Cancer Sucks - Bad News

My grand daughter Renee called me the other day with some bad news about her Father in Law.  He has been sick for quite a while now with stomach problems.  He couldn't have a BM and was throwing up. It finally got so bad that he ended up in the hospital.  After several tests the outcome wasn't good.  He has stage four stomach cancer.  At first the doctors were going to remove his stomach, but then it was decided to put a feeding tube in along with a shunt to do chemo through and they let him go home today.  He will never know the taste of good food again, unless there is a miracle for him.

I feel so bad for his family to have to go through the trials that are ahead of them.  I am afraid the outcome isn't good and I just hope that he doesn't have to suffer.  Renee's husband Jason is having a tough time as he is really close to his Dad.  He told Renee that their baby Rozlynn won't get to know her grand father. It all makes me feel so sad, and I will be keeping the family in my heart and prayers.

Mini Vacation

We finally went on our mini vacation.  After being on the road for a while I realized that I had forgotten my camera. I could have taken some really neat pictures of the beautiful areas we went to.  We went to Cedar City, UT and stayed for two nights.  The first day we got settled in the hotel, and then headed up to Elk Meadows Ski Resort where we owned  a condo for 10 years.  We wanted to check out the area and see if our building was still standing.  Much to our pleasant surprise our condo building had been painted recently, and we were happy to see that the homeowners are taking care of it, as Frank did a lot of work on that building over the years.  It was messy looking around the village as there is a new owner and he is having the lower lodge remodeled, and they must have been cutting down trees as they were stacked all over the place.

We stopped and asked a homeowner who was out walking what was going on, and we were happy to hear that the resort will open on January 1 of next year.  The new owner doesn't know if he will keep it public or go private, or maybe a little of both.  It is such a beautiful area and has so much potential, but I think there was a curse on it as there has been so many ups and downs, mostly downs.  We learned to ski there in our forties and loved it as it was a family oriented resort.  Then came bankruptcy and different resort owners who all failed.  So we are hoping this new one will make it.  He owns it outright so maybe he has a chance.

The next day we drove up to Navajo Lake, and on up to Duck Creek Village and rode all around.  We drove around in the Duck Creek camping grounds and wished our trailer was parked up there in the cool mountain air.  It rained on us a little and the air smelled so good.  The temperature dropped down to 68 degrees.  What a difference in the 113 degrees that we left to the 68 to 78 degrees on the mountain.

We stopped in the village and had lunch in a cute little cabin like cafe.  Then we drove up to Cedar Breaks, and I had forgotten what a beautiful view that was.  I was able to use my life time pass and saved us $8.00 as it is $4.00 a person.  As we walked to the view point, both Frank and I became breathless and my chest actually hurt.  The elevation was over 10,000 feet and we felt it. Then we drove up to Brian Head Ski Resort and then on down to Parowan and back to Cedar to our hotel.

We rested a while, and decided to go and eat at Sizzlers, but much to our disappointment it was jammed full, so we ended up going to a movie and I ate popcorn.  We saw Grownups and it was really funny, silly funny.  After the movie we went to Artic Circle and had a snack and went back to the hotel to settle in for the night.  The next morning we hated the idea of driving back down the mountain to St. George and we watched the temperature keep going up as we came down the mountain.  When we got home it was 113 degrees.  All I can say is that I can't wait until Fall and cooler weather. So now we are back to hibernating in our air conditioned home and hate to go outside.  We do the necessary things like go to the post office and the store, and then rush back to our cool home.

