Update

I just wanted to let everyone know that I had a ct scan last week to check the progress of my cancer treatments. I saw my doctor on Tuesday to discuss the results of the scan. Both tumors have decreased in size. The larger tumor had a significant decrease. At least things are going in the right direction.

I started my fourth round of treatment on Tuesday also. I go three days in a row for treatments. Then I am off for three weeks. I will have at least six rounds of treatments. They may do some radiation at some point in time also.

I do know they are going to radiate my brain. So far the scans show no cancer in the brain. I am told that when they radiate the brain it will decrease the chance of the cancer reappearing there from 60% to 5%. Those are odds I can handle. The only side effect to that treatment is that I will lose my hair, but it is already gone, so nothing hurt there.

I want everyone to know I really appreciate all the thoughts and prayers and I know they are helping. I have seen miracles and I just know if I have enough people praying I will see another one.

Thanks everyone.
Joyce

This and that.

My hubbie has been especially nice to me lately. A couple weeks ago, I had a birthday. For most of our married life, soon to be 38 years, my hubbie has done nothing for my birthday. But this year, he decided to make me breakfast. It was very good, but apparently he thought I was hungry because he made me an immense amount of food.

It was funny watching him prepare this meal. He had a hard time finding the pots, pans and utensils he needed to use. Does that tell you how often he uses the kitchen. We have lived in this house for over 25 years now and the location of everything has been the same since day one.

He really did a good job. Along with the scrambled eggs, he served a concoction of sausage, potato, onion, mushroom, green and red peppers. Everything was quite tasty. I will have to have him help me more often.

I have been sorting through some things lately and I come across some projects that seemed to get thrown back and never finished, such as my daughter's quilt top. Here is another project that was actually completed. The only thing I need to do it frame it so I can display it. It is a counted cross stitch that I did over 10 years ago. It is a Paula Vaughn design titled Rose of Sharon. The finished design measures 12inches by 15 inches.

I just know when I placed it in that tube and put it in the drawer, it was with the intention that the next time I went to the craft store I would buy a frame for it. Oh, well, I still have time.

I also found another counted cross stitch in progress. I started this one shortly after I finished the other one. I am not quite half done with it. I did start working on it again. I forgot how much I love to do cross stitch, although I think I need stronger glasses.

This is from the Stoney Creek collection called A Visit from Father Christmas. I had hopes of doing all the designs from the book...lol. What was I thinking!!!

I am off to cross stitch. Have a good day everyone.

Take care.

Unfinished business

While digging through my closet a while back I come across a project I started more than 15 years ago. It is a quilt top I made for my younger daughter. It is my first and last attempt at making a full size quilt. It seemed like such a simple task while I was planning it in my head....not!!! I guess that is why I never finished it, I was too overwhelmed.

I know a perfectly lovely lady who owns a quilt shop and does machine quilting. I think I may give her a call . I really should have it finished.

Sorry it is so wrinkled. It has been folded up in a box for all these years.

Take care.

Joyce

My babies are getting so big!

It is hard to believe how big my grandbabies are getting. It seems like just yesterday Josh was born and now he is in pre-school. Plus his little sister, Olivia, is 7 1/2 months old. I swear just yesterday I was holding their mother in my arms.

Unfortunately, I haven't seem too much of them lately due to the fact that they have been sick a lot this winter. Olivia is on her third ear infection since the first of the year. Josh has had a cold and strep throat since then also. I am supposed to avoid sick people because the chemotherapy weakens my immune system and I am prone to infections.

I did finally get to see them one night this week. Here are a few pictures I managed to take while they were here.




I had a tough time getting Josh away from the Wii long enough to snap this picture. Yes, Grandma has a Wii. The kids bought us one for Christmas because they thought it would be good exercise for me. He was playing with Grandpa. I think they were boxing.




Olivia is growing like a weed. She isn't crawling yet, but she sits pretty good. She is such a cutie.

Take care.

A little bump in the road

Wow, it seems time slips by so fast. The last time I posted was the day before Thanksgiving. So much has happened since then. I really didn't know if I was going to tell this story here on my blog, but sometimes I think it helps just to get everything out.

In case you don't know it, I have COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and I am on oxygen full time. This is a result of many, many years of smoking. So, if you smoke, quit it!!!

I was diagnosed over 10 years ago, at which time I quit smoking. I have been on oxygen for the last 4 years part time. I only needed it with activity, such as walking. Then in February of 2008 I came down with a nasty case of pneumonia which landed me in the hospital for 5 days and I have been on oxygen full time since.

On Thanksgiving Day, 2008, I started coughing and coughing. Within a couple days, I couldn't breathe and it was off to the emergency room. They did blood work and chest xrays, same routine as in February. I remember my doctor coming in to the exam room in emergency with a concerned look on his face. "Why don't you plan on staying with us a couple days."

"Is it pneumonia again?" I asked.

"Yeah, probably," was his reply.

What he didn't tell me at the time was that he had seen something on my xray that was out of the ordinary. It was a spot on my lung. He wanted to wait until the radiologist had time to review the xray to confirm what he had seen.

Later that same day, I had a ct scan which not only showed the spot my doctor had seen but also another smaller spot in my other lung. Immediately they called in an oncologist who set me up for more tests.

They ordered a ct guided biopsy of my right lung, which is a test where they put you on a ct scanner and take a picture, then decided where they are going to stick a needle in your lung to get a piece of the spot for testing. They give you some drugs, so you don't really care what they are doing. One of the risks, they told me slight risk, of this test is the possibility of a pnoeumothorax, which is a collapsed lung. Of course, this happened to me.

