A short and quick update...
Things are progressing well as Julie's recovery seems to be just moving along.
I mentioned in my previous post that there was no node involvement, that was an initial assessment. We now know for sure as the pathology report came back, so officially there is no node involvement, and there will be no chemo.
One drain came out last Friday (luckily for her the one that was causing the most discomfort) and she is hoping to have the second one taken out very soon. Some sutures were taken out as well with more to come out soon. Overall it doesn't seem to have slowed her down much at all.
This just in... She just got off the phone with the powers that be and she's going in Friday to have the remaining sutures and the last tube taken out... so soon is Friday.
25 July, 2012
10 July, 2012
Merging onto the road to recovery
Roads less traveled hold greater unknowns... I mean it's not everyday that one has to be placed on the road called recovery. If allowed to paint any picture we could on the canvas we call life and have every aspect of it come true, I dare say that no one would paint something that would force them to have to recover... and drinking doesn't count!
Of course painting that picture after being told that you will be forced into taking a detour on to said recovery road leaves you a little more careful with your brush strokes. That all being said, today's news was one might say is a picture worth framing. We know all too well that this war is far from over, but winning battles give the best chance to win the war and today a battle was won. Don't know if we could have asked for a better result for today.
Surgery went as expected (always good to have it go as expected... means no surprises) Had clean margins and potentially the best news of the day (and to this point since diagnosis) is no nodal involvement!
So it's on to complete recovery and reconstruction... of which some ground work has been started.
Their intention is to get her up and moving tomorrow, including a shower. She will also have a more comprehensive post op consult along with what limitations will be place on her as she heals. The plan is to get her up and out of bed and moving and home.
Not much else to report at this time.
Peace all
I'm a time watcher..
I'm a time watcher, watchin' time go by my my my...
I see by the time posted here on my computer as I start tapping away (and should be sleeping) that in about three hours Julie's will be given a rather early (and potentially) rude awakening... the rudeness not stemming from the person bringing the ringing... just merely the reason behind the said 4am ringing.
It will be the start of what will be in some ways has been a long awaited day as well as a day that could be (for other reasons entirely) easily shelved and left to collect dust.
And so here we are...
Julie might bristle a bit with divulging some of this information, but... hmmm... well perhaps I should go this way with it and let you connect the dot(s) here. In order to know lymph-node activity/involvement there will have to be an injection of a dye, or type of tracer. This injection will be going into a rather sensitive area of an already sensitive area...think of the Target logo and hit the bulls-eye and THAT is where the dye will be starting its trek. Oh... and just some numbing cream and ice before needle hits skin, thus the aforementioned rudness.
The surgery is scheduled for 7am and Julie was told that it will/should be about 3 1/2 hours. By the time she should be coming around it should be lunch time.
A thousand mile journey begins with one step and this is a multi-phase endeavor that, once healing and reconstructing are accounted for, is ultimately going to take some time off the clock. With courage, perseverance and let's not forget some good luck (felt compelled to put good in there because simply put we have luck, most of it just seems to be more of the bad sort) this will amount to nothing more than a bone jarring pothole in the road. That is to say when initially you see that there is to be no avoidance, you brace yourself for the impact, impact is made, that telltale thunk clunk along with that simultaneous jolt happens. Then it's passed and is behind you in the mirror. The further one rolls away, the smaller it gets in the mirror until eventually it's gone from sight. Not out of mind, but out of sight.
Bracing for each phase's pothole (or potholes) will be necessary, but knowing that as long as we keep rolling along, it will ultimately disappear from view and we will arrive where we want to be.
Send good vibrations to Julie and to all that will be involved in this procedure along with a sure and steady surgeon's hand.
I see by the time posted here on my computer as I start tapping away (and should be sleeping) that in about three hours Julie's will be given a rather early (and potentially) rude awakening... the rudeness not stemming from the person bringing the ringing... just merely the reason behind the said 4am ringing.
It will be the start of what will be in some ways has been a long awaited day as well as a day that could be (for other reasons entirely) easily shelved and left to collect dust.
