Tuesday Part 1

There is little to report today folks.

Judy had a scan yesterday - it takes 2 hours so I hope they had a really good look!

Today we meet with the oncologist to get the results of the scan and hopefully the results of the biopsy that the surgeon took last week. Eight years ago I remember waiting with bated breath for a similar appointment and we really heard nothing, so I'm trying to temper my impatience and expectations.

What do I want to hear? "It's all gone!" would be nice. Please Lord.

What might we hear? "The cytology report is conclusive we need more tests", "The scan didn't really show enough to make a judgement on your treatment", "Congratulations you're pregnant". (that would be a mixup in lab results!)

Now I find my old programming days coming back to me. If ... then .. else is a classic structure in programming. You can 'nest ' these structures. So when you get to the else part you can insert another if ... then .... else...

IFCancer is gone
     THEN sacrifice 40% of Erics herd of cows and do other happy things
      ELSE IF then we get all the different mutations of the disease, the different treatments etc.

the range of possible nested IF clauses are running through my head at light speed. Yes Laura. Light only travels at that speed in a vacuum so I know what I'm saying about the contents of my head.

Enough about me and physics. Judy has picked up Troys cold. A nasty nasal cold that he had last Thursday/Friday. So Judy has a truely miserable combination of coughing and sneezing, all tugging away at her sutures. This morning it does seem to be passing, thankfully.

Judy is losing weight pretty rapidly, she has very little appetite. This deepens our gratitude to all the wonderful women who have been preparing meals for us. Last night we had this like totally awesome chicken and chips dish and Judy had a good sized serving of it. Troy and I showed our solidarity and support by making sure there was nothing wasted.

I could rave about the other dishes we've been enjoying but I have to take Troy to school. Then we head to the doctors appointment. Please keep us in prayer for a full set of results. More later today.

Judy is home

Well it was a huge surprise but when I came in for my morning visit yesterday the surgeon popped in and said that Judy was "going home today".

It would be a lie to say I was overjoyed. Frankly the fact that I had run from the shower and direct to the car meant that the house was a mess. It wasn't utter chaos, but close enough. However the last 18 hours at Danbury had been a bit of a challenge, and Judy really really wanted to be home!

Judy had been moved from her private room to a shared one, and her new room mate made a lot of use of the call button, the TV, or just plain yelling. The hospital is a good place to have life saving stuff done, but sleep is not one of the important things in their book. Even when Judy was in her own room the nurses would come in to change dressings at 3am, surgerical rounds sometimes started at 5:30am, there was just a constant series of interuptions.

Some interuptions were really very welcome - e.g. visitors! However Judy has slept most of the time since she came home. Hopefully she can do a lot more of that over the weekend as well. Monday is the start of phase 2 of this and I hope we can have a quiet time of rest together before all the tests and (hopefully) treatments start up again.

Judy will not be able to do much for a few weeks - she cant lift anything over 10 pounds on her right side, she cant swim for a few weeks, nor can she fly for 3 months :-(

Speaking of pounds, Judy lost approx. 12 pounds last week. Partially because it's been hard to eat but mostly because of what they drained out of her.

Just a quick update. Please feel free to add comments to this blog. They dont charge for it!

I will try to do regular posts on here, probably without the nice photos that Judy always added. To try to make up for it I'll add spelling and grammatical errors.

So status today is;

- Judy had her heart drain out by the surgeon this morning. I was in attendance to offer support and direction if he needed it. Apart from needing some help with taping up the insertion point the surgeon did pretty well.
- So now there are drains to the lungs still in place and the amount of fluid draining is reducing quite steadily. Part of the struggle this week was getting the drain rate to decrease, while also keeping her hydrated. The more fluid she had in the IV or via driniking, the more fluid works its way out of the drain as well. Add the management of blood pressure, pulse rate, and lung and it really was a pretty complicated process.
- Since all her key systems (blood pressure, heart rate, private biological functions etc.) are working they moved her from the Step Down unit today. It's called Step Down cause it's a step down in management and monitoring from ICU. Judy had a very high level of care while there!
- The surgeon also said this morning that Judy should be home 'by the weekend'. I have reason to doubt the clarity of his verbal communication skills (which i won't go into here) so this means somewhere between Friday and Sunday. Friday would be nice but I still need to dust the vegetables and iron the mail. Important that everything is ready for her return home.
-Judy still has significant pain at times. Coughing is good for her lungs but really painfull. She has been walking pretty well although today although after the heart drain was removed I could see things were more painful.
- We have had a lot of visitors, each have been a great encouragement and blessing. We are very grateful for all those who have taken the time out during busy schedules to come and show their concern and love to Judy. Knowing that it's not fair to highlight anyone in particular, the best boost for Judy came from 2 young people who weren't even in the hospital. They are her piano students and had recorded a message of encouragement and a recital for Judy. A very special memory! Not everyone has been able to come visit, some kiwis have pretty good escuses I guess, but we have also been overrun by offers and deliveries of food as well as other practical demonstrations of support and care. I can't really keep up with the emails, calls, and texts. I do read them all and share them with Judy. Just because you might not get a reply please be assured they are warmly received and a big part of how the Lord has his hands wrapped tightly around us.
- Next steps. The scan has had to be delayed until Monday. Most things drive from the results of that scan and the biopsy results from her op on Saturday. The scan will show other possible areas of spread and the biopsy will show the nature of the disease. According to the oncologist yesterday the nature of the disease can mutate so all the characteristics such as estrogen receptor postive, or HER2/neu receptor status might have changed. This has direct bearing on the treatment options. So at this stage we are resting in the Lord and working through each day and the blessings and challenges that come with them.
- For anyone still reading  - Congratulations! You are determined indeed! Final item is about me - My right eye is doing very well. My surgeon is very pleased with progress and I can currently see at 20/25. Slight improvements still expected.