Catching Up - Blog Slacker

I have been a blog slacker the past few weeks.  There really hasn't been too much going on around our place.  I was sick for almost two weeks, and I really don't know what was wrong.  I think maybe my sleep apnea appliances caused some irritation in my jaw and maybe there was some inflammation going on.  Dr. Halls my dentist that works with me showed me how to use my hands by rubbing in a downward direction from my ears towards my jaws and told me this was to drain my lymphatic system.  So this makes me think that there had to be some inflammation going on.  I even felt feverish at times.  I didn't get to go to my grand daughter's baby shower and that was a big disappointment for me.  Also I had to have my diabetic eye exam and that involves the eye doctor dilating my eyes more than normal so he can take a really good look deep in the eye.  That seemed to add to what ever what was going on in my body, and made me feel worse.  I have finally started feeling better. I took a real age test on http://realage.com/ and it scared me as it says my real age is 78.2 and I am 69.  I think it would be a little younger if I had filled out the supplement part but I was too lazy to go and get the bottles and fill out the milligrams of each one I was taking. 

While I was feeling so rotten I was thinking to myself what can I do to make me feel better, and I thought that I needed to get back on the "dreadmill" as I call it and try to eat better, and start taking vitamins.  We always had a TV with a video player and watched videos as we exercised.  I gave it away to my grand daughter for her kids to have in their room.  I had also sold my old treadmill as it was hurting my hips to walk on it.  I got a new one for Christmas and when I used it I was bored without a TV to watch.  So  last week we bought a small flat screen TV that we put on the wall, and now Frank and I both are using the dreadmill. The time goes by so much faster when you are being entertained by watching a movie.  We both are doing a mile.  Frank is going slow as he doesn't want to make his back hurt. 

I joined facebook and have been spending time on there keeping in touch with family and friends.  It is so neat as now I am closer to cousins in St. George, UT and  family up in the Salt Lake area. We are up to date on what is going on in our lives.  I have made contact with some family that I had lost track of.  I don't play the games much to the disappointment of some of my facebook friends as I think it is a waste of time for me as I should be doing genealogy instead of playing games.  Frank teases me when he comes into the computer room and he says "How's everybody on facebook?"

I still haven't finished my daughter's scrapbook project, but that has been due to mostly just not feeling well and not having the energy to do it. I am thinking that I may set my scrapbooking stuff up in our fifth wheel trailer in the fall when it is cooler and work on it in the trailer where I can just leave it and not worry about the mess.

Speaking of coolness, it is anything but cool here now.  It has been as high as 117 in our valley and is now 110.  We went into Vegas last Thursday to spend the night with Sherry so Frank could go to Dr. Duke with his CT Scan so Dr. Duke could see if Frank is healing and fusing like he should be. It was so dang hot that we didn't go to the mall like we planned, we had lunch and went back to Sherry's condo.  It was 115 that day.

The next day, Friday was Frank's appointment and when we arrived there were only two people in the waiting room.  I was thinking Yea! we won't be here for two hours or more.  Then when Frank got up to the window, the receptionist asked, "Do you have an appointment?"  I was thinking OH! OH! something is not right, and sure enough, Dr. Duke was out of the office and someone was supposed to have called us and canceled and rescheduled for the end of the month.  Frank told the girl that we had to make a 160 mile round trip.  The receptionist took it in her stride and made him another appointment.  All I could think was, why do we have so many problems with Doctor's staff making appointments, etc.  One of the problems is that they don't dial long distance when they call us.  I will have to call my Dentist Monday to make an appointment that they were supposed to call me and schedule. We just have to keep on top of our own appointments, etc. or we get lost in the cracks.

  

This and That a Little of Everything

Frank and I went to St. George yesterday afternoon so I could see my dentist who works with me and my sleep apnea appliance.  It has been causing me a great deal of jaw pain.  Dr. Hall said it is in the muscle and he adjusted the appliance so that it felt more centered in my mouth.  He told me to use heat and to massage the trigger point. 

We are going to Mesquite today for Frank to see Dr. Saifee our sleep study doctor.  Frank can't use his CPAC as he can't breathe back into the mask.  so he is going to see if he can do the sleep appliance like I have. 
It seems like lately all I post is pictures of my G grand baby, Rozlynn.  I guess I am a proud G Grandma.  She is so cute and changes every time I get to see her.  Renee is finding that all the changes Rozlynn makes, she too has to make changes in her life.  Renee has a baby sitter come to the salon to watch Rozlynn and then Jason picks Rozlynn up when he gets off from work.  It is a lot harder for Renee to get out of the house to get to work.  Life with a baby is a new and ever changing experience.