And so here we are...
Julie might bristle a bit with divulging some of this information, but... hmmm... well perhaps I should go this way with it and let you connect the dot(s) here. In order to know lymph-node activity/involvement there will have to be an injection of a dye, or type of tracer. This injection will be going into a rather sensitive area of an already sensitive area...think of the Target logo and hit the bulls-eye and THAT is where the dye will be starting its trek. Oh... and just some numbing cream and ice before needle hits skin, thus the aforementioned rudness.
The surgery is scheduled for 7am and Julie was told that it will/should be about 3 1/2 hours. By the time she should be coming around it should be lunch time.
A thousand mile journey begins with one step and this is a multi-phase endeavor that, once healing and reconstructing are accounted for, is ultimately going to take some time off the clock. With courage, perseverance and let's not forget some good luck (felt compelled to put good in there because simply put we have luck, most of it just seems to be more of the bad sort) this will amount to nothing more than a bone jarring pothole in the road. That is to say when initially you see that there is to be no avoidance, you brace yourself for the impact, impact is made, that telltale thunk clunk along with that simultaneous jolt happens. Then it's passed and is behind you in the mirror. The further one rolls away, the smaller it gets in the mirror until eventually it's gone from sight. Not out of mind, but out of sight.
Bracing for each phase's pothole (or potholes) will be necessary, but knowing that as long as we keep rolling along, it will ultimately disappear from view and we will arrive where we want to be.
Send good vibrations to Julie and to all that will be involved in this procedure along with a sure and steady surgeon's hand.
29 June, 2012
Up, Up and Away...
Boy, nothing like doing a little draft folder housecleaning... started this way back when and "forgot" about it, which was easy to do after all since I haven't been in here in like forever... until now that is. Without further ado here is old news for you to read... or skip, but first some finishing touches at the bottom
in my beautiful, my beautiful balloon...
Ahhh, that title was waaaaay too easy. The 5th Dimension must've gone ballooning (actually Jimmy Webb must've gone ballooning since he penned the song) since that's exactly what happens. Well it happens after you load up the gondola, the envelope (the balloon itself) the fan to blow up the balloon, load it up in the back of the truck the night before, get a crew to help you, get up at the crack of dawn, stop at Krispy Kreme... critical in getting my kids up so early, meet up with said crew, drive out to launch spot, unload the crew, unload the fan, unload the envelope, unload the gondola and then put it all together. A lot of this takes place as the sun is rolling over with a yawn and hitting the snooze button one more time.
Putting it together consists of getting the burner in place on the gondola, laying out the envelope and cold packing it which consists of taking the fan and blowing air to fill up the balloon. When the time is right, you fire up the burner and send some shots of hot air into it and up the balloon starts to go uprighting itself. At that point you throw bodies on the gondola to keep it steady. The pilot will call for weight on (that's where I excel) then to a hands only and then finally hands off at which point he is ready to go airborne. I learned all of that in about 15 minutes. Of course there's a lot more to ballooning than that.
So the week we were out there was an experience/exercise in early morning wake ups and staggering out the door into the morning darkness and (for me) looking for the constellation Orion. Seems he made the trip with us to Albuquerque as he was in Joliet too as we were getting ready to depart.
We did manage to get up in the balloon on the 1st, the day before the Fiesta started. First it was me... figured if the gondola could hold my bigness, then it could hold anyone. What we ended up doing is what's called hopping, or hops. It's where the pilot will lower the balloon to land, everyone gets their weight on and you swap out riders. Of course I make it sound kind of easy (and it's not terribly difficult) but even for the short rides (hops) you still need someone to chase and be there once you touch down. For the record, there is no easy or graceful way to exit or enter a gondola... then again maybe it's just me.