It was so scary. Suddenly, I could not breathe. The poor doctor had to put me back on the scanner and take another picture so he could insert a chest tube to reinflate my lung, all the while I felt like I was suffocating. I remember him telling me step by step what he was doing and all I could think of was "Just do it!!!" I couldn't really speak because I was concentrating on trying to breathe. I knew right away when he inserted the chest tube because it was like a relief and I could take a breath again. Although, he still spent some time with this big syringe looking thing sucking air out of my chest. Like I said, very scary. I was admitted into the hospital until they could safely remove the chest tube, which was about 3 days. Needless to say, they did not biopsy the spot in the left lung due to the risk of another collapsed lung.

On Tuesday, December 23rd, I had an appointment with the oncologist to discuss the results of all my tests. Sadly, my results were not good news. I have small cell lung cancer. It is fast growing and the most aggressive kind. To my advantage, it seems to be contained for the moment in my lungs, although they can't confirm the spot in the left lung to be the same type since they did not biopsy it.

The doctor explained that this cancer is not curable but responds well to treatment. The treatment may take care of the tumors, but at some point in time, the cancer will return. Hopefully, it won't return for years and years.

My treatment for now is chemotherapy, but they may add radiation later. My first treatment started on December 29th. I go for three days in a row. The first day lasts about 5 or 6 hours. The second and third day is only about 2 hours. I will have this treatment every 21 days for an undertermined amount of treatments. After 3 treatments, they will run more tests to see what the drugs are accomplishing and then will decide how many more treatments I may need.

Last week was my second treatment week. I seem to be having a minimum of side effects so far. The only real side effect I have had is that I have lost all my hair. Now I need to get busy and design some nifty looking hats. I will view this as a crafting opportunity.

On a happy note, I am going to be a Grandma again. My younger daughter announced that her and her hubbie are expecting a baby. I am so excited. They have been trying for 11 years with no luck and had all but given up the notion of having children. The due date is August 4th.

I will leave you now with some pictures I received for Christmas from my grandbabies, Joshua Stephen and Olivia Grace. If I would have known grandchildren were going to be so much fun, I would have had them first.





Take care.

Grandparents Day at preschool

What fun I had today. It was Grandparent’s Day at preschool.

The festivities began at 9am. First, they performed a little musical program consisting of 3 different songs with hand gestures. Some of the children were a bit shy, but not my Josh. He loves an audience. He is the third from the left in the pictures, next to the girls, of course (he is quite the ladies man, by the way.)

The kids had done some Thanksgiving crafts including a turkey head dress, a placemat and a turkey puppet. One thing they did that I thought was especially cute was a little turkey made using cardboard tubes from paper towels and some construction paper. There little handprints cut out of paper were the tail feathers.....cute.

There was also a craft in which the grandparents were asked to help. It was a Christmas ornament made by stringing a bell and some pony beads onto a piece of wire. We finished it off with a piece of ribbon tied into a bow at the top. Then we wrapped it around our finger to make it spiral.

This all ended with wonderful brunch made by the preschool children and their teachers. Each preschooler was asked to bring something. Josh brought crumbled bacon and banana bread. There were all kinds of muffins, egg and bacon and sausage casseroles, hash brown casserole, banana bread, coffee cakes, fruit and much more. It was very tasty.

After we ate, the preschool was dismissed and the kids were sent home with their grandparents. A good time was had by all.

Happy Thanksgiving.

I found my blog again!

My craft shows are finally finished for the season. Now maybe I can get back to this poor neglected blog. I didn’t mean to be so scarce the past couple of months, but I just couldn’t seem to get motivated to post anything.

A lot has changed since I last posted.

Josh has started preschool. He loves school. That first day he was beside himself with excitement when that big yellow bus pulled up to pick him up for school. So far he still gets on that bus with the same gusto as the first day of school. I am so happy. I just hope he keeps that attitude for another 13 years or so.

Waiting for the bus on the first day of preschool.

The bus is finally here. Time to go, but first we better take another picture.

There he goes into the big yellow bus. He is the one with the blue batman backpack.

Back home after the first day of preschool. What an exciting day!

Every other Friday, there is no preschool, so Josh comes to visit Grandma for the day so his mom and dad don’t have to pay extra daycare. We have great fun. Josh loves to help in the kitchen.

He is a good egg breaker. Not one shcll went into the cake.

Yum!

Olivia is growing like a weed. She is 4 months old now and just chatters and laughs all the time. She is such a good baby. She has been sleeping through the night since she was about 2 months old. How did my daughter ever get so lucky?

A picture of the group. My daughter Kelly and her hubbie Kevin on the right are Olivia's godparents.

Olivia in her beautiful gown.

Last Sunday, she was baptized. She was adorable in her baptismal gown and she just loved it. It was a satin under dress with an organza overlay. She would grab the skirt in her little fists and pull it up to her face and grin......so cute.

As for myself, like I said the craft shows I do are finished for the season, so now I can concentrate on other things, like getting ready for the holidays. We go to my brother-in-laws for Thanksgiving, which is a good thing. I only have to take a broccoli/rice casserole. Christmas Eve is usually a soup supper, also with my hubbies side of the family, at a location yet to be named. But Christmas Day I have my girls and their families at my house and we have a wonderful prime rib dinner followed by Christmas presents. This is my favorite thing.

I think it is time for me to get busy with the decorations.

Have a great day everyone.