It Takes A Village...

Old Tinny - Entry Eight

2009-08-27T16:44:00.000-07:00

Oh. My. Gosh.

I just found an adaptor kit that incorporates both the remote controls (throttle and shifting) and steering control.

I can't believe it. The old kit (PN 431840) was discontinued long ago, so the only way anyone could find one was to stumble upon a used kit. This kit only had adaptors for the throttle and shifting.

I found one catalog reference at ishopmarine.com that said to use part number 173972 instead. Did a quick search on Ebay and found a brand new kit!

Now, I'll have to get to work building a console and side panels so I can mount the steering and controls. While I'm at it, I guess I'll just go ahead and put in a floor, so Rita and Aidan can reach (instead of having to use the boat box as a footrest).

Just received a faster prop today, so I'll install that as well. I keep you posted on any improvement in speed.

Old Tinny - Entry Seven

2009-08-25T23:43:00.001-07:00

Well, I got my $40 bimini top put back together and mounted today. (It was 70" across, so I took 10" out of the middle.) The canvas cleaned up pretty good ($4 for a wash and dry at the coin-op place down the street), and the skinnied-down frame is as sturdy as a new one.

I'd like to put clear vinyl windows in the front and side panels, and make all three of those panels removable.

It's nice and long, so more of the boat can be covered. It's navy blue too, with a gray stripe down the middle as a bonus!

The only problem now is that it's just a tiny bit too short to live with. I'll have to find some 1' long steel or aluminum pieces of tubing that will fit inside the frame tubing so I can extend the two main legs down at the mounting ends with additional pieces. (Oh! I just thought of something. I can try to bow the top tubes to get a couple more inches of height. I'll try it...)

I'd like to go on record as saying that we are fans of guide-ons. Those things make Rita and I look like pros, we can load so fast! Thirty seconds, tops, I'd say. On Sunday though, it took us about a full minute to load because the current was so strong, and I had to go at the trailer three times. I finally just got the nose in between the guide-ons, threw Rita the bow line, and she pulled me in before the current made me go sideways again. We would have had a heck of a time loading that day (like most everyone else without guide-ons) if we didn't have those!

Old Tinny - Entry Six

2009-08-12T21:04:00.000-07:00

Today, I picked up an old mooring cover for $40. It's huge, being ten inches wider than I need, but I can cut the frame down and reassemble it to make it fit the boat's 60" beam. There's quite a lot of canvas that makes up a mooring cover, so I should be able to salvage quite a bit for the top.

The material is filthy, so I'm going to go to our corner laundry mat and see how much is left after I put it in the Big Bessy washer.

Once the main bimini top is complete, I'll try to make bow and side curtains with windows. I'd really like aft drop curtains too, as we're almost done with our three weeks of hot weather here in Portland. But all that stuff is extra, so we'll see how things go.

Old Tinny - Entry Five

2009-08-10T01:30:00.000-07:00

On August 2nd, we took the boat out for a leak/float test.

I decided to launch at the Staff Jennings Marina instead of Willamette Park because the store was closed and so the launch area would probably be a little less crowded. The ramp is not maintained and so has a drop off and many holes. I ended up maneuvering the trailer into just the right spot to get the trailer stuck. The little wheels were a bit too little for the big hole I backed over, and so the trailer frame was sitting on a timber. After we unloaded the boat, Rita tied up to the marina dock so she could lift the trailer up (it floats a little bit, but not quite enough) while I moved the van up the ramp.

After that, Rita took some pictures of the boat actually floating in the water. It's a very stable boat, and I can stand up and walk around in it without feeling tippy at all.

I took it around the marina so Rita could get a couple of shots with it under way.

As you can see, the bow is riding way too low.

Yes, that is a Minn Kota on the bow. I was trying a mount setup that a guy had been using on his boat, as I didn't have time to install the kicker motor mount before we went out. I didn't like it. The Willamette River is too rough to have the trolling motor mounted like that. I took it off right after we pulled away from the marina.

Our wake was messy looking, full of bubbles and not very smooth. The motor trim was definitely off. I have since moved the pin up one hole, and I think I figured out how I can make further adjustments while in the water. (I just have to be sure to hang onto the pin and NOT drop it!)

Here's Aidan, sitting in the front seat. He loved it up there.

This guy (the floating hotdog stand on the right) does a brisk business on weekends. He hangs out on the east side of Ross Island, where all the skiers/wakeboarders/tubers are. The two boats on the left are waiting for their orders.

This is a shot of the new switch box. I finished the wiring on August 10th, and now have functioning navigation lights and bilge pump.

Here's the old tinny all lit up!

Rita and I both agreed that we needed guide-ons after our first outing in this boat. The current, wind, and waves on the Willamette makes loading difficult at times, we had a bit of trouble getting it centered on the bunks. We were thankful for having a light boat, as we (Rita actually did this herself) had to wade in and center it by hand. Even though I backed the trailer in a little too deep for take-out, the guide-ons should be a tremendous help, and Rita might be able to just drive the boat right on.

Every boat and trailer combo is different, and I'll be glad when I'm more familiar with this one. It's a steep learning curve, indeed.

At the end of the day, the inside of the boat was dry as a bone! There are absolutely no leaks! We are very pleased, and this also means that I can get some sort of rubberized coating on it sometime in the future.

Old Tinny - Entry Four

2009-07-29T17:03:00.001-07:00

Well, I finally finished replacing the transom board.

I varnished regular plywood and covered it with a piece of ducting sheet metal I found at A-Boy. The edges of the sheet metal are folded over all the sides of the transom board and riveted on. I left the original top fold of the ducting intact so it could hang over into the inside of the transom and then bolted everything on. The last step was to seal every joint/edge/corner/bolt with a flexible sealant, hopefully keeping as much water as possible from getting underneath the new board.

I just have to finish wiring up the bilge pump and we'll be ready to take her out on a float test to check for leaks.

Old Tinny - Entry Three

2009-07-03T09:06:00.001-07:00

Behold! The shiniest thing on this boat!

I installed the new bow light and now just need to complete the wiring. I'm going to enclose the buss strip inside an outdoor junction box (and use plastic conduit as the wiring chases), thus nearly eliminating (hopefully) the chance of moisture attacking the wiring connections while enabling easy access for future maintenance.

Here's a shot of the bilge outlet. I hope I put it high enough to not let water in during use, but also not create too big of an uphill push for the pump. I guess we'll find out, eh?

It was really scary drilling such a giant hole in the boat, but it had to be done. I will be picking up a tube of 3M 5200 Sealant to goop around such openings as I make or repair them.

I'm still working on getting the bunks mounted properly. Where are all the 1/2" x 3" u-bolts when you need them? I might have to pay top dollar for them at West Marine. Not counting having to complete the transom rework, we're almost ready to take the boat out for a leak check.

Old Tinny - Entry Two

2009-06-27T22:51:00.001-07:00

So, I decided to see what I was in for with the transom board. Silly me! Apparently, I touched it too hard and the whole thing fell. I'm surprised I made the trip home without the motor falling off. The transom saver that I installed may have truly saved my butt in this case.

Yuck. As you can see, there's nothing left of this plywood. When Aidan and I picked it up, it waved in the breeze, like a piece of cloth. Good grief.

Here is the bare, nekkid transom. I need to clean it up and get a clear coat (or something like it) on there, and then reinstall a transom board.

I also picked up a Fulton motor bracket for the Minn Kota troller for a song, as the transom is too narrow for the two motors to fit side-by-side without the props hitting each other. I don't want the main motor to be too far off center, as it will make the boat handle poorly.

This is the tongue area as it stands now. I was able to find replacement parts for the winch, saving me a spot o' change, and I installed the new winch strap. Nice.

Old Tinny - Entry One

2009-06-22T22:13:00.000-07:00

Mama and I were sitting down, relaxing and talking about the trip and stuff, when Aidan decided that he was going to strip all the old indoor/outdoor carpet off the benches in the boat.

He kept working and got most of it off with his bare hands. There were only a couple spots where the glue had been globbed and I took those areas off with a putty knife. I'll gently grind the rest of the glue off later.

After dinner, Aidan got the garage vac out and got to work vacuuming all the debris out of the bottom of the boat.

Not too shabby, eh? He did all of this by himself, while I worked on the tongue area of the trailer. It must have something to do with turning seven...

Here's the tongue area after I was done cursing and slicing my hands up while using bolt cutters to remove rust-welded bolts and chain. Even had to cut an old padlock off. Installed the shiny new jack. I will need to replace the bow stop and winch, as the catch tooth broke off the winch and the bow stop is also broken.

Look what I discovered! This is a tilt trailer! This will enable shallow or short launches and retrievals, which are common in river areas.

New Pictures

2008-12-22T11:17:00.000-08:00

I have been posting new pictures of our snow storm on my Facebook profile. The name of the album is "2008 Winter Storm".

Snow Day In Portland

2008-12-15T13:51:00.000-08:00

Today, we all went out and slid around in our neighborhood for a while, since Portland declared it a snow day for a lot of folks.

The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks

2008-09-13T22:16:00.000-07:00

OMG... My sides and cheeks hurt, I've been laughing so much.

You've got to check this site out too. "Right" away.

The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks

Cake Wrecks

2008-09-13T21:24:00.000-07:00

Click on the title link to see the funniest site I've seen in a long time. I can't stop reading the entries.

I think this site would be perfect for giving me my laugh for the day.

If you're feeling a little down, just take a peek at this site, and you'll feel better in no time. Guaranteed.

Cake Wrecks

X-Trike!

2008-09-09T20:47:00.000-07:00

Never heard of Extreme Triking?

Peep this!

Now showing on YouTube.

I <3 Heart!

2008-09-05T15:49:00.000-07:00

Ann and Nancy Wilson respond to the use of their hit, "Barracuda" at the RNC Convention.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/5/81024/27333/221/587623

These women rock!

Hovercat

2008-08-30T21:00:00.000-07:00

Skating Coverage

2008-04-19T14:52:00.000-07:00

A bit of history on the Oaks Park Skating Rink:

As the park/rink sits right on the east bank of the Willamette River, the entire wood rink floor floats in case of flooding. Pretty cool, eh?
Oaks Park has been open since 1905, when Portlanders arrived by boat, horseback, foot, trolley or automobile. The park has its own boat launch and dock.

. . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . .

This is some video of Aidan and Momma on the 'raceway' at the rink. Aidan has a cold at the moment, so this was the last good footage we got before he didn't want to have anything more to do with cameras of any sort, due to his feeling hazy-dazy from the cold medicine...

I guess Momma got tired of filming at the end here. She seems to have laid down...
This is Aidan on the hills. When we go in this area, we "head for the hills".

Aidan didn't want us taking pictures or video of him today, so he would not look. Most of the still shots we got of him were of the side of his head. Here's a video example...

Overheard at PDX...

2008-04-12T15:41:00.000-07:00

Rita is at PDX right now, waiting for her flight into John Wayne Airport in the O.C. for a business conference at the Anaheim Convention Center. This was overheard by her, coming from a person across the way on a cell phone:

"You know how Sarah had, like, tennis, you know?"

Rita said, "I think she's headed for home."

Aidan The Builder

2008-04-05T17:51:00.000-07:00

Aidan has been going to the free Home Depot kids workshops every month and he loves it! He's a building maniac. He says that it's not good to just build things without plans and designs first, though.

Mama got him a toolbox kit at Woodworks in an attempt to keep him busy for more than an hour, and we let him go. I taught him how to hold and swing the hammer, how to brace his work, and he learned how to get the nails started in the top piece before attempting the main connection at the Home Depot workshop.

It looks like he'll be finished with this project by tomorrow, including paint. Guess I'll be searching for more projects this week...

We've also been going to the weekly Family Skate days at the Oaks Park rink for the past couple of months. It only costs $5 per child and the parent(s) are free. So it's a really great deal. We all have our own skates (I have quads, and Rita and Aidan have inlines), and we're getting good exercise. I'll try to remember to take the camera one of these times, but we're always so eager to just get out there and skate that I've forgotten every time since we started going.

Of course, the weather is warming up and Spring fishing fever has struck. I've been trying to get my boat set up, but since it's an inflatable, I have to keep it in the garage. This is a problem at the moment because the ramp is taking up all the space in the garage. So I'm shoveling gravel and wheeling it into the backyard to make a pad for the ramp so I can have my garage back. An aluminum boat is in my future (Rita agreed), but I think it will have to wait until next year. I will be able to store an aluminum boat outside, covered, of course, and it won't be so much of an involved setup each Spring to get out on the water. I can't wait...

First Tooth Lost!

2008-03-01T20:52:00.000-08:00

Aidan showed us his first loose tooth a couple of days ago. He briefly fell asleep downstairs tonight and when Mama called to him to ask him if he wanted to go get ready for bed, he looked up at her with a new hole in his mouth. His tooth had jumped out while he napped! He found it on the carpet and put it in the small pouch I gave him.

I believe the wire has gone out on the Tooth Fairy lines that Aidan needs a visit tonight...

. . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . .

Sunday, March 2, 2008

This morning, Aidan awoke to find a tiny scrolled letter and a $1 bill rolled and tied with string in the pouch.

Here's what the letter said:

Hello Aidan,

I was jolly glad to have heard about your first tooth coming out, dear chap. All the other tooth fairies and I were just talking about how it might be getting close to your time to begin the process of getting your grownup teeth, and sure enough, it happened!

I am overjoyed to have been chosen to be your personal tooth fairy and look forward to adding more of your bright, white baby teeth to my collection. This tooth will make a fine addition, indeed!

Well old chap, I've left you a little something in exchange for your tooth, and look forward to my next visit in keen earnest.

Your Tooth Fairy,

Pip

Who knew that there were boy tooth fairies? Aidan was positive that the tooth fairy was a girl last night, before he fell asleep. (I think that it also makes sense that there are thousands of tooth fairies all over the world. I'm thrilled to see that Aidan's tooth fairy hails from the U.K.)

Aidan wants me to hold this note in safe-keeping so he can look at it when he is older, and so I will.

SWCS Spirit Week

2008-02-14T16:27:00.000-08:00

This week is Spirit Week at SWCS. Monday was Silly Hat Day, Tuesday was Silly Hair Day, Wednesday was Dress Like A Pirate Day, today was Wear Red/Pink/Hearts Day, and tomorrow is Wear Your Pajamas To School Day.

On Monday, Aidan wore a pair of (clean) underwear on his head. And no, he wasn't a butt-head. He was Underwear Man. Geez. Get your mind out of the gutter.

I don't think a picture of him in his pajamas will make a very thrilling picture, so I'm posting for the week, now.

Please let us take care of our families...

2008-02-04T11:23:00.000-08:00

Well, we were given the go-ahead to register as domestic partners in the state of Oregon. This, after having already registered in Multnomah County (This was just for looks, as we don't get any legal recognition or benefits from it, like a marriage provides.) and getting legally married in Multnomah County (which was annulled by the state six months later), someone managed to get a provision passed for gay and lesbian couples to have a few legal rights. It was supposed to take effect on January 1st, but the right-wing kooks tried to get it overturned or at least momentarily stopped by putting together a petition. When they came up short on the number of signatures they needed, they went to court. The judge granted them a temporary stay which put domestic partnerships on hold. Late Friday afternoon, he heard the arguments from both sides and decided that they didn't have a leg to stand on, so domestic partnerships were, once again, a go.

"Well, okay. You can have this worthless piece of paper that says you're a couple so you can pretend you're a real couple. But no legal benefits! It's just pretend, remember?"

"Okay. Come on and apply for a marriage license and get married. But you're only married in Multnomah County. Nowhere else will the union be recognized. No benefits either, because this is only good in one county. Oh, and by the way, you'd better take a day off work so you can hurry up and get this done because we didn't clear this with anyone else."

"Oh, sorry. Your marriage is annulled. We're returning your $65 for the marriage license. We never filed it in the first place anyway (the licenses were stacked in boxes in a corner of the clerk's office) because it wasn't really legal. You'll have to go back to pretending to be a couple."

"Okay. Now, you will be able to file as Domestic Partners in the state of Oregon, starting the first day of 2008. You'll have state benefits but still no federal benefits. But it's better than nothing. What are you whining about? And no, it's not marriage. If you gays and lesbians are allowed to get married, the existence of proper heterosexual couples will be threatened, and we can't let that happen, now can we?"

"Oh no. Heh heh heh. Sorry about that, but a group of respectable religious folks brought in a petition with hundreds of thousands of signatures. So no domestic partner registrations will be accepted at the first of the coming year. What? You made plans? Boy, you are the silliest bunch of people we've ever come across! We'll let you know. Later. Maybe."

"Hmmm. Turns out they didn't have enough signatures to qualify the petition to get the domestic partner registration on the ballot. Well, alright. Go ahead and come on in to register. Effective now. The line of hoops begins right over there."

"Want a carrot? (yank)"

Rita and I don't know what to think at this point. I'm afraid they're going to yank the carrot away again, very soon. Rita can't take off work today so we can go stand out in the cold in a line that winds around the block to get registered. She wants to wait until March 3rd, which is the date we got 'married'. After they annulled our marriage, I went numb. I can't even remember what year it was. I know Aidan was about 18 months old and I wore him on my back for over four hours in the freezing cold rain while in line. Most people had no time to plan anything more than getting married in front of the county building, where we could barely hear the minister over the traffic noise and the shouting of the homophobes twenty feet away.

Anyway, here are a few of over 500 benefits we will be able to receive after we're officially hitched. But only in this state. If we go visit our relatives, we're not hitched. And no federal recognition either. Confused yet?