So after we came back down with me (I'm good ballast) we... actually they... tossed Ana in and we went back up. Initially, the only one other than Julie and myself that wanted to go up was Nick. I take that back... Rachael wanted to go too, but only with Julie. So upon landing, I handed Ana over and I oafishly got myself out. Julie got herself in and we put in Rachael and up they went. Now mind you, Nick was the only one wanting to go up from the get go. He was kind and let Rachael go ahead of him. As fate would have it, we started to run low on propane and had to call it a day... Nick having never got up. It's just as well though as he was spared... spared a ballooning (cult) ritual.
Once Dale (my good friend from high school and pilot) landed for the final time, it was time to put the balloon away. There's a whole 'nuther set of instructions to puttin' it away. You have to do things like pull the top, get her to lay down and milk it... sounds kinda dirty when I put it that way... but I'm not making it up, that's what you do and that's what we did... to the balloon. So now that it's all "boxed and bagged" and ready to get back on the back of the pick-up truck, we were asked to stand and listen while Dale recited the balloonist's prayer and then continued on with a history lesson of how ballooning got it's start in France and how people having never seen anything like that in the sky before might think they were being attacked... our version included aliens. The pilots not wanting to get pitch forked and torched carried with them bottles of champagne as a peace offering... this is France after all.
That doesn't sound so bad does it?
See, before starting any of this ritual... we were handed cups that had champagne in it. We bowed our heads during the prayer and listened intently to the story and when the time was right, we got it tossed on us. Actually, there was sparkling apple juice or something for the kids and that what I got in my ear. That's what you get after your first flight... so Nick was spared... for now anyway.
The next day was the start of Fiesta and we were on the launch field at 5:30 in the morning... all of us. The first two days were mass ascension days. I have never seen that many cars/tail lights at that hour ever!
So while in Rome...
Since we were newbies to all of this, we kinda did just that... the whole when in Rome thing. That meant getting a breakfast burrito. Now going out there this time of year means that the chilies are in season. They may be all year for all I know, but I gleaned that to not be the case. At any rate, they serve chilies on everything... burritos, cheeseburgers, lemonade, water, funnel cakes. Maybe it was just on the burritos and burgers. Anyhow, you order either green, red, or Christmas... that's right, that includes red and green. So I'm ordering a burrito at 5:40 in the morning and it's like a carnival going on all around me. Now the burritos are served either bacon or sausage... or no meat, eggs of course and potatoes, or as they call it hash browns. Don't be fooled with hash browns, they're potato chunks (cubed) in there AND of course the chilies... I went for the "milder" green. With Julie also going with a burrito, the kids opted for these giant cinnamon rolls. We make our way back to V1... that is Art's little square of land.
Who's Art you say? ...well maybe you don't, but he was the pilot that we were crewing for... he was flying in the Fiesta. Art flew the Double Flash...
See the launch field is laid out in a grid with each section getting a letter and number combination to identify it.
So the first two days of fiesta went something like this... get up a couple hours before the sun and wake IT up, get to the field and wait. Wait to see if we're going to be a go. The first two days I was more or less on crowd control and ballast detail... as in human ballast and a dog in the back of a pickup as we chased. Day one and day two are mass ascensions where all the balloons launch from the field. It is quite crowded and while cold packing the balloon you need to make sure that the passersby don't put their grubby hands on it... I mean after all, it is really tempting to touch, but the oils are bad for the envelope and we all were wearing gloves. I guess they figured that I just looked intimidating... a balloon bouncer of sorts.
The second and third day they launch off field and have to find their way into the field. They were playing a game where they had to drop a bean bag on markers that were placed on the field. First day was easy, Art made it back to the field and he was in the running for the prize. Second launch, not so much.
The field sits adjacent to Indian land. They (the Indians) would prefer it if you wouldn't land on their territory. Unfortunately, the second day, the winds were not cooperating causing many of the pilots to land on Indian land, Art included. Now the Indians really, really don't want everyone tromping and running roughshod all over their land and as a consequence, you need to wait to be escorted in.