Frank and I have been going stir crazy and enjoy going to the doctors only because it gets us out of the house.  We are trying to figure out a mini vacation of some kind and have decided to go to Cedar City, UT for a couple of days and drive up to Elk Meadows to see the area and our old condo and see what things look like up there after we sold and moved out.  We miss our condo sometimes as it was a beautiful area, but we don't miss the work and politics we got involved with, and also the high altitude was starting to affect us not in a good way.  Age has a way of changing things in our lives.  We would love to hook up our fifth wheel and take off to OR, but that will have to wait until next year.

Frank will be making an appointment today to get his CT Scan in Mesquite and then next week on the 16th, he will go back to Dr. Duke who will go over the X-Rays and see if Frank's back has healed the way it is supposed to.  We are hoping for the best. Frank does feels that his back is healing and that is a good sign.

My blood sugar is a littler higher than I want it to be, so my plan was to start the dreadmill :) today and I did.  Now I just have to keep up the motivation.  I have gained some weight and I need to take it off and more.  My brother in law who has both legs amputated and then had to have more cut off, is my motivator as he is diabetic and now he is on dialysis three times a week.  He was in the hospital a couple of weeks ago with failure of kidneys.  I don't think he has too much time left on this earth.  I don't want to end up like him, so I know I need to get back on track with my eating and exercising.  I know we have to all leave this earthly life sooner or later, but I want to go with all my limbs intact.

Another Fun Day with Family

Last Monday the girls all met at Robyn's home in Mesquite for another fun day of talking, laughing, and having lunch at the golf club across the street from Robyn's home.  Renee got there first with a big pan of home made caramel corn.  It looked like a baby had taken over the house.  The first thing we noticed was a highchair all set up, a play pen-bed, and a diaper bag.  It seems you have to take the whole house with you when you have a baby. 

We were all in awe of Robyn and Eric's home.  It is a custom home, and it looks like a model home, so neat and clean.  It is all done in gray and black.  We were all surprised to learn that the floor is concrete and made to look like a tile floor.  It even has grout lines.  The bedrooms were all big and the guest bathroom has a huge walk in shower.  It is a 3,000 sq. ft. home and all I can say is amazing.  The master bathroom is as big as a bedroom.  Then off from the master bathroom is a huge walk in closet.  I have never seen anything so organized, everything was in it's place. 

After Robyn gave us a tour of her home, we visited for a while and then decided we were hungry and we went across the street to the golf club and had lunch.  We were pulling out of the gated community where Robyn lives, and there was Jamie pulling into the golf club to meet us.  It was perfect timing.  The funny thing is that Jamie didn't see us and we were right behind her.  It was so hot so we all decided to have salads and they were yummy.  It must have been 110 degrees that day, and we felt like we were walking into an oven.   We had fun watching Rozlynn eat as she was really chowing down on the baby food Renee was feeding her.  We sat and visited in the restaurant for quite a while, and then we decided to head back over to Robyn's for more visiting and of course eating the caramel corn.  Jamie had us all laughing at her stories of her kids and the things they do. Jamie is such a character she had us laughing so hard we were all in tears.

Eric came home from work and we were able to visit with him for a while.  We took pictures of Robyn's preggy belly and then decided it was getting late and so we all said our good bys and headed home.  All in all it was a very fun day with the girls.  I came home and suddenly my house felt cluttered so what did I do for a couple of days.  I cleaned, got rid of some clutter and was thinking that I wanted to get rid of a lot more. I am known for keeping  a clean home, but after visiting Robyn's home, I felt like a clutter bug, and for some reason my house felt dirty.  Well, at least it motivated me to get some cleaning done. I am hoping by next Fall Frank's back will be healed enough that he can help me put together a yard sale and get rid of a lot of stuff we don't use or want any more and be able to make some money for our next summer trip to OR.