one year on ...

Today is one year since my husband had his cancer surgery. Thank you so much - sending much love and gratitude to everyone who has had David and me in their thoughts, prayers and hearts on this journey.

Doing a lot of organizing and hopefully even more getting rid of stuff over here. (Re)Found this fun cloth of my mom's this morning - so many things boxed up and brought home in 2011, to wait until I could figure out what I wanted to do with them and time to be able to let go. Slowly (well, ever so slowly!), things make their way to Good Will.

I'm sure those are meant to be peacocks above, but I'm pretending their turkeys today LOL , since the cloth is yellow with brown embroidery.  I'm hopeless at photography and couldn't get the color right. 

My mom had lots of these small cloths - I guess for card tables but they seem like they'd barely fit over the edges??? 

Happy week to you!

be like two fried eggs

"You got to keep your sunny side up, up
Let your laughter shine through, do stand upon your legs
Be like two fried eggs keep your sunny side up ..."
~ from the musical "Good News"

Choosing to be like two fried eggs over here hehe (after the initial shock and nervous nellies have had their way with us and now subsided) and be optimistic! My mantra is all is well, all will be well ... which seems to have some kinks to be worked out as I woke up with a mean old sore throat, in the middle of the night yesterday and now have a head cold and feel awful. Drat drat drat. WAH!

And I've fallen off the wagon on my pledge to not buy any books or magazines - Hello, my name is Sally and I'm addicted to books and (holiday) magazines! Not pretty I know, but there it is dear friends LOL.

I wanted to mention two books - I just finished "And the Mountains Echoed" and loved it, especially the beginning, so beautifully written, it made me cry. And now I've started "The Night Circus" while laying around like a limp noodle and am finding it so charming and entertaining. 

Dreaming of holiday crafting over here! I found an old wooden bowl of my mom's and hoping to fill it with cross stitch small's for all the various holidays. Hoping to start on some for Thanksgiving when I feel up to climbing on the ladder to get down my floss boxes that I stored at the top of my shelves like a complete nutball.

My husband is well on the mend, yippie! Thanks again so much for all of your care and concern, prayers and good wishes and friendship.

Happy weekend to everyone!

confusing results ... back on the roller coaster

argh argh argh! Guess it was too much to ask for this to be over, huh?!

The surgeon called with confusing information. He told my husband that the pathology results show that the cancer was more aggressive than thought. 

For some reason they don't understand, the biopsy and MRI results did not show that. 

That means it could reappear somewhere.  He told my husband that he has a 40% chance of recurrence but that he is optimistic that all will be well. 

So shocked and unsettled ...

too pooped to post

Sorry to be so long in updating but I'm worn down to a nubbins and too pooped to post much of a blog post. The two and a half month build up of worry and stress has taken it's toll and I have zero energy.  So just letting go and giving in and enjoying reading and napping and eating curative chocolate LOL.

My husbands surgery went very well HURRAY HURRAH!  Now we wait for the pathology results of the "suspicious" area on his MRI - hopefully we will hear tomorrow, Thursday. His surgeon believes all will be well.  Keep those fingers crossed!

 

Thanks so very much for all of your care and concern and healing thoughts and prayers, we so appreciate it and all of you. Please know you are so very dear. 

today's the day

I can't sleep, woke up at 3:20. Drat drat drat. And it's going to be a very long day - my husbands surgery isn't until 12:15 and will last about four hours. 

I so appreciate all the great blogger energy and healing thoughts and prayers coming our way. 

Thank you so much for your kindness and friendship!

october 21st

So sorry for not updating earlier! I am going at a snails pace these days and not accomplishing much.

On the eighth day of waiting, the surgeon finally called my husband with his MRI results. He said there is something suspicious on one side and that he believes sooner is better than later for the surgery. He also told my husband that he's not in danger but good gosh ... WAH!  So very scary!

So my husband will have his surgery on Monday, October 21st. We won't know until the Friday before, what time the surgery will be --- so frustrating, but I guess that's the way things are at teaching hospitals???

Georgie is doing fine, turns out he has bad reflux and he also had a bladder infection. 

We still haven't received the final results for Gracie - it's been quite a ride this week with her. I came home from my first support group meeting Thursday and found that she had chewed her dew claw off and there was blood all over their doggie bed.  sniffle sniffle SOB. So I had to run her over to the vet's lickety split and since she was there, they moved up the secondary test they give for a definitive Cushing's result, so we wouldn't have to bring her back today for it as planned. 

Rather feel like I'm losing my mind ... trying to remember to breathe ...

Since I am buried underneath a mountain of stuff over here, I have placed myself on a no purchases diet, oh yeah sure bwhahahhahha - but I just ordered myself some fun Halloween crafty stuff, to hopefully lose myself in. 