Now poor Art had to land as he was running low on propane and by doing so, he's really at the mercy of the wind to not drag him all over the place and seeing as all his ballast was riding around in trucks waiting to get escorted in it must've seemed like an eternity to him and his passenger. Art managed being the fine pilot that he is to keep inflated just enough to not take off... you would be correct to think that finding a balloon that size shouldn't be too hard and on the reservation there is nary a tree, but you'd be surprised that once the top is pulled how difficult it becomes to spot it so staying inflated is very helpful. In any event we were escorted in and taken to where Art was sitting. They (the Indians) would not allow us to pop the top and roll him up where he was, no, they wanted/requested that we walk him to the road (a dirt road... everything is dirt) and put everything away there. So we walked a giant balloon and put it away.
I won't go on as to the day to day activities but will sum it up with this... The overall atmosphere is one of good heartedness and good people doing what they love and having a good time. It is a sight to behold in person and if you ever have the means to see it up close and personal, do it. I think it it bucket list worthy myself. There is inherent danger in ballooning, but there is (once airborne without the burner/flame going off) a peaceful beauty to it all. Floating along akin to a feather on the wind is an experience to not be forgotten.
in my beautiful, my beautiful balloon...
Ahhh, that title was waaaaay too easy. The 5th Dimension must've gone ballooning (actually Jimmy Webb must've gone ballooning since he penned the song) since that's exactly what happens. Well it happens after you load up the gondola, the envelope (the balloon itself) the fan to blow up the balloon, load it up in the back of the truck the night before, get a crew to help you, get up at the crack of dawn, stop at Krispy Kreme... critical in getting my kids up so early, meet up with said crew, drive out to launch spot, unload the crew, unload the fan, unload the envelope, unload the gondola and then put it all together. A lot of this takes place as the sun is rolling over with a yawn and hitting the snooze button one more time.
Putting it together consists of getting the burner in place on the gondola, laying out the envelope and cold packing it which consists of taking the fan and blowing air to fill up the balloon. When the time is right, you fire up the burner and send some shots of hot air into it and up the balloon starts to go uprighting itself. At that point you throw bodies on the gondola to keep it steady. The pilot will call for weight on (that's where I excel) then to a hands only and then finally hands off at which point he is ready to go airborne. I learned all of that in about 15 minutes. Of course there's a lot more to ballooning than that.
So the week we were out there was an experience/exercise in early morning wake ups and staggering out the door into the morning darkness and (for me) looking for the constellation Orion. Seems he made the trip with us to Albuquerque as he was in Joliet too as we were getting ready to depart.
We did manage to get up in the balloon on the 1st, the day before the Fiesta started. First it was me... figured if the gondola could hold my bigness, then it could hold anyone. What we ended up doing is what's called hopping, or hops. It's where the pilot will lower the balloon to land, everyone gets their weight on and you swap out riders. Of course I make it sound kind of easy (and it's not terribly difficult) but even for the short rides (hops) you still need someone to chase and be there once you touch down. For the record, there is no easy or graceful way to exit or enter a gondola... then again maybe it's just me.
So after we came back down with me (I'm good ballast) we... actually they... tossed Ana in and we went back up. Initially, the only one other than Julie and myself that wanted to go up was Nick. I take that back... Rachael wanted to go too, but only with Julie. So upon landing, I handed Ana over and I oafishly got myself out. Julie got herself in and we put in Rachael and up they went. Now mind you, Nick was the only one wanting to go up from the get go. He was kind and let Rachael go ahead of him. As fate would have it, we started to run low on propane and had to call it a day... Nick having never got up. It's just as well though as he was spared... spared a ballooning (cult) ritual.
Once Dale (my good friend from high school and pilot) landed for the final time, it was time to put the balloon away. There's a whole 'nuther set of instructions to puttin' it away. You have to do things like pull the top, get her to lay down and milk it... sounds kinda dirty when I put it that way... but I'm not making it up, that's what you do and that's what we did... to the balloon. So now that it's all "boxed and bagged" and ready to get back on the back of the pick-up truck, we were asked to stand and listen while Dale recited the balloonist's prayer and then continued on with a history lesson of how ballooning got it's start in France and how people having never seen anything like that in the sky before might think they were being attacked... our version included aliens. The pilots not wanting to get pitch forked and torched carried with them bottles of champagne as a peace offering... this is France after all.