Right to make health care decision for partner
Right to visit partner in hospital
Right to sue for wrongful death
Right to consent or refuse autopsy of partner's body
Right to be buried in cemetery plot with partner
Right to make funeral arrangements for partner
Right to inherit deceased partner's estate
Right to visit in long-term care facility
Automatic "authorized driver" on partner's car rental
Right to coverage on partner's insurance plan
Protection of home in the case of partner's bankruptcy
Private conversations are protected in court
Right to access partner's death certificate
Right to personal effects from deceased partner's body

This will help in backing up our tons of separate legal documents that we've had to procure 'just in case'. Our paperwork was never guaranteed to stand up in a court of law anyway. We had it to prove intent.

First School Snow Day

2008-01-28T10:51:00.001-08:00

Today, Aidan had his first school snow day. It's really ridiculous though, because there's hardly any snow at all. I did put the snow tires on the Civic because we might get more snow tonight or tomorrow, but nothing to get all worked up over. Come on people, it's a balmy 37° out there!

Oh, almost forgot... Recommended movie o' the month is 'The Company Of Strangers'. It's amazing how we all come from so many different places and backgrounds, but in the end, we're all pretty much the same.

Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 21

2008-01-27T22:25:00.000-08:00

NO MUTATION DETECTED

This is the result of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genetic testing I had done. Not only does this result in significantly lowering my chances of the breast cancer recurring, but it also lowers my chances of developing ovarian cancer later on. This also means that family members are not considered to be at risk of getting cancer.

Good news indeed!

On the Herceptin front, I've been getting treatments every three weeks. My oncologist said that she had been mistaken about the frequency of MUGA scans that should be done to check for heart damage and so now I am getting the scans done every other month instead of every month. I don't know if it's all in my head or I'm just getting used to the feeling, but my heart doesn't feel as bad as it has previously. I'm still trying to keep up with the exercise, so I have high hopes that my next MUGA scan will show my heart to be still in the safe zone.

Rita and I keep forgetting that about 2-3 days after every Herceptin treatment, I crash. I feel like I have the flu and I'm really, super tired. Yesterday, I slept all day, only getting up to drink coffee in the morning. I think I'm going to have to add 'Sleep All Day' to the calendar after each chemo session so we won't be wondering what-in-the-heck-is-the-matter-with-me-now every time. Being bald did have its positive points, one of which being that we never forgot why I was feeling awful after chemo...

Another Milestone...

2007-12-20T19:55:00.000-08:00

Southwest Charter School

2007-2008 Kindergarten Class

Kindergarten 2007-2008

Age 5.5

Aidan's First Report Card

2007-12-19T11:57:00.000-08:00

Well, we received Aidan's very first report card in the mail yesterday. Rita said we're going to need to find a bigger house so our heads will fit if we get many more report cards like this one.

The Southwest Charter School report cards are written narrative format. Here's what Aidan's says:

Student Name: Aidan Snodgrass-Ward
Academic Year: 2007-2008
Grade: Kindergarten
-
Teacher: Mary Esterline
Principal: Sue Carter
-
Aidan enters the classroom cheerfully each morning. He is always eager to help write the morning message, read the poem, sing songs, and greet friends. He is a very capable reader and uses several strategies when he encounters a word he is unfamiliar with. He isolates the sounds and checks for meaning within the context of the story. He is a capable phonetic writer and is practicing using lower case letters. He enjoys writing stories to share with his friends. He has a good sense of humor and loves to make his friends laugh. He is always willing to participate in group activities, share his ideas, and is eager to try new things.

Aidan eagerly accepts calendar jobs. He is able to recognize and write numbers up to 20. He can count by 2's, 5's, 10's, and can recognize and create several patterns. He is beginning to do some adding on and subtracting and enjoys playing math games such as 'Which Bug Will Win?', 'Bug Bingo', and 'Beat You To 10'. He is capable of working independently, with a partner, or in a small group. Aidan usually wins our game of 'Guess My Number', actively listening to guesses and clues of 'lower than' and 'higher than'.

Aidan likes routine and encourages his friends to follow the rules but he is also able to transition from one activity to another easily. Aidan has a wide variety of likes and interests. He is very artistic and his drawings are very detailed. During choice time he often paints, uses the felt storytelling shapes, plays with friends in the housekeeping area, or works with blocks and trains. He also enjoys making up games to play with his friends at recess. Aidan is a very capable and enthusiastic learner. He is a kind, sweet, funny boy and a joy to have in class.

Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 20

2007-12-13T10:44:00.000-08:00

The past two weeks have been kind of rough.

I had another MUGA scan on the 4th and it showed a heart function decrease of about ten points, putting me at 55%. I had been feeling more tired in the previous weeks, but was hoping that my heart would stay at or above 60%. No such luck.

My oncologist and I reviewed my case and my options (as it seems we're doing at every visit lately), and then it was up to me to decide whether or not to continue with the Herceptin treatments. I decided to continue. My gut feeling is that I'm not going to be able to come close to finishing my course of treatment, of which I'm barely halfway through. I'm still trying to deal with that, psychologically.

She did tell me that there is a new study being conducted that may show that half as many Herceptin treatments as previously thought can be effective for most people with a HER2 receptive cancer. But they won't have conclusive results for at least another couple of years, so this information was mainly given to try to ease my mind. I appreciated her thoughtfulness.

Dr. Trubowitz is very supportive of my decisions. Because I'm so young (most cancer is diagnosed post-menopause) and my cancer is aggressive and invasive, she referred me to Genetics for some testing. I'm going ahead with the testing, as the results will be about the only tool I have left if I have to stop the Herceptin. The genetic mapping will give me an idea of my chances of having or developing ovarian cancer (there's really no way to determine the status of the breast cancer), and I can be proactive in making a decision about surgery.

I understand that some folks do not want to know whether or not they carry cancer genes, as it might cause them way more stress and anxiety than if they had not found out. If there are any members of my immediate family who do not want to know my results, please get in touch with me privately.

This was our week to supply the snacks and lunch embellishments for Aidan's class. It has been, literally, all I could manage to not mess things up. Checking, double checking, triple checking, and checking the list a few more times after that to be sure I was not forgetting anything. I still ended up making an extra trip back to the school on Tuesday to bring back the food containers I'd washed and needed for the next day. Added to that, there are school fund-raising campaigns and holiday events to attend to. Not a good time for me to have chemo-brain, I'm telling you. I've gone out several times in the past few weeks to do something or other, and have actually gotten lost for hours (I leave Aidan with Mama most of the time). Or, I'll try to multi-task (which certainly wasn't as difficult before chemotherapy), and get stuck on one and forget the rest. I feel like my brain is exhausted. (Hey, no comments from the peanut gallery!)

Well, I paused for too long, and now I've lost my train of thought. Par for the course for me lately. Until next time then, breathe deeply and drink water.

When I Grow Up, I Want To Be...

2007-12-13T09:00:00.001-08:00

Lara Croft.

Okay, I know. What planet have I been on for the past 4-8 years? Anyone who knows me would know that the Lara Croft game and movie series is right up my alley. I just can't believe I didn't zero in on these when they came out.

I finally saw Tomb Raider and The Cradle of Life. Brilliant movies! Lara Croft has got to be theee coolest female role model in ages. Indiana Jones and James Bond for girls. Woohoo! These are my new favorites. I can't think of any reason why any gal would not want to be as talented, brainy, dare-devilish and adventuresome as Lara.

Angelina Jolie does a fantastic job of bringing this exceptional character to life. She did as many of the stunts as the insurance would allow, which is loads more than most actors will even think about attempting. After all, Lara is so strong and unpredictable, any wimpiness on the part of the actor portraying her would really wreck the whole experience.

Is there anything that Lara Croft can't do?

The Most Boring Game Ever and Small Vehicles

2007-12-03T12:55:00.000-08:00

Okay, it never occurred to me that some people might want to play a real-time gardening simulation game called, "Plant Tycoon", in which you literally watch plants grow.

I played a trial version yesterday. I can't believe I actually sat through an hour's worth of watching plants grow and catching bugs to collect in jars. Oh, and I can't forget to tell you the most exciting part... You can sell your mature plants in your own nursery, but just like a real store, you can't sell anything unless you're there. So you have to sit in your nursery, watching people browse, hearing them make comments (good and bad) about your nursery and overhearing their conversations about everything else they have going on in their lives.

Oh - my - goodness - Becky...

I think I kept sitting there, playing this game and being bored out of my skull because I was so in shock that anyone would want to play a game like this. And yes, it was my day off and I didn't want to do anything that involved using my brain, so I guess this fit the bill.

Unbelievable...

~ ... ~ ... ~ ... ~ ... ~

This morning, Aidan was getting out of the Civic at the school and he said, "Oh oh." I said, "What." He told me that his shoes were on the ground and his head was hitting the roof of the car, which made it necessary for him to bend down while getting out in order to not bang his head very hard. So, we needed to take the van from now on, so he wouldn't bump his head on the roof. This was the third time in a week that he's complained about having to crunch up to get in and out of the Civic.

I didn't know what to say for a few seconds. Not only because, well, I just couldn't quickly think of a way to respond to his comment, but also because it was crack-of-dawn early in the morning...

Then, I laughed and said that we were driving the Civic as much as we could instead of the van because the van sucked up more gas than the Civic. As much as I dislike the Civic for the same reason that Aidan does, we do still have to sacrifice and try to save some money. (The car is too small. You need at least 5 feet on either side of the car in order to be able to open the stupid coupe doors wide enough to get in or out. And then, the front seat belts are in the back seat, so you have to contort your arm into unnatural positions in order to reach the belts to put one on. Plus, anyone who's in the back seat has to literally climb through/around/over the front seat belts in order to get in or out, leading to broken front seat belt base covers due to every backseat passenger stepping on them. Coupes suck... The Civic would be so much more comfortable if it were a sedan.)

Just another piece of my day...

Give Celine A Break!

2007-12-02T10:25:00.000-08:00

What is it with people ragging on Celine Dion? Why do people dislike her so much? Could it be that people don't like someone who is honest and forthright about their goals in life and actually is successful at being what they've dreamed of being?

It seems to me that it's in fashion to rag about Celine Dion. The morning show that I listen to devoted an entire show to ragging on her Dancing With The Stars version of My Heart Will Go On. People were falling all over themselves calling in to jokingly request this song be played while talking about how "awful" the song was. What's up with that?

I'm not ashamed to go on record and saying that I like Celine Dion, her honesty, her music, and her very positive view on life. I guess I need to hang around with Canadians and Europeans, who aren't afraid to openly talk about life issues and say what we're all thinking. Americans need to grow up and get real. The rest of the world doesn't have the time and doesn't want to be as frivolous as Americans are, and can see Celine Dion for what she is: A person who always wanted to be a world-famous singer and has been very successful at achieving that goal.

I'm not obsessed with Celine Dion. I simply enjoy her music and her personality. She's refreshingly different from most other singers in that she is so very positive and upbeat, even when she's going through difficulties in her private life. For just a few minutes, while listening to one of her songs, I can escape to a more honest place. How sad it is that I would even feel the need to escape to experience something so necessary to having a good life. You've never heard Celine Dion whining about anything, have you? No, I didn't think so.

Get a life, people!

Very Creative Costumes!

2007-11-07T13:23:00.000-08:00

Uncle Keith sent us some pictures of Beatrice's and Sonia's Halloween costumes. I thought they were so creative and different! I'm hoping they don't mind that I'm posting the pictures on the blog so my family can see.

Sonia was a raven. Great job, Sonia!

Beatrice was the sun, with the solar system on her hat. Wonderful, Bea!

Aidan's Class Art Show

2007-11-05T10:32:00.000-08:00

For the month of November 2007, the Coffee Plant on Corbett in John's Landing is hosting the SWCS 2007 Kindergarten Class Art Show.

The artists could be met and talked with on opening day, Friday, November 2nd. Many of the parents and grandparents were able to walk from the school to the show with the kids. Afterwards, cocoa and cute, tiny muffins (made by Julian B.'s mom, Lisa) were served back in the classroom before recess.

Our emotional kid: Aidan was so happy that I came to his art show, he was crying tears of joy. He broke down when we were lining up to walk to the coffee place, and was on the verge throughout the whole show. When I was going to leave, he broke down again. He said he was very happy I came to the art show again when I came to pick him up, and it was the first thing he told Mama when she got home from work.

(Above) Chinese Lantern Pod Study - The children examined Chinese Lantern pods with magnifying glasses and drew their interpretations of what they saw. (Left to right) Kaya, Aidan S-W and Juliet.

I was quite impressed with the detail all the kids included in their drawings.

After studying impressionist artists, the kids painted their self-portraits using black line and water colors.

Rita and I thought it was interesting how only a few of the children put ears and/or noses on their portraits.

Aidan's work shows his red hair and flash-induced red-eye look.

He said that he made his portrait's skin color blue because impressionist paintings are not supposed to be true-to-life color.

These are flowers with textures and custom colors blended by the kids under the artistic guidance of Annie Painter.

Here, Aidan is standing next to his green-petaled flower.

Fall Leaves - The children did Fall leaves in chalk and Fall leaf prints.

Both of these are Aidan's.

Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 19

2007-11-01T14:05:00.000-07:00

My last MUGA scan showed a huge improvement in heart function! To refresh your memory, I was down to 51% ejection fraction. The cutoff is at 50%, so they wouldn't let me continue Herceptin treatments at this point. I began taking Super B6 in addition to the B12 I had been taking, and also started exercising in earnest. This last MUGA scan showed my heart function to be at 63%! My very first scan read 65% (Normal ≥ 50%), so I'm back to normal. My oncologist said she thinks that the Herceptin stunned my heart, and it took it nearly three months to recover. I also think that I felt so tired because I was so not used to having such a compromised heart. I could never have begun exercising if I didn't feel a whole lot better than I had before.

I will be having a MUGA scan done monthly now instead of every three months, as is usual. It's expensive, but I'm so glad that Kaiser is willing to pay for mostly everything necessary to provide full, aggressive treatment. There are a lot of people who can't get the best treatment available because their insurance won't pay for it. Rita said she will be staying at her job simply for the fact that we have the most excellent health coverage. She doesn't make anything close to what she could get working at almost any other company, but we also don't think any other company could/would offer this level of health insurance.

The acupuncture is working well. Misako has taken care of the itching I had on my forearms and the back of my neck. Now I'm having her work on my sore feet and keeping my heart as strong as possible so I can continue getting my Herceptin treatments.

I've been feeling fairly good lately. So good in fact, that I'm building a mini-halfpipe in the garage. Yahoo!

Halloween 2007

2007-11-01T12:07:00.000-07:00

This was our ever-evolving Halloween decoration this year.

We're the only house in two neighborhoods that set up any sort of props. We also have blue lights, lightning, storm sounds, a bubbling and steaming cauldron of escaping bone soup, warning signs on the ground, etc.

(We also have the only Red Maple tree I know of that stays green and keeps its leaves all year long due to the mysteriously warm ground surrounding its roots...)

I creeped myself out setting up the candles, as I heard a noise coming from the old cemetery that I didn't think was part of our piped-in stuff. Rita came out and listened and said it was a low moaning wind sound coming from the storm/lightning box.

Whew! That was a relief!

Our resident witch decided she would try modernizing her ride by purchasing a Swiffer Wet Jet. This, of course, caused her to crash right on our front lawn for the third year in a row. Poor, poor Witchy Poo! You'd think she would have learned to just stick with the old standard after last year's disastrous push-broom episode...

Aidan chose to be a skeleton this year.

I told him he had to eat more! He's becoming waaay too skinny...

Dan's Recitals

2007-10-26T17:15:00.000-07:00

This is Cousin Dan's timpani recital of "The Storm" by S.A. Wollenhaupt.

He gave me permission to post this to my blog.

Very nice, Dan!

This is Tocatta from "Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor" by J.S. Bach

"Time To Race" by Aidan S-W

2007-10-16T17:11:00.001-07:00

This is Aidan's first story that he wrote all by himself. All I had to do was give him a box of old tractor-feed printer paper, and that was enough to inspire him.

He is currently working on his second novella, minus pictures, he said. I guess he wants to make one of those respectable books that has no pictures to make sure he's attracting the right intellectual crowd...

~ ... ~ ... ~ ... ~ ... ~

Time To Race

Once upon a time, there was a boy.

He wanted to race.

Soon, he found someone to race with.

The boy asked the person, "Will you race?"

The person said, "Yes."

Then, they said, "Ready, Set, Go!"

They ran and ran.

They did not stop.

The End

~ ... ~ ... ~ ... ~ ... ~

Update 10-18-07

Aidan took his book to school for Show and Tell, and Teacher Mary has it out and displayed so anyone can read it during Free Choice Time.

Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 18

2007-10-07T23:21:00.000-07:00

I went in for an acupuncture treatment on Thursday. After an extensive interview, Misako significantly diminished my itching. I also have more energy, as she is treating my spirit as well as my body. My chi is a crumpled mess after the past year, and I hope I can get it uncrumpled soon. I am looking forward to another appointment on Wednesday.

~ ... ~ ... ~ ... ~ ... ~ ... ~

Aidan's school made the Portland Tribune on October 2nd. Here's the link:

http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=119127831305736800

Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 17

2007-10-03T08:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I had an appointment with my oncologist for a checkup to see if we could continue with the Herceptin treatments. The MUGA scan that I had done on the previous Friday showed further decrease in heart function. I'm down to 51%. The cutoff point is 50%, but I'm technically already there. The Herceptin infusion was canceled, possibly for good.

I am to have another MUGA scan done in about three weeks to see if my heart is regaining any function. I'm really, really hoping so, as I'm constantly tired. If I feel that I have enough energy to do something, by the time I've finished getting ready to do it, I'm too tired to even begin the task. The projects are piling up fast, let me tell you!

