The Blog Begins Again

It seems that blogging is not as fashionable as it once was. At least for many of us. Now its Facebook, Twitter, Texting or simply sending an email. But I shall try to keep this going for the next few months for both of you who want to know what we are doing – and why. The why might be harder to answer.

First, let me wish you a heart-felt Merry Christmas. I was beginning to feel that Christmas was going to arrive and I would be left behind wondering what was happening. Here’s why.

The weeks leading up to our leaving Salem were filled … make that FILLED… with Senior Adult ministry stuff, regular church stuff, getting a new RV (more later about that) ready for 3 months on the road, and just plain old normal everyday living. It seemed there was no time to really enjoy the season. Christmas is my favorite time of the year. I love the decorations, the lights, the carols, the pageantry, the message – all of it. I don’t care if it begins early; it’s too short for me anyway. I’m sad when all the stuff comes down and we have to begin a new year. But all this “about Christmas” was lost in the getting ready to leave. I told Joyce we wouldn’t do it like this again.

But last Sunday we went to church at Garden Grove Free Methodist. They had a children’s program, sang lots of carols, and the pastor preached a good message. That helped my spirit a lot. Christmas eve I looked for a service close to our RV Park. I decided the one at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church would be good. Actually they had 4 services; we choose the 7:00 one. It was fantastic. Really fantastic. It is a large church, lots of lights, big choir, orchestra, lots of carols, VERY well done. That helped me a lot. This is a view as the worship area is filling up.

Then Christmas morning we went to the kid’s house. That would be Korak, Jana, Josiah, Lilly, and Jeyanthi. Korak had a great breakfast – omelets, bacon, waffles, and egg nog. Yummy! Then we opened gifts which is always fun with the kids. Fun for me too. Guess what I got? A Keurig coffee maker – with lots of coffee packets to choose from.

How about a little bragging here. Lilly is 6 and Jeyanthi will be 2 on January 11. Josiah is 10.

Josiah is reading the Christmas story before we open our gifts.

Jeyanthi is reading the instructions while mom inserts the batteries. (Ever notice how many batteries are required Christmas morning?)

Jeyanthi loves to dance!

Let me fill in some gaps here. We had planned on traveling to the LA area to spend Christmas, New Years, and Jeyanthi’s birthday with the kids. Our plan was to leave home about the 11th or so. Then I discovered the annual Staff Open House was Sunday evening, the 16th. The “open house” is really like a progressive meal and we were doing the dessert (cheese cake with do-it-yourself toppings). So we left home at 8:00 Monday morning (the 17th) in a terrible rain storm and a little wind. We stopped in Grants Pass to see Joyce’s brother and sis-in-law and a couple friends for an hour, then left for the Siskiyous at 1:00. We made it over all the mountains with only a little rain and some light snow – bare pavement all the way. In fact we had a little sun right at the top. We felt very blessed by the Lord – the next day was snowy with wrecks on the road we had just drove on. We drove in beautiful weather until about 6:00 that evening and “dry camped” in the back lot of the Olive Pit in Corning, CA. The next day we made it to Gorman near the top of Tejon Pass. Very windy that night but nice the next day. Then Wednesday it was on to Newport Dunes RV Resort at Newport Beach. This is now our home for the next three weeks. It is a bit of a drive back to the kid’s house but it was the best I could find and works out fine.

About the RV. Well, the old Alpenlite was just that, old – soon to be 22 years. It was beginning to have some problems and didn’t have a slide out so the living area was limited. We looked and looked and looked for something more to our liking and finally landed on a 2002 Keystone Cougar with a living/dining slide. So we made a trade. Here we are tucked into our little spot, #5305. Ours is the white one!!!

I will try real hard to blog every Sunday or Monday. Again, Merry Christmas to each one of you, both of you, whatever.

A Little Sidetrack Along the Way

I note it has been over 2 months since I added anything to the blog. It seems blogging is becoming less and less important to everyone. This is not just me, I hear it from others also. Tweeting (for some) is the big thing. I haven’t tried that and don’t plan to. Facebook is also popular; I am on FB but I don’t add very much to it. Now it is time to update the blog. A lot – I mean a LOT -- has happened in February and March.