That doesn't sound so bad does it?
See, before starting any of this ritual... we were handed cups that had champagne in it. We bowed our heads during the prayer and listened intently to the story and when the time was right, we got it tossed on us. Actually, there was sparkling apple juice or something for the kids and that what I got in my ear. That's what you get after your first flight... so Nick was spared... for now anyway.
The next day was the start of Fiesta and we were on the launch field at 5:30 in the morning... all of us. The first two days were mass ascension days. I have never seen that many cars/tail lights at that hour ever!
So while in Rome...
Since we were newbies to all of this, we kinda did just that... the whole when in Rome thing. That meant getting a breakfast burrito. Now going out there this time of year means that the chilies are in season. They may be all year for all I know, but I gleaned that to not be the case. At any rate, they serve chilies on everything... burritos, cheeseburgers, lemonade, water, funnel cakes. Maybe it was just on the burritos and burgers. Anyhow, you order either green, red, or Christmas... that's right, that includes red and green. So I'm ordering a burrito at 5:40 in the morning and it's like a carnival going on all around me. Now the burritos are served either bacon or sausage... or no meat, eggs of course and potatoes, or as they call it hash browns. Don't be fooled with hash browns, they're potato chunks (cubed) in there AND of course the chilies... I went for the "milder" green. With Julie also going with a burrito, the kids opted for these giant cinnamon rolls. We make our way back to V1... that is Art's little square of land.
Who's Art you say? ...well maybe you don't, but he was the pilot that we were crewing for... he was flying in the Fiesta. Art flew the Double Flash...
See the launch field is laid out in a grid with each section getting a letter and number combination to identify it.
So the first two days of fiesta went something like this... get up a couple hours before the sun and wake IT up, get to the field and wait. Wait to see if we're going to be a go. The first two days I was more or less on crowd control and ballast detail... as in human ballast and a dog in the back of a pickup as we chased. Day one and day two are mass ascensions where all the balloons launch from the field. It is quite crowded and while cold packing the balloon you need to make sure that the passersby don't put their grubby hands on it... I mean after all, it is really tempting to touch, but the oils are bad for the envelope and we all were wearing gloves. I guess they figured that I just looked intimidating... a balloon bouncer of sorts.
The second and third day they launch off field and have to find their way into the field. They were playing a game where they had to drop a bean bag on markers that were placed on the field. First day was easy, Art made it back to the field and he was in the running for the prize. Second launch, not so much.
The field sits adjacent to Indian land. They (the Indians) would prefer it if you wouldn't land on their territory. Unfortunately, the second day, the winds were not cooperating causing many of the pilots to land on Indian land, Art included. Now the Indians really, really don't want everyone tromping and running roughshod all over their land and as a consequence, you need to wait to be escorted in.
Now poor Art had to land as he was running low on propane and by doing so, he's really at the mercy of the wind to not drag him all over the place and seeing as all his ballast was riding around in trucks waiting to get escorted in it must've seemed like an eternity to him and his passenger. Art managed being the fine pilot that he is to keep inflated just enough to not take off... you would be correct to think that finding a balloon that size shouldn't be too hard and on the reservation there is nary a tree, but you'd be surprised that once the top is pulled how difficult it becomes to spot it so staying inflated is very helpful. In any event we were escorted in and taken to where Art was sitting. They (the Indians) would not allow us to pop the top and roll him up where he was, no, they wanted/requested that we walk him to the road (a dirt road... everything is dirt) and put everything away there. So we walked a giant balloon and put it away.
I won't go on as to the day to day activities but will sum it up with this... The overall atmosphere is one of good heartedness and good people doing what they love and having a good time. It is a sight to behold in person and if you ever have the means to see it up close and personal, do it. I think it it bucket list worthy myself. There is inherent danger in ballooning, but there is (once airborne without the burner/flame going off) a peaceful beauty to it all. Floating along akin to a feather on the wind is an experience to not be forgotten.
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