Miss you all, hope you're doing well! 

waiting

We haven't heard from the doctor yet regarding the test results. WAH! My husband called the office and was told that the results have been entered in the system and that the doctor will call him but the office personnel didn't know when that would happen.  So we're waiting ...

And George is a bit under the weather today and has me concerned. He's now been with us nine and a half months longer than they said he had left.

He only ate a little more than half his food this morning and I ended up feeding him by hand for some of it. He's been eating really slowly this week, but eating all of his food though, every day up until today. He's also started a new thing of drinking tons of water this week. (He is wagging his tail and playing catch today.)

So tomorrow we're off to the vet.

Gracie also has a problem ... they ran a test for Cushings last weekend but they didn't take enough of a sample (GRRRRRRRR), so she has to be tested again tomorrow.  

I wanted to stay by Georgie today and have been going through notebooks of craft patterns, templates, etc., that I've clipped or printed out over the years and merrily tossing most of them in the trash.

I am embarrassed to say that I may be personally responsible for the demise of the forests due to all of my printing out of unneeded junk from the internet. 

Good grief. 

My mission is to keep only what fits nicely in our (tiny, egad) home ... I know, I know, but a girl can dream, can't she?! 

Wishing you and yours a lovely weekend! 

test today

My husband is having a MRI test today. The results will determine how quickly he must have his surgery. Please think a good thought for us this morning. 

Thank you for continuing to show up here and for your kindness and friendship.

cancer support community

Oh my gosh, I just went to Orientation at the most amazing organization, Cancer Support Community. 

I've been plagued with terrible anxiety and panic and migraines since my husbands diagnosis and even though I haven't been to one of the support groups or other phenomenal resources available yet, I left feeling lighter already. Certainly this is one of the places where angels dwell. Everything is free ... support groups, individual counseling, yoga, pilates, zumba classes, art classes, on and on. All free for the cancer patient and family and care givers.

I felt as if my best friend had given me the biggest bestest warmest of hugs, squeezes and smiles.

things are feeling a little bit lighter around here

Thank you so much everyone for all of your kindness, sweet words, healing thoughts and prayers. I greatly appreciate it and you!

Well gosh, we are on quite the winding road. 

We saw my husbands primary care doctor yesterday and it was very helpful.

From what the Oncologist said last Friday, we were under the impression that the traditional surgery sounded the best. Now after speaking with my husbands doctor yesterday and being told that 90% of his patients these days have the "robotic" or laparoscopic surgery, we are now more interested in it.

Ay yi yi.  Up down all around. 

So the appointment scheduled for a second opinion tomorrow (with a doctor that does the traditional surgery) has now been cancelled and next week we will see one who does the robotic surgery instead. 

The good news is that my husbands primary care Doctor said again that "we caught it early" and there is time to figure out what we want to do and he was very reassuring about post operative effects - which the other doctor had freaked my husband out. He also stated that he believed surgery to be the best choice.

We are getting all of this input from people who know of someone who had radiation and "they're doing just fine" - but they're regular people/lay people passing on this info - regular people who have no idea if the people they know had the same degree or type of cancer involvement as my husband - and yet give their opinions and recommendations to him. One went so far as to get pissy with my husband, when my husband told him that his Urologist told him radiology wasn't the best/most safe option for him. For him.

GEEZ LOUISE!

Anyway, we had a spot of fun on Sunday - went out to breakfast and then ... 

We went to the Quilt Show in Long Beach and I did a wee bit of Retail Therapy hahhahahha. Tried to keep a lid on it this time but did come home with some holiday fabric and some more buttons. Cannot resist buttons.

And after lunch at CPK, we went to a fun exhibit at the Long Beach Museum --- about dog houses.

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Thanks again, so very much for your concern and friendship!

results and options

I can't believe that it's only been about 24 hours since we went to the doctor to hear about options. It feels as though a week has passed. The moments since have felt so heavy, so overwhelming.

We were told how tumors are graded from 1 to 5 and that my husbands biopsy showed mostly 3's but that he does have an area with 4's. Due to that, surgery and removal is his only option. We were told that my husbands PSA numbers are low enough that it won't have spread.

My husband has the choice of "regular" surgery or "robotic" surgery. Surgery will be in about two months - the inflammation from the biopsy must calm down first.  

We will visit another doctor on Wednesday for a second opinion. 

Thank you all very much for your kindness, support and friendship, it means so very much to me.

that low down dirtiest of dogs, the nasty old C, has come calling

We just found out a few hours ago, that my husband has been diagnosed with cancer. We go to the doctor Friday morning to hear all the details and see what the options are.  My husband said the doctor sounded upbeat on the phone but needless to say, we are utterly freaked out and devastated.

So just a heads up to let you know that I may fall silent and not be around here (or I may be around all the time for comfort or distraction ... who knows?!).

Thank you very much for your friendship and care over the years!