through this too. It brought it all back, everything we went through early in Dave's diagnosis, the not knowing and the fear and frustration of waiting for answers. Watching him be in excruciating pain and not being able to do anything about it no matter how many times you push the nurse call button. We obviously feel for what Chris is going through but I relate more to what Ricki is enduring. It's hard to put into words. I was so scared for them and it's such a relief that it's just his back acting up and it's something they can fix! We're praying for his quick recovery and I hope Ricki takes advantage of someone else taking care of him for a little while! Girl! Enjoy the help! 

It's been a pretty good couple of weeks besides that stuff. My Dad and Holly came over to watch the Avengers as Dave and I hadn't seen it yet. It was good to see them and spend a little time together, plus it was an awesome movie even though I almost fell asleep.  Not because it was boring, just because that's what I do during movies heh. Dave sometimes asks me, "Want to watch a movie so you can sleep?"  Owen had a science project to build a model of an atom... which I helped him with... a lot.  LOL (I hope his science teacher doesn't read this!)  He probably didn't need me to help as much as I did but we made it out of beads and wire and he didn't know how to use my beading tools. I taught him some and he directed me some. Whatever... what parent doesn't help their kids with science projects? It was fun to work on it together.  My mom came over yesterday and I painted her toe nails and she did my nails. Poor mom, I micromanaged because I'm used to doing my own nails but I just shut up and let her do it her way after a while. Someday I'll learn to give up a little control... maybe. It's been a crafty week I guess. I really want to get back into sewing, I have a few projects I need to finish including a baby quilt for my niece who is 9 months old!  It may turn into a first birthday present.  HA!

I really should write more often so I don't end up with a wall of text for every post. One last thought. I'm super frustrated this morning because hospice called to tell me that the (free) wheelchair transport we use isn't going to be able to take us next week because they have the van scheduled for something else. That means we'll have to pay for transport. The reason it's frustrating isn't because we have to pay it's because it's out of our comfort zone and consistency is kind of comforting right now at a time when most everything else changes so rapidly. It's the hospice company's own transport service but they only have one wheelchair van for people who can't transfer to a regular seat. They didn't have enough business so they just got a contract with a medicare/medicaid provider and now they're so busy and they do senior outings and such with the same van.  I don't begrudge them needing to keep their business afloat but I DO have a right to get frustrated when things don't work out conveniently. So now I have to decide if we want to use an unknown quantity for transport or try to reschedule his appointment. The hospice social worker asked if she should call back this afternoon to find out what we want to do. I told her there's no way I'm making a decision about this today and to try me back in the morning.  Yay for no decisions today! RAWR!