The oncologist was telling me that they really don't know how much Herceptin is enough, and that perhaps my body had indeed gotten enough to stop the HER-2 cancer (if there was any left after the mastectomies and chemo). I think he was trying to gently tell me that there probably weren't going to be any more Herceptin treatments.

Okay.

So, I've been thinking a lot since yesterday morning. I'm just going to have to move on. Maybe I can try to strengthen my heart in some way. Exercise has always been a sore issue for me, but I will try to get some in. I have cut down significantly on sugars and saturated fats. I get too crazy for fast food sometimes though, and so I allow myself a once-a-month treat.

We'll just have to see what happens, eh?

~ ... ~ ... ~ ... ~ ... ~

Rita stayed home sick this past Monday. She mentioned the fact that we had not been alone in our house, without Aidan, in over five years. I knew something felt weird, but I just couldn't put my finger on it...

We went out on a dinner date last month, leaving Aidan with our annual Beaverton day care sitters. They offer a parent's night out a couple of times a year, and Rita and I try to take advantage of at least one of those nights. We ate at Jake's Grill downtown and then got coffee in Multnomah Village. We talked and talked, something we haven't been doing for a while, mainly because it's difficult when Aidan's with us. It felt really good to talk with Rita again, like we used to. If I were not so tired, I would have loved to make that night last a lot longer, just so we could talk. Being the party animals that we are, we stayed out until around 9:00pm, picking Aidan up at 9:30pm. We were all sawing logs by 10:00pm.

Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 16

2007-09-29T10:08:00.000-07:00

Lovelle Svart passed away on Friday, September 28, 2007. She fought lung cancer for five years. The Oregonian newspaper printed updates and hosted her online journal and videos. She chose to take a prescribed overdose as allowed by Oregon's Death With Dignity Act.

She wanted to journal this final phase of her life because she felt that we, as a society, need to talk about death and dying. Rita and I agree. Our society has made even just talking about death and the issues surrounding it, almost taboo, when it is a natural part of the life cycle. Why does our society skip around this major part of nature, leaving us nearly incapable of dealing with death when it finally does get right in our faces?

Rita and I each made the decision to not read about Lovelle's journey as it was happening because for Rita, it was too close to home and she felt she shouldn't worry about my early demise right now. As for me, I felt that I might not be able to handle the thoughts and concerns reading and watching Lovelle's entries could bring up. I also think that planning too much for my end of life right now is a bit premature.

I have since watched Lovelle's journal entries. She did a wonderful thing, showing others this intimate time, giving us a chance to learn something.

. . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . .

I stumbled upon what looks to be a second line of attack for HER-2 positive cancer. It's called Tykerb (lapatinib) and is to be tried after chemotherapy and Herceptin. So far, it has not shown to cause heart damage. It comes in pill form and is taken once a day, whereas Herceptin requires me to have a three hour infusion. Wowee! I'm going to ask my oncologist about this newly approved drug. What wonderful news!

Here is a link to one of the articles regarding Tykerb:

http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/78/7514/her2-heres-news/

Now, my only problem would be determining whether or not my cancer has come back or grown.

Aidan - The School Guy

2007-09-26T10:57:00.000-07:00

Aidan is doing well and very much enjoying school. Today, he went on his first field trip. The school rented a tour bus (Wow! How luxurious! Actually, the school has a contract with RAZ Transportation, and this was simply the bus style they have for contract accounts.) and Aidan's class shared it with Mr. Mike's class (2nd & 3rd Grades). Mr. Mike's class was going to be dropped off for their "spider field trip" (No, I don't know what that means...), and then Aidan's class would go to The Children's Museum for exploration and participation in a recycled materials workshop.

He tells us nearly every day how some kids don't stay in line. I asked him if he stayed in line, and he said that he always stays in line. Not because I didn't believe him, but out of curiosity about how he acted when his parent(s) weren't there, I did a stalker parent stint and waited in the van to watch them leave for their field trip.

Sure enough, exactly at 08:45, Mr. Mike's class filed out and got onto the bus. Then, Aidan's class lined up just outside the school building. Yes! Aidan certainly does stay in line. Perfectly in line. He stands directly in back of the person in front of him. Even if the person turns to this side or that, Aidan adjusts his position so that he continues to be "in line". So, Mary (teacher) had to move Aidan over a bit in order to make the line straighter, as the boy in front of him had turned slightly. I laughed. It's so funny how literal Aidan is!

This Week's Movie Recommendation

2007-09-20T13:14:00.000-07:00

Oh man. I just watched “All Aboard Rosie’s Family Cruise”. I smiled through most of the movie, and felt a kinship with all of the families. How I wish we could live in a Utopian world like what can be experienced on these cruises! Even though I’m so afraid of sailing on a huge cruise ship, I would most certainly make the sacrifice if my family could enjoy just a short time of being truly carefree. It would especially be so wonderful for Aidan to see other families just like his, in an environment where his parents could honestly have fun and not worry about religious freaks attacking us, simply because I held my same-sex partner’s hand in public. Even here, in live-and-let-live Portland, I still feel that Rita and I have to be careful, for Aidan’s sake, although it’s a much friendlier environment than many other places. Aidan doesn’t understand why people would be yelling at us as we walk down the street during Gay Pride weekend. All he knows is that it makes him feel bad. How sad. What a loving, Christian way to treat children. Not!

“All Aboard Rosie’s Family Cruise”. Highly recommended viewing.

Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 15

2007-09-17T10:28:00.000-07:00

My thoughts have been going in different directions lately. Some have been an actual change in how I feel about something and others have been completely new thoughts about old and new issues.

I don't like the way my chest looks. Not only does its nonexistence accentuate my belly, but I'm constantly aware of the two holes in my chest. My ribs pop out, making the holes look even deeper. I can't go much smaller in my shirts without them looking too clingy (I had to get a couple of new shirts because I no longer needed an extra size just for my breasts). Even if I could completely lose my belly, my ribs would stick out further than the holes in my chest. I feel like I look like I'm hunching all the time, which is ugly.

I've actually been thinking about having reconstructive surgery. Not to go back to the 36H that I was before the mastectomies, but maybe back to my pre-pregnancy C cup. I think that would fill in the holes and make two bumps that would stick out further than my rib cage. The thought of having another surgery makes me hesitate though, and my mind gets stuck.

Another, more horrible thing that has happened to me since the surgery is that I've lost most of my emotions. I can still feel love for Aidan and Rita, but I have to work at it. It's almost as if the physical numbness of my body is affecting my brain too. I'm having a terrible time dealing with the fact that no test exists that can tell me that I'm cancer free. All I know is, if I get sick from the cancer coming back, it will be too late to kill it.

I think I began to turn off when I found out that my cancer was HER2 receptive, and then again when my oncologist canceled my chemo last week. Sometimes, a movie will trigger feelings that make me go in and hug and kiss them both, but I watch movies at night, and the rest of my family is long asleep by that time. So Rita and Aidan are not getting their mental and psychological needs met by my contributions simply because they don't know about them. I think Rita has turned off emotionally as well, in order to cope with the possibilities of this situation, and Aidan certainly senses the change in me. Out of the clear, blue sky the other night, when Rita was getting ready to read him his bedtime story, Aidan said, "I wish Mommy was done with her medicine."

I have thirteen Herceptin treatments to go. That comes out to around nine or ten more months of chemo if my oncologist deems it safe to go ahead considering how the Herceptin is affecting my heart. Who knows what's going to happen? I may have to stop the Herceptin treatments before I've finished the course. I don't know what that would do to me psychologically. I've already pictured the evil little cancerous HER2 cells coming out of hiding this past week and trying to "populate the world". Sorry, but even as much as I try, I just can't get that out of my mind. I know I'm not the only person with cancer who thinks about these things.

Our neighbor, Jane, who finished radiation and chemotherapy treatments last year, invited me to be her guest at a Survivors Party. I thanked her, but had to tell her that I wasn't ready. She completely understood. I don't feel like a survivor at this point. I've still got chemotherapy to finish, and I don't feel like I've beat this cancer yet.

The Komen Portland Race For The Cure is coming up on the 23rd. I'm way not up for participating in anything like this right now.

For Rita and Aidan's sake, I'm trying my best to look positive, but I have to say that all those other thoughts are nagging at me in the background of my mind. I may have to look at psychotherapy or some sort of cancer patient support/counseling to teach myself how to deal with these thoughts.

I've been trying to exercise my body a little bit, being aware of my limited heart function. I don't feel like I have to eat that much (hardly at all, now that I think about it), so I am losing a tiny amount of weight.

I apologize for the depressing post. Writing my thoughts down sometimes helps me sort stuff out in my head. We'll see if it helps this time, eh?

Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 14

2007-09-13T09:11:00.000-07:00

My chemo was canceled this week. My oncologist doesn't want to see any edema (swelling in my extremities) at all, and no problems breathing before she lets me do another treatment. She said she doesn't want to take unnecessary chances of permanent heart damage since I still have thirteen treatments to go.

Background: My arms and legs swelled up a couple of weeks ago, and I felt like my heart was beating really fast. I also felt slightly out of breath, even while I was sitting still. We called the advice nurse, and I rested for a weekend. The swelling went down.

A MUGA scan and ultrasound were ordered to see the status of my heart. It was determined that I have decreased heart function due to the Herceptin, but my rhythms are steady. We are hoping the damage is not permanent, but my gut feeling regarding this development is not a good one. I don't think I could make it backpacking at this point, even if we could find someone to take Aidan for a couple of days and went super slow. This really bums me out.

On a more positive note, my hair is growing back quickly. Let me tell you, I look much better with eyebrows! I've also regained some feeling in my fingers and feet. I'm itchy all over though, to the point of it keeping me awake all night. I fall asleep around 3:30-4:00am, which of course, leaves me very tired during the day. I've gone through all sorts of creams and lotions, including prescription ones (even oral Benadryl), and only Gold Bond seems to work decently during the day. For some reason though, night itchies are impervious to any and all topical treatments so I have to use ice packs on my forearms and the back of my neck.

Chuga-chug-chug...

Aidan's First Day of School!

2007-09-12T12:40:00.001-07:00

Yessiree, today was Aidan's first day of school! Boy oh boy, was he excited! He was ready to go about fifteen minutes early, and said, "Well, should we leave to take me to school now?" I'm sure that level of enthusiasm won't last, but I'm enjoying it for the time being.

When it was time for the parents to say goodbye and get out of the way, I said to Aidan, "Have a good day! I'll see you in a while." He smiled and said, "Okay! Bye!", before turning to walk away. "Hey," I said, "Can I have a kiss?" And so he did give me a kiss, with a smile. He is such a happy child.

When I picked him up, he was practically bubbling, telling me about his entire school day. We're all very excited about his school and it's "place-based learning" curriculum. I saw all of the 2nd-6th graders leaving on or coming back from field trips today (I think the 5th & 6th graders went to the river, which is two blocks away), so the teachers are diving right in. The younger kids will have to learn how to stick together in a group before they can go on their field trips, but I expect that to be happening very soon. I've already signed the permission form. Yippee!

2007 Annual Family Camping Trip

2007-08-17T13:49:00.000-07:00

We decided to go to Devils Lake in Lincoln City for our annual camping trip this year. My only criteria was that I could do some fishing without bringing the boat with us. It turned out to be an okay area, except that since it's a state park in the middle of a city, the local teenagers use it as a hangout. I guess if I were their parents, I'd much rather they hang out in the state park in town than be on the streets. In any case, several complaints were made by other campers with small children as they couldn't get them to sleep at night due to the noise coming from the teenagers. I feel sorry for the park ranger. This ranger was a woman and she did her best to be as non-confrontational and nice as one can be when they're confronting someone, but older people especially were quite rude to her. Nope, I wouldn't want her job at all.

I did manage to get a couple of fishing sessions in though. The lake is partially salty due to the connection to the ocean less than a quarter mile away (via "The World's Shortest River), and the state park has a boat dock that is wheelchair accessible that can be fished from. I purposely chose a site that was very near to the dock so I didn't have to walk too far to fish. I got my first really good bite on the second fishing session, but I think those kind of hook grabs are rare. The fish was able to steal the bait or I yanked the hook right out of its mouth. I may have gotten other nibbles, but I can't feel them if/when they happen.

Aidan spent quite a bit of time riding his bike around the loop our tent site was on. He's really good at it now, and we're trying to get him to be confident enough with starting to take off the training wheels. Right now, he just refuses to try to start off without relying on the training wheels. I've bent the training wheels way up so that it's like he doesn't have them there, but he still leans on one wheel to get started. If I take them off before he's ready, he'll stop riding his bike. We know this because that's what happened before. So, I guess we'll just keep trying to teach him how to start off with only one foot.

He pedals very fast because his bike has tiny 12 inch wheels. He also pedals fast because he loves to go fast. You can hear him saying, "Woohoo!", as he takes off..

The walkway to the dock/lake is just to the right of the dumpster in this picture. Very close.

Here he is again, passing our campsite. See how well-balanced he is?

The walkway next the the nose of that Jeep Liberty led to the restrooms.

While waiting for a woman to stop resting on a bench that was near a geocache, we all went down to the beach to walk on the rocks. I was mildly nervous about Aidan running all over the rocks, jumping about from this rock to that rock. So many people are caught off guard and swept off rocks up here. I could just see a sneaker wave coming up and... Never mind.

Aidan loved walking on the rocks so much that he didn't want to leave. So, he took off running to walk on the rocks by himself. Mama had to chase after him, hoping he didn't slip and fall in before she could get to him. Of course, he had to run near the deepest pools...

Here he is again, loving being on the rocks.

Hmmm... How much danger can I get myself into?

Since I spent most of the trip resting inside the tent (and doing crossword puzzles), Mama and Aidan went to the beach on one of the days. Mama finally got Aidan a huge sand toy set so he could build sand castles. (Another thing you're supposed to do at the beach, according to Aidan.)

Mama said that Aidan wouldn't allow her to help build the sand castle or even work on her own, but he did let her get water for him. How nice of him.

They forgot to tell me about this part!

Oh oh!

No, I don't have any idea what he's doing here. When I asked him, he didn't know either.

~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~

Aidan and the Scary Spinny Ride

Rita's work had their annual picnic at Oaks Amusement Park again this year. Aidan couldn't get on the rides fast enough! He went on all the faster kids rides and got tired of the selection. He asked again and again if he could go on the adult rides as we passed each of them. Most of the scarier rides didn't allow people below a certain height, and of course, he's not tall enough yet. But other rides said you had to be "This High" to ride with an adult. So, I foolishly decided to take him on the Rock-O-Plane, which is kind of like a Ferris wheel with caged buckets that spin 360°. What in the heck was I thinking?

The first thing I asked before the operator closed the door was, "Where's the brake?" Of course, it was the huge ring right in front of my face. "You WILL go upside down if you use the brake," he said. Oh lovely! Now what will I do? We're strapped in and Aidan's ready to go. I can't panic now.

I quickly learned to time the brake application so that we didn't go all the way upside down. Oh boy, did this make Aidan mad! He kept yelling, "Let go of the brake! Stop putting on the brake!" Finally, he gave up yelling and decided to reach forward and yank my hand off the brake handle. Since he's so little, I didn't want him to be moving around too much under the strap that held us down in the seat, so I stopped applying the brake. I told him to sit back down. "I'm not putting on the brake! I'm not!" He then said, "It would have been better if I had gone on this ride by myself." We got about two more revolutions before the ride ended, and even though I didn't apply the brakes at all, Aidan was still trying to get the stupid cage to roll upside down.

I think I made it through because I did not look past the cage wall. I did not focus on the world outside of the cage. I did not think about how high up in the air we were. I'm still alive. I did not perish from fright.

~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~

September 12, 2007 - Aidan's First Day of School!

Aidan will be going to Southwest Charter School instead of Maplewood Elementary. The charter school is much more in line with the style of teaching we want Aidan to have. There will be emphasis on nature and community, with lots of field/real world experience.

The Petterson's got him a new backpack for school, and he was jumping around with joy. He's very excited about the whole going-to-school thing. He doesn't know that he probably won't be riding on a school bus, as I'll probably be driving/scootering/walking him to school.

Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 13

2007-08-17T13:31:00.000-07:00

I was working in the heat the other day and came in for a break. I washed up in the bathroom and wet down my head to cool off. When I looked up, my hairs were staying in the same direction my hand had gone over them in! Wow! Cascadading down my back, my long hair is!

Since my hair is growing back, Aidan thinks that I should be bouncing right back to the way I was before. We have to keep reminding him that I'm still getting chemotherapy medicine and I will probably feel a tired for a while longer. Poor kid. How confusing this must be for him.

I seem to be having a delayed reaction to the Herceptin as I'm now experiencing the flu-like side effects. I couldn't figure it out at first, feeling achy all over and wanting to sleep all day long. Then, Rita reminded me that one of the side effects of Herceptin is the flu-like symptoms. Oh! Well, that makes me feel MUCH better!

My numb fingers and feet continue to cause me grief. It's particularly difficult walking on sand, since my feet are basically pieces of meat slapping the ground. I had to stay on the hard-packed stuff in Lincoln City because of this. Standing on ladder rungs (which I'm doing lately to paint the house) is an experience because I can't tell when I'm cutting off the circulation to my feet, so when I go to get down, I have a vague tingling sensation along with the club foot feeling. Never a dull moment, eh?

Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 12

2007-08-02T15:33:00.000-07:00

My hair is beginning to grow back. It's very soft and fine, like baby hair, and it's coming back in salt and pepper. I thought it was going to come back all gray, but so far, it seems to just be picking up where it left off. Now, because the hair is so smooth and soft, my bandana keeps sliding up and off if I don't pull it back down on my head. Wearing a baseball cap is much easier, but when I don't feel like dealing with people calling me "Sir", I wear the bandana. For some reason, a person with no hair anywhere to be seen and wearing a bandana is the universal sign of being in chemotherapy, and people are more apt to open up their eyeballs to see if you're a man or a woman.

Pam and Kyle were here in Portland for two days for one of Dan's drum corps performances in Salem. He's a percussionist with the Concord Blue Devils - B Corps. They had a competition in Washington last week, so Pam and Kyle flew up and stayed with Keith & Lynda in Seattle and then took the train down here for the Salem show. I was very glad to have finally been able to see Dan perform. We had a short, but nice visit.

I think they were the first ones on Rita's side of the family to see me in person since I've been in chemo (no boobs and no hair). Keith saw me a few weeks post-op (no boobs, still had hair).

I'm in the middle of painting the west side of the house. That side gets most of the sun, and it was looking pretty ratty. It's going to take a few coats to get it back to looking decent. We're going with a khaki (which actually looks yellow on the house) instead of the gray. The khaki/yellow brightens things up a bit and will hopefully reflect some of the heat away from that wall. It also matches our red roof better. I'll probably add some variation of forest green or purple trim color to liven things up, and I've also ordered an awning for added sun protection over the front bedroom window. My goal is to have this done by October. I'm okay with doing one whole side of the house a year, but partial sides are not allowed. Lately though, it has been waaay too hot for me to work on that side of the house. Aidan has swim class in the morning, so mornings are out. I have to wait until after dinner for it to be cool enough, and by that time, I'm just plain worn out. I'll just keep plugging along.

Oh yeah, did I mention that because I added a motor to our little inflatable boat, I have to register it? Wonderful. Even if your motor is a tiny rubberband motor, it is a motor nonetheless, and you must register it. Okay, okay. I did. Now, I had to order a special license plate that can be glued to PVC, as the regular stick-on letters/numbers that non-inflatable boats use won't stay stuck, with all that inflating and deflating going on. Hmmm... Maybe I should just have gotten a free regular boat off Craig's List/Freecycle...

We are getting ready to take off for our annual family camping trip. We've decided to see what Devils Lake is like. It sounds interesting as it's a lake that is joined directly to the ocean in a very short distance. It is located in Lincoln City, Oregon, right off Hwy. 101. I'm looking forward to fishing. (Hey now, quit laughing...)

It's My Blog and I'll Whine If I Want To...

2007-07-21T22:07:00.000-07:00

My feet have gone completely numb. I mean the entire bottoms of my feet. It's making it very difficult to walk easily and without thinking about each step. At night, my feet cramp up for hours after I get off them for the day. I'm going to have to bring this up the next time I see my oncologist. My fingers still have the same amount of numbness, no more and no less.

I also ran out of the Decadron, so I'm achy and very, very tired. I'm getting headaches too. These are side-effects of Herceptin, so I guess I'm not as lucky as I thought I might be. I'm probably feeling the side-effects now because they increased the dosage since I'm only getting infusions once every three weeks instead of every other week.

This has been a setback for me. I thought I was going to be able to bounce right back since I was feeling so good right after ending the hardcore chemotherapy. I think it's going to be sporadic. Sometimes I'll feel okay or good, and other times I will feel terrible. I'm trying to improve my diet a little more by cutting down on the sugary stuff. The Decadron (steroid) made my gain a tremendous amount of weight, and I've been crazy craving anything sweet. I dream about desserts. It's awful. I can also eat nearly non-stop, and eat massive amounts of food with no feelings that I'm going to pop or anything like that. The chemo killed my "FULL" switch in addition to everything else.

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Okay, this is sooo cool. I would love to do this in my van. Just drift it all over the track so no one can get by... Ha ha ha!

True Confession

2007-07-14T09:45:00.001-07:00

"I'm at the age where food has taken the place of sex in my life. In fact, I've just had a mirror put over my kitchen table."

- Rodney Dangerfield

Postscript: Sorry Rodney. You're not the only one who has done this...

More Pictures

2007-07-05T22:14:00.000-07:00

Dan's Graduation

Pam sent us some of her pictures, so here are a few more.

Aidan and Keith

Sonia

Joel and Bella

Clan Snodgrass

(From left to right) Dad, Pam, Mom, Kyle, Rita, Keith, Aidan, Sonia, Beatrice, Joel, Karen, Bella and Dan

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Cannon Beach

Here are some shots from our daytrip to Cannon Beach on June 30, 2007. We had to go see Haystack Rock and Aidan had his own agenda for his first beach experience.

Here he is, waiting for the water to come in and wash over his feet. This is the first thing you should do when you go to the beach, according to Aidan.

As you can see, he had a blast standing in the water. He held his pants legs up the entire time.

Even though flying a kite on the beach is about the laziest way a person can do such a thing, Aidan insisted on running with it, which made the kite come crashing to the ground in short order. We let him run with it for a while though, because he informed us that this was the way you fly a kite.

Playing in the sand.

Mama and Aidan walking along the beach. Aidan chatted nearly the whole time they were walking (and we figured out later that we'd ended up walking at least six miles). He had a captive audience and he was going to take advantage of it!

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Aidan's 5th Birthday Dinner At Chevy's

We took Aidan to Chevy's for his birthday dinner this year. They sang him the Chevy's birthday song and gave him a sombrero, which he wears outside on sunny days. The hat does a really good job of shading his entire body.

Yes, that dessert was indeed as large as it looks. And he ate the whole thing, even after eating a cheeseburger and fries for dinner, except for a few bites. Unbelievable...

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July 4th - Willamette River East Bank

We went on our annual bike ride on the Springwater Trail to see the fireworks near Waterfront Park on the Willamette River. The weather was just about perfect for bike riding and sitting by the river.

We headed back about 3 miles to the van around 10:45 PM. Aidan was so tired, he conked out almost immediately after sitting down in the trailer. Rita said she didn't feel as bad as she did last year the day after staying up late for fireworks and biking. We all had a good time, I think.

Getting Back Into The Swing Of Things!

2007-06-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, we took the boats out on the Tualatin. Mama was happy to be in her kayak again, and gave her arms a good workout. I'd forgotten about the new pedestrian bridge celebration/dedication that was being held that day right near the launch. The mayors from different cities in the area were having a kayak race in addition to the Tualatin River Keepers hosting a paddling tour down the river, so it was packed! We weren't going to be catching any fish on this day. We had a good time regardless though, chatting with all the people going by.

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Pictures from Dan's graduation festivities are trickling in, as Mama did not get very many shots of our own.

Congratulations are in order for Dan! Good job! Now, it's off to college with you!

Here's Aidan on the plane, just before taking off for Calnifornia. He said that even though he knows he's been on an airplane before, when he was a baby, this is the first time he will remember being on an airplane.

Sonia

Pam and Dan

Aidan holding Bella

Beatrice

Aidan, Sonia, Beatrice, Isabella and Dan
All five grandkids!

Karen and Bella

Bea and Aidan

Karen, Rita and Pam

Kyle

I love the braid! Sonia, Rita and Aidan

Sonia and Joel

Bea holding Bella

Keith

Oh dear... Either the flash startled him or he just realized he had to use the restroom...

Mommy Time Update

2007-06-17T10:08:00.000-07:00

Well, unlike what my better half may have thought circumstances would be whilst they were gone, all is well here on the home front. Everyone is still alive and thriving, if I may say so. I even saw a Platy fry in the tank yesterday! I got a new batch of radishes in the ground early this morning, and did some cleaning and maintenance in the chicken area. I harvested some radishes and strawberries and will eat them as snacks today. Much to my own surprise, I've eaten out only one time since my family left, and that was mainly because I had gone to Costco to shop for dinner items but forgot my card and was tired and achy and so had to make do with whatever I could find at Fred Meyer. Before Rita and Aidan left, I was kind of looking forward to eating Taco Bell, McDonald's, Arby's and Red Lobster to my heart's content. But I haven't really wanted any of that. Strange...

I'm making boat bunks for the trailer because I quickly tired of pumping the boat up each time I took it out. (I had to deflate the two largest chambers to fit it inside the van.) Those of you who saw that one coming can give yourselves a pat on the back and a gold star. And don't worry, Honey. Even though I can easily get a free boat off Craig's List, I will refrain from doing so because I really don't want to deal with the licensing, extra weight and the larger (way more expensive) motor that will be needed. Besides, our current trailer with boat on top fits nicely INSIDE our garage! Isn't that great? (I KNOW Honey's rolling her eyeballs...)

I must say that if I were depending on fishing to keep me fed, I'd have perished by now. No one ever took me fishing and showed me the basics on how to fish, so everything I'm doing is by my own research and watching a lot of The Fishing Channel on television. It seems to be my latest obsession to actually catch a freshwater fish that is of edible (not aquarium) size. Heck, I'll be jumping up and down with joy if I could catch even a pan fish of some sort.

Yesterday, I went to see Body Worlds 3 at OMSI. Incredible! I really can't get enough of that kind of stuff. My true calling in life was probably to be a general surgeon, but I'll have to settle for studies of this sort whenever I can get access to them. I only spent about 5.5 hours at OMSI, as about four hours into the exhibit, my legs were hurting terribly. Some of the things I found particularly interesting were:

Eyebrows, eyelashes, lips, bellybuttons and in a few cases, facial and head hair were left on whenever possible. For me, this preserved a bit of the individuality of those donors.
All of the males on display, either whole or in part, appear to have been circumcised. This kind of surprised me because a lot of the donors are from Germany and other nearby European areas where circumcision is not as prevalent as it is here in the U.S. Perhaps only circumcised donors were chosen to be included in the U.S. exhibitions because of its greater acceptance here?
I never realised how large our livers were!
A vast majority of the donors were professed Christians.
All of the eyeballs are real. The only part that is replaced with a fake piece is the cornea, which clouds at death.
A large number of the donors were smokers. Even donors who were posed in athletic positions and retained their lungs either inside or outside of their bodies in display had grey or blackened lungs.
The mother camel and baby were fantastic! Being able to see the different stomachs and actual food still in the process of being digested was so educational.

I highly recommend this exhibition to anyone who is not disturbed by the seeing the wonder and fragility of our bodies up close.

I'm So Pitiful...

2007-06-14T14:00:00.000-07:00

Rita and Aidan have not even taken off for Calnifornia (proper pronunciation according to Aidan) yet, and I'm already missing them. This is the first time we, as a family, have been separated for a vacation length of time. Of course, I have all kinds of worst-case-scenarios running through my head, and made Rita promise to call when they land and when they've arrived in Concord.

I'm thinking of all the things I can do and not do while I'm by my ownself for a week. Things I haven't done in years... Stay up all night playing Empire Earth, go fishing at 06:00 or 18:00, stay out on the boat for six hours straight, sleep for two days non-stop, eat at Red Lobster... Oh, my mind is going crazy with ideas. My bone pain has just started up for this cycle and it seems to be coming on with a vengeance. It's good that Aidan will be able to have fun on vacation instead of possibly being stuck at home with me not able to do very much. I do have a ticket for Body Worlds 3 at OMSI this coming Saturday. I'm really looking forward to that! I also have a Herceptin infusion on Monday.

Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 11

2007-06-13T09:57:00.000-07:00

I asked the oncologist who was filling in for Dr. Lycette about how they were going to monitor my HER-2 cell status after the chemotherapy. I was kind of in a daze after hearing the answer. They really have no way of monitoring the cancer cell status after a double mastectomy. All they can do is regular physical exams and blood tests. You cannot feel cancer through a physical exam in the early stages. There is no blood test that can tell if cancer cells are growing. He said they mainly rely on reports from the patient as to how they are feeling, if the person "senses" that something may be wrong, or worst case scenario, actually feels sick. By the time you feel sick, you usually don't have long to live. So, I'm supposed to magically know if or when my cancer comes back so they can begin treatment again. Lovely. I now understand that this is the reason that people may go for years and years thinking their cancer is in remission, but don't know that it has come back and will end up killing them.

My chances are about 93% that the cancerous HER-2 cells have been removed and/or eradicated. This is much better than the 70% chance without the Herceptin chemotherapy. I have to remember this. Being the natural pessimist that I am though, I can't help thinking about the fact that one never knows when you're going to be in that small 7% of people for whom treatment does not work.

Life is short and precious. Don't waste it away or sweat the small stuff. Love, laugh and enjoy everyone and everything around you.

Aidan and I continue to take the boat out at every opportunity. We still have not caught one darn thing. I have hope though. We will keep trying. Aidan is becoming bored with sitting in the boat hour after hour with no bites. Maybe we'll head down to the Willamette just to see if we can get a nibble.

A major selling point for Aidan right now is the new play area at Tualatin Park. We have to play there everytime we take the boat out.

Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 10

2007-06-10T11:25:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd just update everyone on how things are going lately.

I'm kind of getting used to being bald and smooth, smooth, smooth. I have approximately 23 hairs left in total on my body, on my arms and a few on my eyebrows. The rest is all gone. Even my nose hairs. My nose runs when I eat now, because, well, there's nothing to stop anything from falling out of my nose anymore. It's amazing to me how purposeful the hairs on my body were. Because I don't have nose hairs, I have no dust filters, thus partial reasons for my allergies and catching every cold that comes within 15 miles of me. I'm shaving the very top of my head about every week to week and a half now, down from once every three days or so. The sides and entire back of my head is bald. Oh, did I mention how smooth I am? Smoooth. Very smoooth...

The numbness in my fingers and toes seems to be staying fairly steady. It makes it a bit difficult to button things and pick up small items. I never thought about how many bodily functions we take for granted until I didn't have them anymore. I'm really hoping that I regain the feeling in my fingers and toes after the chemo. My oncologist said that it can take six months or longer to begin to feel any nerve rejuvenation, so I won't know how things will pan out for me until the end of the year.

Tomorrow will be my last Taxol treatment. Yippee! After this, I'll be having 1.5 hour long Herceptin infusions every three weeks for another nine months or so. The side effects of the Herceptin are said to be minimal, and I haven't really felt any worse or more side effects from the previous Herceptin treatments. I hope the Herceptin does its job. I wonder how they're going to be able to tell if my cancer has come back or spread or not. I no longer have anything to mammogram. MRI? Ultrasound?

The bone pain from the Taxol and Neupogen seems to be a cumulative thing. It lasts longer and longer each time. I think this last cycle is going to be hard on me. I'm expecting to have the pain for the entire two weeks after the infusion.

Since I'm more able to get up and out of the house like I normally used to, Aidan and I have been taking the inflatable boat out every chance we get. He loves fishing! We have yet to actually catch a fish though. It would be really nice if he could experience that soon. The next big want on my wish list is a portable fish finder. Hey, I figure Aidan and I need all the help we can get. I got us a bigger boat and a bigger motor, which makes being out on the water much more comfortable. I was thinking about making a canopy for it, but we may not need it after all, as I also picked up a little mushroom anchor so now we can anchor in the shade when it gets too hot. It's working well. We were out for about 5 hours last Friday. I found out that the big fish we've been seeing jumping out of the water have been small or large mouth bass. The Tualatin also has crappies and catfish. I don't want to catch a catfish because I don't want to skin it. I can handle filleting up a regular fish, but having to pull something's skin off is a whole different thing. I'm not hungry enough (literally) to be able to just do it because I have to, you know? I probably would have hardly any problems skinning a catfish if it were truly a matter of survival. We could go out on the Willamette and catch something nice and satisfying like a salmon or sturgeon, but they tell us not to eat anything caught in the Willamette, and Aidan wants to bring the fish home to eat. The Tualatin has no such warnings, so I feel okay about eating anything we catch there. Besides, the water in the Willamette is much colder and deeper, and the traffic sometimes makes for some fairly large waves. And if I start going out on the Willamette, I know I'm going to want an even bigger motor. I think we'll stick with the Tualatin for now.

Airbag Deployment

2007-05-26T21:33:00.000-07:00

Aidan started his holiday weekend with a bang...

He had a gnarly front-end accident on his trike and the airbag deployed.

It's a good thing he doesn't mind sending his trike to the shop for repairs. I don't know enough about airbags to replace one...

Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 9

2007-05-24T23:06:00.000-07:00

The steroid (Decadron) my oncology doctor gave me works! It works too well though, because when I stopped taking it after the prescribed five days, the pain came back with a vengeance. I broke down and started taking it again after toughing it out for two days and emailed my doctor. She said try three days of half doses so I can wean myself off the Decadron instead of just cutting my body off. I'm on the second day of half doses now, and it seems to be working. I think the steroid gives me more energy too, so that was a wonderful side effect.

The one negative is that the Taxol is causing me to lose feeling in my fingers and toes. It may spread into my hands and feet, or it may subside. It's different for everyone. I suppose numbness on my torso, hands and feet is a small price to pay when you consider the alternative.

Because I've been feeling so much better with the Decadron, Aidan has perked up and responded as well. He's dry nearly every night now, and it started as soon as I was feeling good and was outside working on projects. It's so great to see him getting back to his happy self. It makes me tear up when I think of how good and thoughtful he has been, at his young age. He is so affected by me. Rita has perked up as well, seeing Aidan and I outside and projects being worked on and things almost like they were before.

Today was a beautiful day, so Aidan and I took our little inflatable boat out on the Tualatin River. We brought lunch and our fishing gear. Aidan loved it. He didn't want to go back even after three hours in the boat. He wanted to keep fishing! The fish were teasing us, jumping completely out of the water just feet from our bow. Big, 1.5 foot long trout! I saw the entire bodies of three fish. Aidan couldn't believe how the fish were jumping out of the water. We had a good day.

Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 8

2007-05-14T21:51:00.000-07:00

Well, I managed to make it through the first four AC (Adriamycin & Cytoxan) treatments. They said they're doing the chemotherapy starting with the worst side effects to the least side effects. But the AC wasn't really that bad for me. I only felt nauseous and never threw up due to the meds they gave me. I was really tired though, and that made it difficult to stay awake enough to watch Aidan.

Today, I got my second T (Taxol) treatment. They told me that hardly anyone feels nauseous on Taxol, but a lot of people have mild bone aches. MILD MY BUTT! This is way worse than the AC side effects. I've got major bone ache all over my body in addition to the Neupogen-induced bone aches. I can't sleep for about five days after the treatment and then it magically goes away. They're trying a steroid on me for five days this time, to see if it will help take the bone ache down a few notches. I sure hope so. The Taxol is supposed to take off any hair you may have left at this point, and sure enough, I'm losing my eyebrows. Good grief!

My cold is finally going away, or the pollen count is falling. Either way (or maybe even both ways), I'm feeling a little better in general. I still have this insane cough that's driving me nuts. I've found that if I take an allergy med along with Tylenol to cut the sinus headache, I don't cough as much. I have to move slowly though, not exerting myself too much, or I'll start coughing uncontrollably again. Grrr!

Gramom came up for a little over two weeks starting April 4th. Gramom and Aidan had a good ol' time together, and I got to rest. I did manage to get out a couple of times with them, but it was difficult. We went to find a geocache in Gabriel Park and got to eat our lunch under the trees in a hail storm! That was pretty fun, at least for me. I think Gramom enjoyed it. Aidan was very cold, so we got him home to some hot chocolate soon after eating.

The one major thing that is keeping me going is the hope that I can go backpacking as soon as I'm able to. I got a new backpack and am doing all I can to go ultralight in other areas. I will be sewing myself a new, ultralight, super-warm quilt (along the lines of an open sleeping bag) while Mama and Aidan are in Concord for Dan's graduation in June. We've got to find someone who is willing to take Aidan for about 3-4 days during the week. This might not be doable however, so I'm willing to settle for a weekend in-and-out trip. Rita has been working out, losing weight and toning up, so we might be pretty well matched this time. I have deteriorated significantly and so will need to tone up myself. I just don't want to leave Rita in the dust again. Sorry Honey! She needs to get lighter gear herself. She's just carrying too much weight, in my opinion. Anyway, I've rambled off track again...

Yesterday, we moved the chickens. It has been way too long. I thing the last time we moved them was last summer. Poor chicken girls! They're not healthy at the moment due to being on the dirt for so long. They are currently spending all day laying and luxuriating in the grass. It's good to see.

I got to set up another aquarium towards the end of my mom's visit. I so enjoy aquariums. I really wish I could get a bigger one or two, but I can't think of a good place to put it other than in the bathroom where the current 10 gallon is. Small tanks are much more difficult to maintain than large ones due the fact that if you get the biology going correctly in a large tank, the water will stabilize, giving the fish a naturally clean environment. Tiny tanks are quite touchy and there's not much room for error. Errors mean dead fish. Oh well. I'll have to be content with sitting on top of the toilet, watching my fish.

Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 7

2007-04-02T08:38:00.000-07:00

I didn't write before because I really haven't felt up to it, and I didn't want to post another depressing entry. Perhaps it will help to get a small amount of frustration off my chest.

The chemo is really beginning to take a toll on me. I've been very fortunate that the anti-nausea medications are working and I've only been slightly nauseous - never to the point of throwing up. I think it's the combination of the Neupogen and allergy/cold symptoms that is getting me down. The Neupogen makes my bones ache horribly, sometimes making it difficult to stand up. The bone pain is deep in my bones, and all over my body. Most of the pain is in my thigh bones. Thankfully, it's not in my joints too. The allergy/cold symptoms are currently being relieved with psudoephridrine and Robitusin. The only pain reliever I can take is acetaminophen because ibuprofen and naproxen kill white blood cells. Needless to say, the acetaminophen does not do a very good job on my pain, but it takes the edge off a little bit.

The loss of my hair is still pretty weird to me. We finally took a walk the other evening, not only to get me out, but to let the neighbors catch up and stay informed on our situation. The lack of hair gets the news out with no words necessary. I have to wear a hat at night sometimes because all my heat leaks out the top of my head and I get pretty cold. The nice thing is that I don't have to trim, shave or cut any hair on my body for a while. I'm fairly smooth all over now!

Aidan seems to be doing okay with everything now. Backing off on the grisly details and simplifying explanations helped a lot. He is using the detailed information we gave him in the beginning, now that he understands it better. It was just too much for him to handle at the start though. Now time is broken into zones - 'Before Mommy Got Sick' and 'When Mommy Is All Done With The Medicine'. We're still working on getting up to pee during the night. He really wants to make progress, but he sleeps really deep. He told us that he did wake up once, but he got scared and so didn't get up to pee. So we told him that he can call us and we will hear him and come as soon as we wake up enough, and that there is a night light in the bathroom so he can see what he's doing. Last night, I got him up around 01:30 and he told me that he had already gotten up and peepee came out. I told him that it was okay and to just try, and after standing there for a few seconds, he said, "See? I told you." I told him it was okay and thanked him for trying anyway and put him back to bed. Apparently, Mama also got him up last night, so the poor guy was out of bed three times. He was still wet this morning, but that's alright. We'll just keep working on it.

Ginny came up for almost two weeks last month. What a lifesaver! I could truly rest, assured that Aidan was being well taken care of and entertained to boot. We so appreciated her planning and cooking meals, cleaning, errand-running, and all of the other myriad of things she did, unbeknownst to us. We definitely wore her out, and she's probably very happy to be at home again, where there is no sickness floating around in the air! Gramom is coming up on Wednesday this week, and I really can't wait! It's such a relief to me to have some help. I already feel like projects are piling up and it'll take me years to catch up on them after my treatments are done, but having family come up and help out is tremendous. Not living closer to any family is the one downfall of living in Portland.

On a more joyful note, Isabella Rose Shaver was born on March 19th, 2007 at 06:47. She weighed 7 pounds, 9 ounces and was 21 inches long. Proud Mommy Karen and Daddy Joel are keeping us all up to date on Bella's growth with plenty of pictures. Rita and Aidan might get to see her in a couple of months when they go down to Concord for Dan's graduation. I'll have to wait a while before I can see her due to the risk of me catching something while traveling. This will be another bright spot I can look forward to though.

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These pictures were taken during our hike at Tryon Creek State Park one day during Ginny's stay. Here I am, post first very short haircut and pre-hair loss.

Ginny took Aidan to the zoo a couple of times. They had a great time there, and got to see a couple of the new exhibits.

Here's Aidan at soccer class. I had him enrolled at the community center so he could get out of the house a bit, and Ginny took him to two of those classes.

This was taken this past weekend. Mama and Aidan got the garden moved, amended and partially planted.

I thought this was funny...

2007-03-27T21:00:00.000-07:00

Hair

2007-03-18T14:31:00.000-07:00

Kathy lost her hair today. Well, it didn’t all fall out at once, but much of it was falling out rapidly, so she went ahead and shaved it all off.

Kathy had her second chemotherapy session on Friday. During that visit, she wound up chatting with a woman who was on her last chemo session. She approached Kathy because, seeing Kathy’s already short hair (she had cut it extra short in anticipation of losing it all), she assumed Kathy was in the growing-back stage. She told Kathy how abrupt and disturbing her hair loss was. She described it as melting off in the shower. We knew that this was coming soon for Kathy as we had read that it takes approximately 14 days from the first chemo session for it to occur. Kathy said she was seeing more and more individual hairs falling out and she pretty much knew that it was going to happen when she showered today. Sure enough, it did. I don’t think that she looks bad at all. I think she looks kind of like Sinead O’Connor – perhaps the Irish in her has given her head a similar “Irish” shape, if there is such a thing.

So far, the effects of chemo have not been anywhere nearly as awful as we expected. They send Kathy home from each session with a big bag of various medicines and very specific instructions for combating nausea. So far, it seems to be working. She mainly feels very tired for several days with only mild nausea. Perhaps the worst side effect she is experiencing is a result of a drug that they have her taking to keep her white blood cell counts high – Neupogen. Since that drug stimulates her bone marrow to produce more white blood cells, it also is making her bones hurt. This time around, they have put her on a lower dose because she responded so well to the last round, so hopefully that will reduce the side effects.

I’m keeping this short since there seems to be a bit of sun outside today. We’ve learned as Portlanders (Portlandites?) that you must take advantage of the sun while it’s here, especially during this time of year. Aidan and I will be outside moving dirt around.

A Brief Update

2007-03-02T16:22:00.000-08:00

Kathy finally started her chemotherapy today. We met with the oncologist briefly this morning and discussed whether or not her ear infection was better (it is, finally) and whether she felt up to starting. We all agreed that it would be okay to go forward. They sent us down to the cafeteria for breakfast (Kathy hadn’t eaten yet because her chemo appointment was scheduled for 11 AM) and then took her in. Aidan and I had planned to go home while she got medicated, but, since this was her first appointment, there were a whole bevy of people dropping by to dump boatloads of information on us. The entire thing took about 3 hours. Right now, we’re just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Kathy says she feels tired, and she did start to feel nauseous a little while ago. But as soon as the nausea started to come on, she took an anti-nausea pill, and thus far, it seems to have helped. It looks like we’re on our way – whoopee?

A Random Thought Bubble

2007-02-28T21:18:00.000-08:00

I was going to write about this way back when it happened, but things got a little hectic. So, here's a little post.

Back in January, the 3rd, to be exact, I ran out of legitimate excuses to give the court and had to go and do my civic duty. I took the bus into town, just like Mama does every morning. She told me to look for a very distinctive looking tall blond and to follow her, because she works at the courthouse. I didn't know if I'd recognize her or not, but sure enough, she got on the 45 just where Rita said she would. Even in this white, white city, this woman stood out from everyone else. She's got to originally be from the East Coast or something. Very classy business attire. Anyway, I kept my eye on her, and followed her off the bus and right up to the courthouse a few blocks away.

I went through the metal detector and the officer behind the x-ray machine asked if he could search my bag. Of course, I said, "Yes," and he proceeded to dig out a cool little tactical knife that I had found while geocaching. I couldn't believe I'd forgotten to take it out of my bag. He told me I could throw it in the trash or take it out of the building. Those were my only two options. Well, gosh darn it, I didn't want to throw it away! It was too nice a knife to just throw in the trash. So, I headed back out the door to think.

As I stepped out onto the sidewalk, I was trying to think of a place I could hide the knife. This is where my geocaching skills came in handy. There was a row of about four newspaper stands in front of the courthouse, a couple of which were free. I looked around to see if anyone was watching and saw only one guy leaning against the courthouse wall having a smoke about 25 feet south of me. Knowing that most people aren't paying any attention to what other people are doing, I pretended to reach in to grab a free paper. While I was in there, I slipped the knife underneath the last paper. I realized later that I'd chosen a paper that was very popular with the younger crowd. Since there were only a few papers left, I didn't expect to see the knife again.

Sitting in the jury waiting area was just as boring as I'd heard it was. I spent the entire time sleeping. Hey, I had to wake up at the crack of dawn to be here on time, so I deserved a rest! Lunch time came along, and I called Rita to tell her about my experience so far, and to add that the zipper on my bag had broken. She offered to bring me another bag. I ate my lunch quickly and she called to tell me where they were parked. I told her I wanted to try to grab my knife so she could take it home and went to see if it was still there. The pile was a couple papers shorter and pretty disheveled, but hidden underneath, now inside the bottom paper, was my knife! I was so pleased with my hiding skills! After trading bags and a walk around one of the many downtown parks, Rita and Aidan left for home and I headed back to the courthouse. It's amazing how quick and easy it is to get through security when you don't have contraband in your bag!

The rest of the day was uneventful. I was called about an hour after we came back from lunch for a jury interview. We each had to grab the mic and tell about ourselves. The judge had given each of us a sheet of paper with all the questions he wanted us to answer in our introductions. This was when I noticed that I was the only stay-at-home-parent in the room. After the lawyers had their chance to interview each of us, the judge gave us our chance to say if we would have difficulty coming back for possibly two more days. Only two of us raised our hands. The other person was a woman who was very newly pregnant and said that she had terrible morning sickness all day long. The judge was sympathetic. I told him that I would be unable to find a sitter for my son after that day.

In the end, the newly pregnant woman and I were, of course, not chosen to serve on the jury. Because there was only about an hour and a half left of the work day, the court decided to let our group go home early.

Now, I'll have two years before my name can possibly come up on the roster again. But wasn't that such a cool thing about the knife hide? I thought so.

Hopeless in Seattle

2007-02-24T12:44:00.000-08:00

Kathy was scheduled to start her chemotherapy yesterday, February 23rd. But over the past two weeks, she managed to get a very painful ear infection. She doesn’t normally get ear infections; in fact, I can’t recall any in the 13 years that we’ve been together. We think that this was a result of her immune system being compromised by the surgery. Since chemotherapy itself can weaken the immune system, they don’t want to start until they’re sure she’s free of the infection. So, her first chemotherapy has been rescheduled to next Friday, March 2nd.

This all started a few weeks ago with a cold. First Aidan had it. He was pretty miserable for a few days and has been slowly making his way back to normal. Then Kathy caught it. It knocked her down pretty thoroughly, but we didn’t really think a whole lot of it since it had hit Aidan so hard. I felt a bit off kilter for a few days myself, but never managed to get completely sick. I told Kathy that I felt like I just couldn’t get sick, so I think that I pretty much willed it away. After about a week of being miserable, it seemed like Kathy was getting better.

We had made plans to go to Seattle last weekend since Keith and Lynda had volunteered to take Aidan while Kathy and I had some time to ourselves. Our first mistake was making hotel reservations via Priceline. We got a good deal on a room, but it was non-refundable. So, since it seemed like Kathy was getting better, we went ahead with our trip. We dropped Aidan off at Keith and Lynda’s Friday night and headed for our hotel. After checking in, we headed for their secure parking garage, where we needed to use our room key to open the gate. I rolled down the window on the Civic to put the key in the slot and then couldn’t get the window to roll all the way back up. After parking the car, we fooled around with the window for about a half an hour and determined that it had come off its tracks. By this point, we were both exhausted and grumpy so we worked together to force the window up enough to feel secure in leaving it overnight. It was all cattywampus, but you couldn’t stick a hand through and unlock the door. Fortunately, this was an underground garage, otherwise, we would have had a very wet car by morning.

Saturday morning, Kathy said she felt a little better, so we headed out for breakfast. Being the true geeks that we are, I had brought along a laptop and surfed the internet (using the free high speed connection in the hotel room) for a place to go. We wound up at CJ’s Eatery in the nearby Belltown neighborhood; Belltown would become my hangout for the rest of the weekend. Kathy had a Strawberry Blintz and I had the special Strawberry Cream Cheese Stuffed French Toast. It was rich and fattening, but yummy. After that, we dropped back by our hotel and got ready to go to the Experience Music Project (EMP) – all of this was within walking distance of our hotel, so we had yet to worry about our wounded Civic in the parking garage. We spent a couple of hours in the EMP and then headed back to our hotel room. This marked the end of our fun outings, as by this point, Kathy’s ear infection had really kicked in. She spent the rest of the weekend in bed in our hotel room. I got out and had a nice sandwich from a small grocery store and deli in Belltown. I also got very familiar with the neighborhood Rite Aid, where, in a couple of separate trips, I purchased cold medicine, a screwdriver, some paper towels, and some duck tape; the latter 3 items being needed to make our window functional enough to get home. I spent most of Saturday afternoon in the parking garage trying to fix the window situation. Once again, the geeky laptop came in handy as I Googled the instructions for disassembling the Civic door. It’s amazing to me just how many people walk right by when you’re taking a car apart in a parking garage. After a couple of hours of fooling with it, I had determined that I wouldn’t be able to get the window back in its tracks, so I finessed it up as good as I could get it; much less cattywampus than what Kathy and I had managed on Friday night; and then Kathy applied the duck tape (clear – who knew!) to the open part. It’s still sitting out in front of the house with duck tape on it as I type this, since Kathy has not felt up to getting it in to the shop this week. Hopefully, we’ll get it in soon.

Saturday night, we ordered pizza delivered to our room and I made another mistake. Once again, I was geeky and used the internet to find and order pizza, but I ordered the wrong thing. This was no small mistake either: this pizza had anchovies on it. Yuck! I could barely stand to be in the same room with it. I’m sorry but fishy things smell and taste revolting to me. I can’t help it. So, I ordered another pizza. Fortunately, this place delivered quickly, so I didn’t starve to death. Kathy ate some of the offending pizza and I ate the good one, both for dinner and breakfast the next day.

Anyhow… to make a very long story… um…. less long, Aidan had a great time at Keith and Lynda’s, so the weekend was not entirely a bust. Kathy is still not up to speed, but hopefully she will be by next Friday. She’s anxious to get started with her chemo. I think that she envisions the cancer growing inside of her body with each passing day, so she wants to get on with this. I can’t blame her. I also want to get going on this. There’s nothing more frustrating than hurry up and wait. In the meantime, I think that this episode has shown us just how vulnerable Kathy is going to be when she’s undergoing chemo, so we’ve agreed that we’re going to be extra cautious – paranoid even - when it comes to getting exposed to any sort of illnesses.

Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 6

2007-02-06T17:50:00.000-08:00

So, I'm using a wide variety of products to deal with this strange nerve sensitivity on my breastbone area. During the day, I use Lanacane, Neosporin and later in the day, Tylenol 3, which keeps the pain down to a dull roar. At least I'm not wanting to strangle anyone. After Rita gets home from work, I get to throw the heavy-duty stuff at it. Vicodin, Gabapentin and Lanacane. My oncologist is hoping it goes away in a week or so, and I hope so too. I don't want to seem like a drug addict and not be able to get any pain meds. The oxycodone actually worked the best at night, but it was kind of scary considering how good it felt.

I have a tight tendon that runs from about mid-breast height under my right arm, through the middle of my armpit, and up the underside of my arm to my elbow. It's so tight that when I put my arm up, you can see it stick out like a guitar string. If I had to put my arm way up real fast, I'd snap it. Yuck. So, I've been working on trying to stretch it out several times throughout the day.

I know. Whine, whine, whine...

I'm in the process of getting my "bag" together. You know how you hear about the bags that people carry with them to chemo? Well, I get to have one now that I'm in the club. So far, I have a new travel neck pillow with a washable cover and a headphone pocket, Apple Sour Altoids to combat the metallic taste from the chemo, my new MP3 player that Rita got me (all loaded with NPR programs and my new CD's that people have given me as gifts), and a couple of books. Knowing me, I'll sleep through the entire treatment... At least I get to eat as much as I want while my treatment is happening. That will be a nice break.

Since the consensus seems to be that most people lose their hair at the 14-day mark, we've decided to cut my hair progressively shorter over a period of a couple of weeks so Aidan will not be too freaked out. Mama will begin reading the cancer/chemo books she got for him pretty soon, so we're trying to prepare him as well as we can without making it seem so weird for him. I don't want him to see patches of hair gone. I think that would scare him. I also don't want to deal with the hair falling out all over the house. So, a two-step cutting process should be a little easier on the both of us. Even though I've always said that I would love to be bald, I didn't mean because I HAD to be bald. Oddly enough, all of this is very strange for me as well as for anyone else around me. It just goes to prove that you really don't know how you're going to react to anything until you're smack in the middle of it. I'm staying loose with myself and will go with the flow. I'll do what I need to do.

Oncologist Appointment Update

2007-02-03T09:34:00.000-08:00

I know folks have been looking for an update, and I apologize for taking so long. It’s been an exhausting week for us, since I returned to work on Monday. Kathy is tired out from the mere effort of providing basic stay-alive care for herself and Aidan, and I am tired from taking on the rest of the household duties that Kathy is not up to handling. Kathy has been trying to find a way to deal with her surgery pain without being knocked out and hasn’t had much success. I think that Kathy’s pain, more than anything else, has made this a very difficult week.

We had our first visit with the oncologist on Wednesday. The results of that visit are pretty much what we expected. Kathy will start chemotherapy on the 23rd. The chemotherapy regimen that the oncologist has prescribed is called AC/T (which stands for Adriamycin/Cytoxan/Taxol) + Herceptin. She will be taking the AC part every other week for the first 8 weeks, followed by 8 weeks (again, on a bi-weekly basis) of Taxol and Herceptin, followed by another 9 months of just Herceptin once every 3 weeks. It just so happens (or maybe it’s designed such) that the AC part has the worst side effects, followed by Taxol having less and then Herceptin having the least side effects of all.

We found out a little bit more about Kathy’s specific condition, HER2 receptive cancer. As we knew, HER2 receptive cancer is more aggressive than cancer that is fed by hormones (estrogen and/or progesterone). What we didn’t know is that, because her cancer is not at all fed by hormones, and because she is relatively young, that makes it even worse. Now that I’ve scared everyone, let me follow this by giving some statistics (from the oncologist). If Kathy were to stop her treatment now and just rely on the surgery as a cure, her chances of a reoccurrence are 30%. If she were to just undergo the AC/T part of her therapy, that goes down to 14%. Adding in Herceptin brings down the chances to 7%. This is why we have chosen to do chemotherapy, even though we do have the option of turning it down. We feel that the timing of this has been pretty lucky as it turns out that Herceptin treatment has just recently, late last year in fact, been approved for her circumstance; early stage cancer that has not metastasized.

Aidan is still dealing with this okay, as far as we can tell. He’s most certainly not unaffected, as evidenced by his continued inability to make it through the night dry on most nights and by his renewed habit of finger sucking (though that’s only an occasional thing). But all in all, I think that he’s handling this, and hopefully we’re handing him, as well as can be expected.

I hope I’ve covered all the bases with this post, but feel free to comment, e-mail or call if you have questions.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

2007-01-30T20:44:00.000-08:00

Santa gave Aidan a compilation book of all of the Curious George stories for the winter holiday. It was one of those last minute things that Santa picked up on a whim when he was shopping in Costco. In amongst all of the other holiday stuff, it got put aside on a shelf. About a week ago, I pulled it out and told Aidan we should read some of the stories. Well, after the first one, he was hooked. We’ve now read the entire book, all of the Curious George stories, at least three times and he’s not sick of it yet. He even carries the book around the house so that he can look at the pictures throughout the day. I should mention that he already had some Curious George books that Aunt Karen and Uncle Joel gave to him a couple of years ago, and he really liked those, but those were abridged versions of the stories. The new book has the complete originals.

I loved Curious George too, so reading the stories has been kind of fun – well, at least the first time through it was. What’s been interesting to me is just how much politically incorrect material is in those books, by today’s standards. In the original Curious George story, the man in the yellow hat kidnaps Curious George from the jungle in Africa and brings him to “the city” (the country is not specified) to live in the zoo. This is a no-no by today’s standards. Another thing that is common throughout the stories is smoking. Many of the adult males are smoking in the book; the man in the yellow hat smokes a pipe, George steals the jail keys from a guard who stops to light his pipe, and the scientists in the rocket story are smoking cigars. In one story, George even lights up a pipe himself! George does all sorts of things that I have to warn Aidan away from – and I’m not talking about the “curious” things that George does, just normal elements of the story. For instance, George winds up performing in the circus after some people see him doing tricks on his bike. They stop and invite him to get into the car with them and he does. “Aidan, don’t do that.” I’ve had to say, “Don’t get into a car with strangers like that”.

All of that aside, Aidan is enthralled with the pictures and the stories. I’ve used some of the “incorrect” material as a jumping off point for discussion, so it’s not all bad. I read these stories as a kid and so far I’ve managed to avoid stealing animals from the jungle, smoking pipes, and getting into cars with strangers, so I think it will be okay.

The "For Dummies" Version

2007-01-26T16:52:00.000-08:00

For those of you who have plowed through Kathy’s explanation in Journal 5, here is a “For Dummies” summary, as I (Rita) see it.

We had our follow up visit with the doctor on Wednesday, the 24th. Kathy has healed well from the surgery and she is free to resume normal activities within her comfort level. The surgeon went over the results of the oncology report with us and we had an opportunity to ask a few questions.

Going into the surgery, we were told that Kathy had DCIS, Ductal Carcinoma In Situ, with a micro invasion. This assessment was based on the biopsy. What it meant is that the cancer was confined to her milk ducts, with a microscopic amount having invaded outside of the ducts. However, as a result of the surgery they found that there was much more of an invasion outside of the milk ducts than they had identified previously. Thus, her diagnosis is now Stage I Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. What they found outside of her ducts was a tumor, approximately 1 cm in size. They also did what they call a “Sentinal Node Biopsy” during her surgery to assess whether or not the cancer was beginning to spread via her lymph nodes. The news on that front was very good. They tested two lymph nodes and both were negative for cancer.

The subsequent oncology tests were to determine what sort of “receptor status” her cancer has. “Receptor status” refers to assessing what it is that is feeding the cancer. This information is then used to determine, what, if any, follow up treatment will be needed. To put it very simply, if they determine that the cancer is living off of Twinkies, for instance, they cut off the Twinkie supply. In Kathy’s case, she tested negative for Estrogen and Progesterone and positive for something that they call HER2:

HER2 stands for Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2. HER2 is a gene that helps control how cells grow, divide and repair themselves. The HER2 gene directs the production of special proteins, called HER2 receptors.

Each healthy breast cell contains 2 copies of the HER2 gene, which helps normal cells grow. Sometimes a cell may have too many copies of the HER2 gene, which may lead to too much HER2 protein. Too much HER2 protein may play an important role in turning a normal cell into a cancer cell and in how aggressive the cancer may be.

Women with breast cancer that have too much HER2 protein on the outside of the cell (HER2 protein overexpression) may be less likely to respond to certain treatments.
(http://www.herceptin.com/herceptin/patient/testing/her2.jsp)

So, on the one hand, it’s good that they know what this beast eats, but on the other hand it’s not so good since HER2 positive cancers are considered to be much more aggressive than those that are fed by hormones. But we already had an inkling that her cancer was aggressive since she went from zero cancer to a half a breast full in the space of two years.

We don’t know for certain what her treatment is going to be since we have yet to meet with the oncologist, but based upon a bit of Googling and on what her surgeon told us, we can surmise that she will be treated with a combination of Herceptin, which is a special drug meant to starve HER2 positive cancer cells, and several other, more general, chemotherapy drugs. As far as I can tell, the reason for this treatment is not because they have any cause to believe that they didn’t get all of the cancer surgically, rather it is to ensure that any cells that might have escaped are killed. My completely unscientific, but not entirely baseless, assessment of her prognosis is that it is good. Because they caught this in time and because it has not invaded her lymph nodes, it is very treatable. I may have to change that assessment after we meet with the oncologist next week, but for now, I remain very optimistic.

I’m going back to work on Monday since Kathy is now pretty much able to function on her own. She does still get tired pretty easily, but she can take care of her own and Aidan’s basic needs and she can stay awake all day. I don’t want to burn up all of my sick time since I really don’t know how the chemotherapy thing is going to work out.

I want to second Kathy in thanking everyone for their support. Even though most of you are distant, your calls, e-mails, offers of support and good thoughts have been very much appreciated. Thank you!

Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 5

2007-01-26T12:00:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Today, I had my follow-up appointment with Dr. Morris. We had her go over the pathology report and the two subsequent updates with us again, as I was really fuzzy when she called the first time around and didn't remember enough to know where I stood for sure. I also asked for printouts of all three reports for our reference. I will summarize the reports below, in a separate section of this post.

I had taken off each of the two long pieces of tape that were going from mid-breast area to under my arms earlier, in the shower. Dr. Morris took off the other two pieces that went from my the center of my chest to mid-breast area. The incisions themselves are numb, so all of that went without a hitch. The only problem was that the tape parts from its adhesive as you pull it off, so I was left with double stick tape stripes across my chest, which my undershirt promptly glued itself to. Rita gently rubbed the sticky strips with cotton balls and isopropyl alcohol, and quite a bit of the adhesive and permanent marker came off. A lot of what makes the incision look so yucky is the permanent marker, in my opinion, so I'll be glad when we can get the last of that stuff off in addition to the tape adhesive.

I'm healing well, as Dr. Morris verified, and I noticed a second occurrence of marked improvement in the way I felt. The scar where she went in to take the lymph nodes is nearly completely healed, and is a light pink in color with not too much cording. I'm pleased with the looks of that little scar. I don't know if you remember me mentioning that the area of my breastbone hurt, even just by the air, making wearing a necklace unbearable. I just noticed that I inherited my dad's barrel chest, so instead of only my tummy getting rubbed by my shirt, my breastbone was now being rubbed continuously because the two big buffers that had been protecting it all these years were gone! In addition, my right side incision ends right at my breastbone, so it too is being rubbed by whatever garment I'm wearing. Dr. Morris explained that there are areas of skin that are now being exposed to touch that normally were not, so with all the manipulation and cutting, I would have to assist my nerves and skin to become desensitized. She brought up massage and gentle rubbing! I'm glad I got a well-informed surgeon. So far, Kaiser has been stellar in its procedures and support, and I feel that I'm in good hands.

Dr. Morris agreed that I should begin my stretching exercises and was cleared to lift as much as was comfortable for me. It's not hard to go easy on myself in that regard because if I push the current limit, my body lets me know with a good, sharp pain right away. We went shopping at Value Village and I lifted Aidan into the cart with no problem. The only time I notice pain is if I try to lift anything, even if it's light, too far out from my body.

I have lost over ten pounds since the surgery, which is good, and to my surprise, hardly any of it was breast weight! I'm beginning to look more like my old self, only a little more flat-chested. Just as I thought, my belly sticks out quite a bit now that it can't be camouflaged by the formerly huge breast areas, and I do think it'll be there for a good while longer. Belly fat just doesn't magically disappear. So yes, I am losing weight, you just can't tell.

.~. .~ ~. .~ ~. .~ ~. .~ ~. .~ ~. .~ ~. .~ ~. .~ ~. .~ ~. .~.

Pathology Report

1. Sentinel Node #1 [Excision]:

Negative for malignancy

THIS IS GOOD
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

2. Right Axillary Tissue [Excision]:

One lymph node, negative for malignancy

THIS IS GOOD
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

3. Right Breast [Total Mastectomy]:

Invasive ductal carcinoma, no special type
Size of invasive carcinoma: Main tumor is 1 cm in greatest dimension
Additional microfoci of invasive tumor arise from extensive DCIS
Microfocal invasive tumor is 8 mm from the deep margin
No apparent vascular/lymphatic space invasion by tumor seen
Extensive high grade cribriform ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is present
DCIS is greater than 25% of the main tumor mass and extends beyond the main invasive component, with additional microfoci of invasion
DCIS is 10 mm from the deep margin of excision
Scant microcalcifications are present
Hormone receptors ordered on Block 3C
Pathologic Stage T1C

THIS IS NOT GOOD
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

4. Left Breast Tissue [Total Mastectomy]

Fibrocystic change, negative for malignancy

THIS IS GOOD

<=========================>

Immunohistochemistry Report

Estrogen Receptor: Negative (0%)
Progesterone Receptor: Negative (0%)
HER-2/neu (c-erbB-2): Positive / Strongly overexpressed (3+) - Referred for FISH

Immunostaining for HER-2/neu overexpression is interpreted as follows:

Not Overexpressed

0 = Negative: No staining, or membrane staining in <10%
1+ = Negative: Faint membrane staining in >10% of tumor cells, membranes not completely stained

Overexpressed

2+ = Weak Positive: Weak to moderate complete membrane staining in >10% of tumor cells
3+ = Strong Positive: Strong complete membrane staining in >10% of tumor cells

THIS IS SOMEWHAT GOOD

I had only 2/3 negatives, which is better than being a triple negative. If you're a triple negative, they don't have anything specific to shoot at (cancer food is unknown), so you will end up with a general kill-all chemotherapy approach in treatment.

<=========================>

Cytogenetic Results Report

FISH Results:

Positive HER-2 Oncogene Amplification detected by FISH analysis

The ratio of HER-2 to CEP17 is 10.0

Interpretation and Comments:

The FISH assay revealed amplification of the HER-2 oncogene. A ratio of >2.0 is considered to indicate amplification.

The FISH test results are simply verifying that I have a strong HER-2 oncogene receptor status. They know what my cancer is feeding off of and therefore can take more precise aim at it.

<=========================>

Probable Treatment

http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic3287.htm

HER-2/neu identifies patients with a poor prognosis. These patients are likely to respond to treatment with trastuzumab (Herceptin).

From what Rita is reading, because my cancer was caught early and is now classified as Stage I, she feels that my prognosis may be better.

Dr. Morris said that Oncology would probably suggest Adjuvant therapy. Adjuvant therapy is used after local treatment to kill any cancer cells that may have escaped from the breast and spread to other parts of a woman’s body. Adjuvant therapy includes chemotherapy, hormone therapy and biological therapy.

I will update you on the treatment route when we have a clear plan on paper.

.~. .~ ~. .~ ~. .~ ~. .~ ~. .~ ~. .~ ~. .~ ~. .~ ~. .~ ~. .~.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Aidan has been quickly coming over to look at my chest every chance he gets, but he makes a squeamish look every time. Rita said he even looked away when we were at the doctor's office. He says it doesn't bother him, but we think it does. He's begun sucking his hands and fingers and doing all sorts of things for nearly non-stop attention in addition to the nightly bed wetting. This is just too much for him, even though he's saying he wants to look and know. We've decided that when Rita goes back to work on Monday, we will no longer talk about my condition in front of him. If we need to discuss or update each other, he will just have to learn that we need a little bit of private time to talk. We've already begun to make it seem as much like it was before my cancer was discovered, and he has only asked me how I'm doing once. Rita is ordering some books aimed at children under six years of age that are stories about parents who have cancer. She has asked him if he would like to hear some stories about how other kids deal with this sort of thing, and he said he definitely would. We will go over what might happen when I start chemotherapy when I get closer to that point, so he doesn't feel like he was left out of the loop. But we are no longer going to go into the kind of detail he's saying he wants, because frankly, I don't think a four year old can handle this kind of stuff at all. Heck, I'm having a hard enough time myself, and I'm, well, you already know how much older I am than he is...

We went down to try to register him for school, but they're not accepting papers until after February 5th. So, he and I will go down after the 5th and get him registered. I haven't told him yet, but he'll be happy to find out that he does indeed get to ride the bus to and from school! I can't believe how fast he's growing up. He shot up over an inch and a whole shoe size in the past two months.

Update (Friday - 01/26/07):

Aidan woke up dry this morning! Last night, Mama and I were watching a movie and he climbed up into my lap. I was able to let him, for the first time since the surgery, and he fell asleep with his arms wrapped tightly around my forearm. I moved him to let Mama get a pillow under my arm about half an hour later, and he woke up enough to say (with eyes closed), "I'm just a little tired." "I know," I said. "It's okay." And he went back to sleep. Hopefully, he's feeling a little more secure about me and can stay "on track", as he says.