I must begin with what is most important to me and the closest to my heart. Here is the story. Very faithfully Joyce has gotten an annual mammogram. Even when some were/are saying every two years was satisfactory she still had hers every year. Actually it was a little over a year since her last one because of our move and house building and all. So in January she went to the clinic to submit herself to the pushing and squeezing. A couple weeks later they asked her to go in and have another one. They also asked for the ones taken in Grants Pass in past years. Ah oh. Somethun’s up.

What they saw on the new x-rays were little, tiny white dots in the left breast. They weren’t there in the Grants Pass films. This called for a biopsy. So, the middle of February she checked into the hospital for an uncomfortable little incision and a needle removal of some of those little white dots (calcium).

Now, understand. We were only mildly concerned. No worries here. Joyce has no history of breast cancer in her family. In fact she is way down low on the scale of risk factors. So this thing is going to come back negative. Right?

In the afternoon on February 21 our world fell apart. The doctor called (doctor, not nurse) to tell us the diagnosis was “ductal carcinoma in situ.” That means cancer in a tiny milk duct but it is contained within the duct. Wow! This isn’t supposed to happen. Not to us. We’re the good guys. We already have a full plate. Carcinoma IS cancer. But it’s strange how the mind processes something like this. For about three days I refused to use the ‘C’ word. I called it “growth,” “carcinoma,” or simply didn’t call it anything. Calling it cancer seemed to acknowledge it’s presence and give it a life of it’s own. But it already had a life of it’s own. Slowly, with tears and lots of  prayer, we begin to accept that this was, indeed, cancer.

Maybe this is more information than you wanted to know but the doctor explained it this way. The ducts high in the breast are microscopic. The walls of each duct are only one or two cells thick so they need to constantly replace themselves. Some of them go berserk and multiply too fast – which is what cancer is. But as they multiply they lose their source of nourishment and die turning to calcium. This is what was seen in the mammograms. Okay, end of doctor lesson.

This little abnormality needed to be removed. But if things weren’t already spiraling fast enough, now things really started to whirl. We got the biopsy report on Tuesday. Our doctor scheduled us to meet with a surgeon on Thursday. He scheduled surgery for 19 days later and asked us to see a radiology doctor and a chemotherapy doctor before surgery. These were scheduled. Then the surgery date was changed by a week – forward. Now the date was March 6. So we ran from biopsy to surgeon to radiologist to hematologist to surgery – all in two weeks. And all these places and doctors were chosen for us (which was okay because we didn’t have any better suggestions). At one point a frustrated Joyce exclaimed, “I don’t have any control. It is all happening too fast and I don’t have anything to say about it.” That was true.

The reason “they” wanted us to see all these doctors is so we would know the possibilities and be prepared. Jana came on Sunday before the surgery and stayed a week – even though it meant changing her flight dates when they changed the surgery date. And she brought Jeyanthi with her! Yeaaaa!

Here’s some more detail. The area the doctor needed to remove was so small he couldn’t see it. Just before surgery Joyce went into the mammography area and a doctor inserted a wire with a hook on it ending at the little calcium dots. He found that spot because they left a “marker” there when they did the biopsy. The hook held the wire in place and hung outside her body. Then she went to surgery. The surgeon simply (don’t you like that word, “simply”?) followed the wire to the hook, removed a sizable lump, and sewed her up. Oh… he also removed some lymph nodes. Joyce was back home by 4:30. And healing went well.

It was six days before we got the pathology report saying the doctor “got it all” and there was no sign of cancer in the lymph nodes. This means she is cancer-free. Well… as far as any cancer that can be seen. But because of this one incident, there might be another one forming (according to the doctors) so she began radiation on Tuesday, April 10. She is not really excited about it but everyone says she should do it, so has acquiesced. Since there is no cancer left, the chemo won’t be necessary.

One website says this: Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is the most common type of non-invasive breast cancer. Ductal means that the cancer starts inside the milk ducts, carcinoma refers to any cancer that begins in the skin or other tissues (including breast tissue) that cover or line the internal organs, and in situ means "in its original place." DCIS is called "non-invasive" because it hasn’t spread beyond the milk duct into any normal surrounding breast tissue. DCIS isn’t life-threatening, but having DCIS can increase the risk of developing an invasive breast cancer later on.

Note: this type of cancer cannot be discovered by self exams. It can only be found with a mammogram. By the time it would reveal itself with a lump, it would be a much, much bigger issue. So Joyce is an unofficial poster girl for annual mammograms.