Goodbye Eliot

We barely saw him after recently finishing his finals for his junior year of university - we're not bitter, truly we aren't - and now he is off to NZ for the summer winter.  Brrrr I hope for your sake it's a mild winter Eliot.

Here are a few snaps of the way Eliot prepares for a long haul trip.   He likes to spread things out.

Mmmm, still looking pretty chaotic there Eliot.  Departure time is getting closer. 

 Phew; starting to look a little more orderly.  Even so, it's surprising what one college student can collect in a dorm room.  If you stop by and you happen to be feeling weary while you are in our garage, there is a lovely soft couch there along with plenty of other paraphernalia. 

 Ron, we're taking the Ford, not the Subaru.  Just because both cars are black doesn't give you the excuse not to know the difference between them!  Only Stella and I do that.

Yes we are sad too but I'm happy you are taking that banana full of potassium.  Your body will thank you for it.  It's probably the one piece of fruit you'll have had in this last semester.  See you in August.

Did you know it's rude not to share a joke?  I figured it out anyway - you're going to toss the banana.  I wasn't born yesterday, guys. 

Future Jazz Musician

Troy had expressed an interest in taking saxophone lessons for quite some time so when we decided it was not just a whim, we thought a birthday saxophone and some lessons would go down well and so it has; gone down well, that is.   

Here's Troy taking a call mid practice.  Let's hope it's not a secret admirer; after all he's only thirteen, way too young to be talking to girls. 

The saxophone is an incredibly loud instrument.  It's just as well we have an acre of land and don't live close to our neighbours otherwise we would probably have to be mindful of practice times.  It's unbelievable how much noise comes out of that piece of metal. 

Birthday bash

Troy's official party selection was Dadd's Extreme Indoor Sports which we duly headed for today with 6 rambunctious boys in tow.  Unfortunately two boys couldn't make it.  When we arrived we were met with a boarded up complex in spite of having been there only several weeks ago.  There were no sports to be had, let alone any extreme sports. 

Here are the boys expressing their disappointment at not being able to GoKart.   Everybody managed to pull a pseudo sad face upon request except the birthday boy. 

Okay, well maybe they weren't that disappointed since Laser Tag was the substitute. 

 Ron was hard pressed not to join the teens.  If only he hadn't injured his ankle last year.  I daresay he will be heavily influencing Troy's choice of birthday party location next time and be sure to join them.  My handbag badly needed tidying so unfortunately I couldn't join the boys. 

Spring haircut

An arborist came scouting the neighbourhood with his crew for some yard work and noticed residual storm damage in a couple of our large trees.  The marketing terminology is widow makers;a  partially broken branch can cause serious injuries when cascading onto an unsuspecting person walking underneath.  He only got the job because he caught Ron at home rather than me - I had a couple of bad experiences with shady contractors when we first moved to the U.S - although I will admit the trees look much better and it's not a job I would have liked to do.  Considering the height of the taller sycamore which at a wild guess is about 100ft (33m), necessitating a significant climb up into the tree, my thoughts last year of tackling that very task were completely unrealistic.

 This picture doesn't even give you the perspective of how high up the tree climbing/chain-sawing fella was.  In fact, looking out of my bedroom window which is a second storey window, I had to peer upwards to find him among the branches.  This shows him pretty far out from the main trunk.

  One would want to be confident about the quality of the safety ropes!

 No residual tree damage here though; just perpetual blossoms from our two Dogwoods flanking the Japanese Maple.  The arborist told us that the low rainfall this spring has caused the flowering trees to keep their blossoms for a longer period of time. 

 Here's an alternate shot with the late afternoon sun casting shadows.  At dusk the white blossoms take on a hue similar to what Iceberg roses do at dusk; something we loved about that particular rose we planted in our Christchurch garden.

Just in case you didn't see them properly in the last picture!  Amazingly, that's just a sample of our spring showcase.  I wouldn't think of boring you with every flowering plant/shrub/bulb located in our yard.