A Couple Of Pictures

2007-01-23T07:40:00.000-08:00

These are a couple of pictures that got lost in the chaos and never got posted.

This is us at the Oregon Zoo for the annual ZooLights - December 2006

Click Here for some interesting commentary on Flying Reindeer studies, featuring my favorite bull elk at the Oregon Zoo.

Dad Snodgrass caught the next two shots when we were in Concord for the Thanksgiving weekend. I thought they were good pictures.

Love this one of Aidan and Sonia. These two are inseparable and get along so great.

Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 4

2007-01-22T23:45:00.000-08:00

Okay people! I'm back on the psych meds (since Saturday), so I won't be so gloomy. I don't know why I stopped taking them. I feel much more emotionally stable now. Whew!

Pain management changes about every two days, it seems. I'm currently trying to get the medications arranged so that I'm not very uncomfortable during the day, but not falling asleep either. I need to be awake all day for Aidan starting next week. I'm saving the heavy duty relief for nighttime. I was quite uncomfortable last night and didn't sleep much at all. It now hurts to have pillows underneath my arms and I'm feeling like I need to roll over on my side, but that hurts too. I finally ended up getting bits of sleep by hugging a regular size pillow to keep my shoulders evenly spaced apart and then leaning slightly towards my back instead of laying directly on my side.

I got to take my first shower yesterday (Sunday, the 21st)! It took me an hour. Good thing we have a large water heater, eh? It was bizarre. Because I'm numb in some areas and tingly in others, it feels like you're touching someone else's body and then sticking bunches of pins into your own body. This tingly thing is pretty bad. I can't stand to have anything rubbing my skin now. So, loose clothes are out and I'm able to wear my post-op camisole. I feel slightly more secure. I'm jumpy as all get out about anything hitting or touching my chest. It's way worse than the belly-guarding thing you do when you're pregnant. This is more of a psychological fear that everything is going to hurt. This is what is causing part of my nauseous feeling. Having the shoulder belt pressing against my chest in the car is yucky too. We got one of those soft pad things that you put on the shoulder strap. This brings the belt out off my chest a little, but causes a lot of pressure that isn't comfortable. So I'll have to hold the belt out with my hand for now. Oh! Maybe I could put one of the handy dandy squishy pillows that Diane brought me down near the shoulder belt buckle receiver. Those little pillows were quite useful for supporting my arms in the beginning, so now I can use them as spacers. Thank you again, Diane! I told Rita that I wished we still had our MX chest protectors. I would feel sooo much better if I could just wear the front piece (open back).

I do know that I'll need to start exercising in earnest now, especially after the chemo/radiation therapy. Exercise that is not related to something else (like sports or games) has always gone against my grain, but I'm going to have to make a lot of changes. Do you think McDonald's food causes/feeds cancer? Shoot. I've already gotten down to having McDonald's once every month and a half or so...

We've gone down the first drop on this ride and now we're clank, clank, clanking up the next hill.
Wii!
(Oh wait. That's the game system. Hey, maybe I should get one of those to help me want to jump around and get exercise? Hmmm...)

Current Schedule
Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - Follow-up with Dr. Morris
Monday, January 29, 2007 - Rita returns to work
Wednesday, January 31, 2007 - Oncology Consultation

Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 3

2007-01-20T00:47:00.000-08:00

Dr. Morris called to update me on Thursday regarding the results of the pathology tests that were done during and after the surgery. The good news is that no cancer was found on my left side, and the cancer had not spread to the two lymph nodes she took out from my right side. The not-so-good news is that she found a tumor that was larger than anyone was expecting in the right breast, and that receptor tests showed that the cancer growth is not hormonally fed. Lovely. I have a truly evil cancer that grows (and quickly at that) simply because it can. It doesn't need any support from me to grow and spread its ugly self around. This means that Oncology is probably going to recommend chemotherapy to try to kill this thing.

I still hurt more than I ever expected to after this much time. I felt uncomfortable asking for a second prescription for oxycodone even though I think the doctors are fine with giving me another round. The tightness across my chest is maddening. For some strange reason, my chest hurts directly in the middle of my breast bone. It hurts to breathe. True to my findings on the web while reading discussion boards on BreastCancer.org and other sites, doctors are probably not even aware that massage can help relieve a little of the tightness caused by cording that people feel after a mastectomy. (Cording is the massive scarring that happens as your body tries to heal at and around the incision sites.) Therefore, massage is never even brought up. It's something that mastectomy patients must seek out and find for themselves. I don't understand why such a huge issue is completely ignored by Western medicine. It's very frustrating.

I'm feeling a serious need to talk to someone for emotional support. It bothers me that as much as Rita wants to try to be an emotional support for me, and as much as I feel that I should be able to feel completely satisfied with her support, it's just not enough. It's the old, "You can't understand and therefore fully and properly support me because you don't know what I'm feeling." I hate that. Rita is my rock. Usually, she can fix everything, either all by herself or by suggesting a route that I should take. I'm finding so much relief from reading the discussion boards. Discussion boards that are made up of people I don't know at all and will probably never meet in person. But these people have been through or are going through the exact same things I am. They're feeling the exact same feelings that I am. Rita is so great. She knows she can't give me what I need in this case, and she's encouraging me to pursue therapy. I love her so much.

I can't stop thinking about how fast my Gran's cancer killed her. Someone said it seemed as if the more they tried to treat her, the madder and worse the cancer got. I've asked Wendi if she could find out what kind of cancer Gran had. The information probably won't help with my cancer, but I just need to know.

Aidan hasn't had a dry night in over a week. I asked him if he thought he was bothered by my operation and my sickness. He said he thought so. He checks on me several times a day, all on his own. "Mommy, how are you doing?" "I'm doing okay, Sweetie. Thank you for checking on me." I told him that I really appreciated him checking on me, and it helps me feel better when he does. I explained that we all need to work together as a family to get through this thing. It will be easier on all of us if we work as a team to get me well. He feels better being fully involved, but I can tell that he's trying to be more of a man than he's ready to be. He's trying to fix things, and it's just too much for a little guy of his age. It makes me all teary when I see him trying to think of ways to help me get better. It's just not fair to him at all.

I'm trying to exercise and wean off the pain meds because Rita's going to have to save some time off work for when I'm going through chemo or radiation. We might have to put Aidan in day care. We definitely can't afford preschool. I don't know how we'll dig up the money for day care either, but I guess you figure stuff out when you have to. This is going to be a tough year for all of us. I keep pushing myself too hard, and setting myself back in bed for two days afterwards. This is no good. I'm unbelievably weak. I'm nauseous most of the time, and I really don't think I'm supposed to be.

I got my drains out today. Oh, actually, it was yesterday. I just noticed that it's 01:35, Saturday morning. I had to write something down while I could, as I haven't wanted to do much of anything since I got home from the hospital. My left side has always been the most painful side since the operation, and when the nurse pulled out the drain, I thought I was going to pass out. I was not ready for the amount of pain I felt. After all, the nurse said that at most, it would be a little uncomfortable, a little weird feeling when the drain was pulled out. This was verified by quite a few women on the discussion boards. I think part of the problem was that my body had started to heal the drain in place, and when the nurse pulled it out, it basically ripped everything open again. Another factor is probably the extreme amount of bruising I have on that side. The left drain never cleared from bloody to even less bloody. It was bloody the whole time. That was the first pain I felt as I came out of anesthesia. A horrible, burning pain on my left side. Maybe that's how it feels to be shot with a gun. They say it burns. I went into an immediate cold sweat and adreniline rush. The nurse told me to do two deep breathing rounds before she did it, but the pain was worse than labor. I was still doing my deep breathing for a good thirty seconds after she was done, and she was telling me that it was out, but I could barely talk. I think I stiffened up pretty good too, because I heard her tell me to relax my arm. I still can't take a shower until the drain wounds close up. Maybe Sunday or Monday. We'll have to look each time we change my dressings.

That's another thing. Usually, I have no problems with feeling squeamish about stuff. But now, I'm squeamish about almost everything! Pictures, programs on the Discovery Channel, certain foods and smells. Just about anything can get me feeling pretty darn nauseous. I can barely look at my chest. I know I need to massage the incisions to try to relieve the tightness, but I'm having a hard time. I think Rita might have to help me do the massage.

I apologize for such a horrendously negative post. I need to get it out in a public forum though. I'm going to join a discussion board and actually post to it instead of reading anonymously. This is turning out to be so much more emotionally difficult than I ever thought it would be, and I feel like I'm failing miserably at handling it all.

I want to thank all of you so much for sending your love, thoughts, prayers, letters, phone messages, flowers, plants, cards, dinners, and even backup pain medications when we were snowed in! Some of you have just been sounding boards for Rita and I, or given us rides to get out of our snow-bound neighborhood, or offering to take Aidan for a few hours. I love all of you for all those things. All of it has been and is still so very much appreciated and has brightened our spirits.

Caregiver Diary - 1 Week Later

2007-01-18T08:29:00.000-08:00

It’s been one week since Kathy’s bi-lateral mastectomy. She came home from the hospital on Friday the 12th; the day after her surgery. So far, her recovery is going well. She’s alternately laid around all day doing nothing on some days and pushed herself too hard on others. Though being the designated caretaker of both her and Aidan has been a bit tiring, it really hasn’t involved a whole lot of minute to minute interaction on my part. I spend most of my day just hanging around with Aidan while periodically checking in with Kathy to see if she needs anything. The most tiring thing for both of us has been taking care of personal care issues. Kathy can’t take a shower yet because she has drain tubes coming out of her body. So for her upper body, we must very gingerly wash her with a washcloth. The whole process of removing clothing and washing is painful for her. The good news is, the drains should be coming out tomorrow so Kathy may get to rejoice in her first full shower after that.

We’ve been pretty well trapped in the neighborhood for the past couple of days as Portland was hit with the biggest snow storm of the year on Tuesday. We got about 5” of snow in our yard. Aidan and I attempted to do a little sledding and build a snowman, but this snow was too fluffy for either. It fell apart when we tried to make snowballs and it piled up in front of our disk-sled, so we couldn’t get going. Since Aidan had his heart set on making a snowman, we did build a really pathetic one in place in the front yard. It consisted of a small ball on the bottom – about 10” high, and an even smaller sculpted head on top, complete with carrot nose, rock eyes and a grin made out of a twig. Probably the most exciting thing we got to see as a result of the snow storm was the 45 Garden Home bus and two cars in a ditch around the corner from our street. For some reason, Tri-Met (our local transit agency) decided not to chain up and not to go on snow routes that day. Garden home is a very windy, hilly road and it is usually amongst the first to be bypassed at even a hint of snow or ice.

Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 2

2006-12-30T00:47:00.001-08:00

December 21, 2006

I went by myself to have the stereotactic biopsy done, as they only do a local anesthesia. It wasn't too terrible. A little weird maybe, having to lay on a table with a hole in the middle for your boob to hang down through. Instead of one big core sample, they take many "spaghetti" samples. The needle is guided by x-ray imaging directly to a computer. This way, the doctor can be very precise in getting the samples. Since it was so close to Christmas, the lab results would take a day or two longer than usual to get back. At the time, I was fine with that. I would enjoy the holiday with my family and then go talk with a surgeon. No problem. The only thing that really bothered me was the way everyone smiled that sympathetic smile. You know, like you're going to die or something. Yes, I know I could die sooner than originally planned, but I have to focus on the positive things. I've heard that some people who are told they have a small amount of time left to live will become very depressed and negative, and this type of emotional state can actually accelerate the disease.

I thought I was handling all of this quite well. Rita and I thought both of us were handling all of this quite well. We were wrong. We were experiencing the emotional exhaustion of the annulment of our marriage all over again, only more intense. I didn't go anywhere for almost the entire next week. Aidan and I built a lot of LEGO stuff and watched a ton of movies. My poor little guy. He's so good. My mood affects his mood, so Aidan was emotionally stressed as well. It seemed like forever for it to be the 29th. We needed to find out what was going to happen, for all of our sakes, and soon.

December 29, 2006

Krag came over to stay with Aidan while Rita and I went to the consultation with the surgeon. Because of the holiday delay, we still didn't know exactly what we were looking at. The surgeon, Dr. Amy Morris, is a brand new mother and about my age. She explained in detail the type of cancer I had and what my treatment options were. Grade II Micro-Invasive DCIS (Ductal Carcinoma In Situ). Even though it had started to become invasive (Grade III), the cancer had been caught at the earliest stage possible. The prognosis seemed to be good at this point. Since Rita and I had been discussing this and doing research for weeks prior, we had a good understanding of the different types and stages, and of the treatments that were available. We had also decided what course we wanted to take. Surgery is scheduled for January 11, 2007. I will be having a Modified Radical Bilateral Mastectomy. Hopefully, I will not need chemotherapy. We won't know for sure if I will need additional radiation and/or hormonal treatments until the pathologist does more testing during the surgery to determine what my hormone receptor status is.

I asked Aidan if he wanted to know what was going on, and of course, he did. So I told him about the sickness I had in my breasts and that there wasn't any medicine that could make it go away. So, I was going to have an operation and the doctor was going to take the sick parts away. I explained that my chest would be flat, like his was. He was visibly relieved to finally know what was going on. It's like a huge load has been lifted from all three of us. We know we're not out of the woods yet, but at least we found a flashlight and can see where we're going, and what we're dealing with.

After dinner, we were watching a bit of television and Aidan wanted to look at and feel my breast. He had seen the bandages before on the right side, where I had the biopsy done. He said to me, "It's fat." I asked him if it was soft and he said it was. Then he turned around and told Mama, "It's fat and soft!" He was smiling. So, we know he's mulling all of this over in his mind and he will ask questions as they come up. This is good. My guy will be alright.

Hang on tight! Here we go!

Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 1

2006-12-29T23:07:00.000-08:00

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Even though there's a good chance that a cancer caught early enough can be treated successfully, I have to admit that I'm having a difficult time not thinking about the possibility of treatment or surgery failing to stop the growth.

It's so surreal. I don't feel sick. I'm trying to seriously believe that this is really happening, but I don't feel like I'm having much luck doing so.

And Aidan. My baby. I have no words. I don't want him to hurt or be scared. He knows something is going on, and that whatever it is isn't a good and happy thing. Rita and I are waiting until we know for sure where we stand before we tell Aidan.

In 1977, a family friend named Serge Sviatzki, who was an iridologist, read my eyes. I remember quite a few things he mentioned noticing, including what he called a "drug spot" which was most probably a buildup of OTC pain reliever. He also said that he saw some cancer on my right side, but that I wouldn't have to worry about it until much later. "Something would trigger it," he continued, "something like a blow or a fall on your right side." Think what you want, but I find it to be quite telling of the accuracy of alternative medicine and gentle diagnosis techniques.

On October 13th, 2006, I went in for my annual checkup. We were heading up to Seattle to visit with Keith and Lynda and the girls for the weekend afterwards. Thinking back, my first clue was noticing that JoEllen was spending a lot of time on my right side breast exam. She finished with the physical and we discussed maintenance that still needed to be taken care of. I had skipped last year's mammogram, so it had been two years since having my first mammogram. I was due. JoEllen said, "Just go over to Mammography and make an appointment so you won't forget. Really. It won't take long. Don't leave the building until you've scheduled an appointment." Well, okay. My appointment was at 4:00 PM, so it was about 4:45 PM by the time I got out. We had decided to eat dinner before getting on the freeway, and Rita was getting a little impatient as she wanted to get on the road as soon as possible so we weren't arriving in Seattle after 10:00 PM. I told her what JoEllen had said about not leaving the building until I'd made a mammogram appointment. So, we headed off across the building to make my appointment and we were soon on our way to dinner and a nice weekend in Seattle.

My mammogram was scheduled for December 2nd, a Saturday. Everything was pretty routine until the technician came back in from reviewing the films she'd gotten and said that she needed to get two more shots of the right side. "Oh, okay," I said. "Did I move?" "No," she said. "I see something on your right side and I want to get a couple more views of the area." I asked if a couple of the lumps had changed from the last mammogram. "No," she replied, "I see something that was not there at all at your last mammogram." "At all?" I asked. "None of what I'm seeing was there last time," she said. Oh. Well, I've always had lumpy breasts, and people have stuff show up all the time in mammograms that don't turn out to be of any concern at all. Right? I really didn't think much of it, but it was at this point that I remembered the extra time JoEllen had spent on my right side. The statistics are 1 in 8 women will get breast cancer. I told myself it would be okay. Everything would work out fine.

On Wednesday or Thursday of the next week, I got a phone call. It was Kaiser Mammography and they said I needed to go in for a second mammogram at Kaiser Interstate South, where they had a more sensitive machine. The doctor saw something suspicious, the nurse told me, and these are the dates and times that are available. Which one would work for me? Wow. Okay. Now I'm feeling a little concerned. They're rushing me in. They don't rush you in for routine stuff. They rush you in for serious stuff. Like cancer. Like fast growing cancer. After the nurse told me what the general procedure would be, she told me to "wait there for the results". I accepted the December 14th slot at 3:00 PM.