Pray for her (and us) for the next 5 or 6 weeks. There will be radiation treatments 5 days a week. And this is only one of the things that happened during this time. In the next blog, I’ll continue with the “Life and Times of Gene and Joyce in February & March.”

(Sorry. No pictures. It’s a little hard to include pictures of all this – unless you want to see our local hospital).

Consider it Done

Maybe it never will really be done – with emphasis on DONE – but it is so close. There are a couple things to do on the inside of the addition but it is essentially finished. On the inside. The outside still needs to be painted and landscaped. That will have to wait until summer – whenever that will be.

March 17 was Ginger’s official move in day. She hired some youth from the church who were earning money for a missions trip. They were really hard workers.

The “easiest” way to get to her house is through our garage. When the landscaping is finished she will have an outside entrance.

The truck is almost empty…

…but the house is full. She is busily emptying boxes but right now there are no real good photos of the inside – just photos of boxes. This is the kitchen. Dishwasher is not installed yet.

But  getting to this point was a really wild ride. The first of March Ginger sold her mobile home and needed to be out by March 2o. So I put in a week of 12 hour days getting things finished for the final inspections. The last one was Friday the 16th. We passed. Well, with a couple of minor corrections that weren’t too hard to fix.

The cabinets had to go it. Dave, the husband of a lady Ginger works with, came to help.

The floor had to go down. Dave came to help one day and my nephew, Roy, came to help me finish it off.

Joyce’s brother, Jack, came from Eugene to put in the window and door trim.

The range hood went up – not very easily. Jana is helping me. She was here the week of Joyce’s surgery. Yes, a lot of the final work happened that week. To make a long story short, it was a really crazy four weeks. We found out about Joyce’s cancer with all the subsequent doctor’s visits, Ginger’s old house had to be packed and cleaned, her new house had to be finished, my sister, Doris, had a stroke so we went to Eugene to see her each Sunday afternoon (3 times). Doris went home to be with Jesus during this time but the funeral service was not until Monday after Ginger moved in (thankfully). Of course, all during this time life had to go on.

When it was over, Joyce and I celebrated by going to the coast for three days. We had a nice room with an ocean view and a hot tub overlooking the ocean. Oh, let me show you a picture.

Nice, huh?

Well, I need to post this. It has been so long I better get it going before any more time goes by.

Closer…

Closer. That’s all I can say. We are closer to being finished with the addition. The last time I blogged we were in LA enjoying the g-kids and the warm weather. We hated to leave the kids and the sunshine but it had to be. Our 29 hour trip home on Amtrak was 29 hours. Surprise. Then it was back to work.

While we were gone Ginger was able to prime all the walls so she and Joyce (and a little bit of me) went to work painting.

Our friend, Joann, is having fun pointing out a spot Joyce missed.

I began putting up light fixtures, switches, and outlets. We found a few problems with “what goes where.” I had some really good help but this also meant I didn’t know the exact wiring layout. I am working that out along with other “fun” projects.

We got all the underlayment laid down. Then it was a “really inspiring” umpteen hours on my knees – screwing it all down. But it is done. Almost 40 pounds of screws in it.

We put up a kitchen cabinet yesterday and hung Ginger’s bathroom cabinet today.

Oh yes, the electrical panel and meter I mentioned a couple blogs back. We got that fixed finally. We hired a guy from church to dig down and find the electric wire coming in from PGE’s transformer. He managed to do that without electrocuting himself! Our electrician coordinated with PGE to put in the new line and meter the same day he put in the new panel. We now have a very FULL 200 amp panel.

We hired some church kids to fill in the electrical hole and do some other dirt (mud!) hauling. It began to rain before they finished and it rained like in the days of Noah. Many compared the flood to the ‘97 flood (1997, I think). It was bad in the whole county – but only in spots. We didn’t have flooding but we did have run off. And the run off went under the new addition. So we got a sump pump and I think (hope) it didn’t get up into the insulation. There is still water under there. I’ll deal with it later. We fared much better than some.

Because of church obligations I have only been able to work 2 or 3 days a week so that is slowing the work. Also I did very little this week because I came down with a chest cold which is now becoming a nose cold. Hate this!!!

So I hack and  sniffle along my way. Wishing you better health.