On the 14th, Aidan and I picked up Mama from work and we headed out for Interstate South. The check-in receptionist was too kind. There was sort of an over-abundance of gentleness floating around this place. It made me feel funny. Rita and Aidan waited in the waiting area and got bagels and cream cheese because they were so hungry. This was taking longer than I thought it would. After the new films had been taken of my right breast, the technician put them up on the light board and I could see what they were seeing. It was plain as day. Whatever it was was spread throughout my entire breast. Deep breath. The technician was gone a long time after taking the films to the doctor for immediate review. Another nurse came back in and took me back to the changing area so I could get dressed. She waited for me to finish. Then, she led me to an office. "The doctor will be in shortly, okay?" Um, okay... This was beginning to get kind of scary. When the doctor came in, it was clear to me that this was serious. I had a huge buildup of calcium deposits. She explained that calcium deposits were normal, but not in this quantity and this much could mean that cells are rapidly changing, leaving calcium deposits like tiny footprints. Great. I had a bunch of cancer cell poop in my breast. She was so concerned because this had grown so rapidly. It had gone from non-existence to a very large invasion in a maximum period of two years. She had taken the liberty of scheduling a stereotactic biopsy on December 21st and a consultation with a surgeon on the 29th. A surgeon? Now I knew that I was probably going to have a mastectomy. I had seen my mammography films. They weren't being overly cautious. I went out to meet Rita and Aidan. Rita knew the results. We had both known all along. This visit merely verified things. Rita spotted one of her coworkers. The woman came over. She was dealing with something serious that I can't remember because I was sort of in a light fog at the moment. She asked what the diagnosis was, like she knew why we were there. That's when Rita and I figured out that Interstate South was where Kaiser handled the really serious stuff.

More Aidan Pictures

2006-11-30T23:49:00.000-08:00

Aunt Pam did another photo shoot with Aidan while we were down there for Thanksgiving. She somehow manages to get some really great pictures of Aidan. I think it helps that she has a really nice camera. All I ever get is fake, somewhat lack-luster smiles with semi-closed eyes and listening to him saying, "Cheese!" over and over again until I take the picture.

L.R.S.D. - My Favorite Street Beat Drum Corps!

2006-11-30T11:29:00.000-08:00

My favorite entry in any parade is the Last Regiment of Syncopated Drummers. I would be happy walking along side them during a parade just to hear all their performances. They practice under the east end of the Morrison Bridge to the delight of anyone who happens to be in the area.

Be sure to listen to a song or two (click on the title of this blog entry), and crank up the volume on those speakers!

I can't get enough of those drums!

Thanksgiving 2006

2006-11-26T19:20:00.000-08:00

Beatrice

Sonia

Just got back last night from a week in Concord. We all had a really nice time, and got to see LouLou in pre-birthday mode (about five months along). We probably won't get to meet her in person until we go down for Dan's graduation in June. By that time, LouLou will be around three months old. Karen reminded us all that pictures would not need to be taken, as all Snodgrass grandchildren baby pictures are simply recycled by changing the name titles... Yes, we already know what LouLou looks like.

Karen and LouLou At Five Months

Aidan

Dan, Keith and Aidan

Aidan

Bess

Keith and Lynda were kind enough to take Aidan for a while, allowing Rita and I to eat lunch and geocache on Lime Ridge. It was a nice break for us. Here is a picture of Rita and her newly svelt body.

Cute! Cute! Cute!

2006-11-06T21:01:00.000-08:00

Okay. These little LEGO people are the cutest play people I've ever seen!

Gramom got Aidan the LEGO 40-person Community Workers set. Aidan was literally jumping up and down, he was so excited. Then, he couldn't stop talking about all the people and hats and helmets and bikes and wheels and motorcycles and how their hands can move around so they can hold onto stuff. He didn't eat his dinner. Not even the usual "cookie for dessert" enticement was working tonight. He was waaay too excited. He washed up and ran back downstairs to put some more people together.

These little people have all kinds of tools and equipment, communication devices, ATV's and bicycles, helmets (with both clear and tinted shields), hats of all sorts, several types of hair styles and interchangeable pants and bodies, of course. There are police, firefighters, pedestrians, EMT's and doctors, pilots, foremen, construction workers, food service people, dogs, city inspectors, sanitary engineers, auto mechanics, business people and even a scuba diver! How cool is that?

T H A N K

Y O U

G R A M O M !

Gettin' Into The Big Boy LEGO's!

2006-11-01T23:29:00.000-08:00

Gramom got the LEGO Gear Grinders set for Aidan and boy, was he excited! He chose a car from Level One to build first off. Then, he followed the instructions and got all the pieces correctly positioned and put together. He did so well!

Here are pictures of Aidan and the first, second and third LEGO vehicles that he built immediately after receiving Gramom's present.

Halloween 2006

2006-11-01T00:47:00.000-08:00

For about four months, Aidan has been saying that he wanted to be a witch for Halloween. Well, okay. I found a real nice velvet zip-front hooded jacket by Anne Klein at Value Village for $6.99 and made him a hat and wand.

Abra-kadabra, alla-kazam... [Poof!]

Everyone loved Aidan's costume!

Battening Down The Hatches...

2006-10-30T19:19:00.000-08:00

Well, nothing really huge has been happening lately around here. We've been working on getting things buttoned up for winter.

I was able to get a 12x10 barn-style shed for free off Craig's List, and we put that up a few weekends ago. All of the stuff that was stacked up around the outside of the house fits in the shed, and we also gained more space in the garage by moving some of Aidan's larger toys.

The chicken coop has been redesigned and rebuilt, and the large pen has been reduced to a 4x3 raised feeding station. I picked up a few large pieces of lattice fencing, also for free off of Craig's List, that I'm using to fence in the chicken area. The lattice fencing looks a lot better than the wire stuff I was using before. I don't think the chicken girls really care too much for the lattice though, because they sprint past it to get to the welded wire fencing and when they do stop by the lattice fencing, they feel as though they have to look through each individual lattice hole. Perhaps that's why they don't like it - it's exhausting to have to look through 3,000 lattice holes each time you walk by... Silly chickens!

Keith and Lynda and the girls stopped by for a short visit with us before heading off to the coast on September 9th.

We all had a great time and Aidan and Sonia were inseparable. Their personalities and age difference is a perfect mesh at this point in time and they just have a ball together.

Bess came along with them and she got to stare at the squirrels in our trees to her heart's content. She has got to be one of the cleanest dogs I've ever met besides Chris Vasquez's dog, Shadow. It almost makes Rita and I want a dog. We know ourselves too well though, and we wouldn't take our dog out enough. We'll just stick to more independent animals, like chickens and cats. Anyway, later on, we took Bess to the Gabriel Park Off-Leash Area so she could socialize, but she wasn't that thrilled about hanging out with a bunch of strangers. She doesn't like having her butt sniffed, and I don't blame her.

Poor Bess. It's a rough world out there.

It was our turn to visit them in Seattle on the weekend of October 14th. We were finally able to watch Beatrice and Sonia in action as they each had soccer games on Saturday.

We left Friday afternoon after picking up Mama from work and then going to have my annual checkup. We had dinner at Togo's before hitting the road. Of course, I remembered to pack everything except the camera, so Keith was kind enough to send us some pictures from the weekend.

Mama and Aidan carved the pumpkins last Saturday. Aidan wanted his little round pumpkin to have a cat face. He drew such a realistic kitty face, but it was too small to carve out. So I drew a carvable one on the opposite side of his cat face and everyone was happy with the result. I drew a simple skull face on the large pumpkin so Mama could be done with it fairly quickly.

Gramom Catches A Big One!

2006-09-02T14:22:00.000-07:00

I just received these pictures of Gramom's record catch in Kentucky last week. Yes, that's a 14 inch big-mouth bass she landed. Nice catch, Gramom!

She also caught two other smaller bass they kept for dinner. Other fish included in the day's catch were two catfish and three small blue gills.

(I'm still a little freaked out by the thought of my mom fishing and having a blast doing it. It's like knowing that your mom likes to base jump or something like that... Well, okay. Maybe not that extreme, but it's still kinda weird.)

Aidan got all excited after seeing these pictures and said that we should go fishing so he could eat his fish.
I said, "I thought you didn't like fish."
He said, "I don't?"
"Well, every time Mama makes my favorite tuna casserole, you make a face and never eat any of it at all."
"Oh," he said. "I was probably full. I want to try a fish that I caught to see if I like it."
"Okay."
"Do you think I will catch a big fish like Gramom?"
"No, I don't think so. We have little trout fish where we will go fishing. Big ones like the one Gramom caught are hard to find."
"Oh. Well, I still want to try to catch a fish and taste it."
"Okay."

Aunty Kathy said, "You can be truthful and tell Aidan that only if you come to Aunty Kathy and Uncle Pete's house can you catch a fish like Gramom!" Hmmm... I think Aunty Kathy is trying to make life difficult for us until we get our butts out there to visit them. We're working on it! We're working on it!

Yum! Now I'm wanting some fish for dinner too!

The Wrecking Crew

2006-09-01T22:15:00.000-07:00

Rita put on her MP3 player and headphones last weekend and disappeared to the northwest quarter fairly early in the morning. I just let her go because she was making great progress cleaning up the hedge trimmings from two summers ago, and she had already torn out the old attic ladder that was in the way of the new cabinet I was planning to slide into that spot. (BTW, those same hedges are again, exactly the same height they were before we trimmed them. We give up.) The stuff was very dry (Can you say, f-i-r-e-h-a-z-a-r-d?), so she was able to just snap all the small stuff off the larger trunks with her hands. She filled a couple of kraft yard waste sacks in addition to the yard waste can, and piled the trunks in the carport for me to cut into firewood lengths. She got all of it cleared and we can actually see ground again in that quadrant.

She was resting with a glass of her super potent iced tea and I said, "Great job! You're having such a productive weekend, you should tear down that firewood wall." You know what? She did! We got Aidan in there too, trying to punch holes in the drywall. Yesiree, it was quite a productive weekend.

After that, Mama and Aidan went inside and made dinner. What a team!

Remember when I lost the bottle of wormer and the syringe?

I finally found it.

I had put it in the freezer door for some strange reason. In fact, it was in the door on the top shelf, directly under the spot it normally sits in on top of the fridge. It's a good thing the bottle was not full, as it would have exploded when it froze.

Well, I can tell you that I am very relieved in knowing that I won't have to buy another bottle of wormer.

Second Annual Family Camping Trip

2006-08-11T20:37:00.000-07:00

Our family camping trip this year was to the Snoqualmie Pass area in Washington. We stayed for five days at the Denny Creek Campground and geocached all around the Snoqualmie Pass and the Iron Horse Trail.

The reason we chose this area was because we wanted to find a Project APE cache on the west side of the Snoqualmie Tunnel. This cache is one of only about three Project APE caches left in the world, so we had to get it before it disappeared. (Project APE is a series of caches placed in 2001 in conjunction with the movie, "Planet of the Apes" by 20th Century Fox. Click here to read more about these special caches.)

The big "hurdle" that needed to be dealt with in finding this cache was that you had to go through the Snoqualmie Tunnel, which is 2.3 miles long and pitch black inside. We were kind of afraid of how we would all react to being in total darkness for about an hour, but we were also quite excited at the challenge. We planned and planned and planned some more to try to make this as pleasant a trip as possible for us. We decided to take the bikes and the trailer because if we walked 2.3 miles in the dark at Aidan's normal pace, we'd be in there all day.

It was a trip riding a bicycle in complete and utter darkness! When you can't see anything around you to focus on, it's kind of difficult to balance. I got somewhat accustomed to it after about a mile or so, but I have to say that the combination of my horrible balance in the first place, our slick street tires and pulling a trailer (no matter how light it was), made the entire two trips on the gravel path a little less than carefree for me. Rita said she had no problems at all once her eyes acclimated, so she rode in front of me and warned of wet gravel and waterfalls. It was quite an experience!

This tunnel is called "The Tunnel Of Light", I'm assuming because you can see the other end of the tunnel when you're inside of it. It looks like a small speck of light, truly making me grateful to reach "the light at the end of the tunnel". You can see the west end speck in the picture of me with the bike and trailer. You can also see how very dark it is inside. (Note: All pictures taken inside the tunnel were seriously manipulated with PhotoShop to make them perceptible. The camera flash just wasn't powerful enough to cut through the darkness.) We were about 3/4 way through, heading towards the east end when this picture was taken. In fact, we had just gotten one of the two caches that are hidden inside the tunnel. We came back the next day to look for the other one because I hadn't remembered to figure out the distance from an end of the tunnel to the cache. GPS receivers obviously don't work in there (funny, but cell phones DO), so you have to convert your GPS coordinates to feet, miles, steps, etc. I figured in miles and used my bike computer to tic them off. I was pretty proud of myself for getting us almost right on the spot!

Aidan would get very quiet during the rides through the tunnel. I would keep calling him to see if he was doing alright, and it would take a really long time for him to answer. When we stopped for the last cache in the middle of the tunnel, I saw why he had delayed responses. The darkness had put him to sleep! He was looking at the pictures from the trip last night and we were discussing how he was sleeping on that bumpy ride through the tunnel. He said, "It was a very long tunnel! I got tired!" So my worries about Aidan not liking the total darkness were all for naught. He just saw it as an opportunity to take a nap!

Rita took a picture of Aidan and I with the Project APE cache. Is that not the biggest ammo can you've ever seen? It's amazing that it has remained un-muggled for so long considering its size and where/how it is hidden. It took us a long time to go through everything in there. The can was not full, but there were at least six gallon sized ziplocks in there. There were also lots of travel bugs since this is a favorite place for geocachers to leave them. They know the travel bugs will be picked up soon, and possibly travel a great distance from this spot because people from all over the world come to find this cache and will take the bugs with them on their travels home. We were glad we got to experience the "Mission 9: Tunnel Of Light" cache and the Snoqualmie Tunnel.

I liked this spot on the South Snoqualmie River. The water is so clear and clean from being filtered through miles of stones.

Here we are after finding the "Asahel Curtis Cache". You can see how big the trees were here.

I thought this was a good picture of Rita. She wouldn't take a drink until I stopped trying to take a picture, and I wouldn't stop trying to take a picture until she gave me a good shot.

I won.

This was actually kind of a non-posed picture since I just called out to Rita and Aidan as they were sitting and talking.

Aidan rides his trike EVERYWHERE.

We were glad we brought it with us on our camping trip because he rode and rode and rode, all in our camp parking spot. I took him out to pedal around part of the campground to give him a workout.

Here he is, climbing.

Again.

He's in the "I want to practice balancing at every possible opportunity" phase, which makes even the shortest of hikes or walks turn into exhaustingly long ones. He was proud that he made some significant progress on this trip.

In the silly department, we were our usual silly selves and we snapped a couple pictures of bits of our silliness.

Below, you will notice that we discovered a wonderful specimen of "Belly Button Tree". These rare trees were previously thought to be extinct. However, with perserverence and tenacity only the silliest people can maintain, we believe we will make the history books with this jewel of a find! Here, Aidan demonstrates the similarities of the two belly buttons.

Being dedicated re-enactors, we pride ourselves on our skills in reproducing scenes from history in the greatest of detail and attention to authenticity.

Here, Rita and Aidan re-enact an important moment of discovery: Someone in some exploration party (like the one Lewis and Clark had), way back when, discover the southern end of the Snoqualmie River. Impressive, isn't it?

Aidan had a couple of firsts on this trip. To the left, you can see his first attempt at taking a picture. This was his best shot yet, as most of the time, he completely covers the lens.

He also roasted his first marshmallows over the campfire on this trip. He was very excited to know that we would let him do his own this year, and watched me make our custom marshmallow sticks out of wire coat hangers.

In my opinion, you really can't call what Aidan does to his marshmallows, "roasting". Some people like their marshmallows with a crispy outer shell, and other people like their marshmallows soft and golden browned only. Aidan likes his marshmallows, um, raw. He had fits and got upset that 1) I intentionally caught my marshmallow on fire, 2) sometimes the marshmallows accidentally caught on fire, and 3) how on earth Rita and I could possibly bring ourselves to actually EAT a marshmallow that had caught on fire. He insisted on quickly waving his marshmallow about a foot above the fire pit and then saying that it was done and, "can't you see the golden brown on it", after which he would eat his pitifully pale, powdery, RAW marshmallow.

Don't you hate it when...

...You misplace something important and/or expensive, and there is absolutely no doubt as to who did the misplacing and when?

...The thing that has been misplaced is something you always put away in the same place - except for this one, last time?

This has happened to me. Again.

This time, I wormed the cats and then the chickens. I put the bottle of wormer in its ziplock bag along with the syringe I use to administer it with. Normally, the wormer and the flea control stuff goes on top of the fridge, out of reach of curious hands. I always put the items right back after finishing each respective job.

Now, only the flea control stuff is on top of the fridge. No wormer to be seen. It's not like it's a tiny little thing that is easily lost. It's about a 4 ounce sized white bottle, in a 1 pint ziplock bag with a syringe. How can I possibly misplace that? I've looked EVERYWHERE. Neither Rita nor I can find it. It's to the point now where, we've been looking in all the same places for so long, we wouldn't be able to actually see it even if we did find it, you know?

Oh, this is SO irritating...

Aidan Hits The Big O-Four And Other Long-Overdue Update Tidbits...

2006-07-16T14:09:00.000-07:00

Hello Folks,

Sorry for the large amount of time between updates. To make it up to you, this will be a super-humongous-mega-gigantic update. Hope you've all got broadband!

Grandma and Grandpa Snodgrass came up the weekend of June 23rd for an early fourth birthday celebration. Aidan had been counting down the days until their arrival and was so excited when they finally got here! He showed them how he could drive his truck really fast now (I took the speed limiter off) and how he could spin it out. Grandpa ran up and down the street snapping pictures and helping Aidan out of ditches that he'd managed to spin into.

On Saturday, we all went to Oaks Amusement Park, which is just across the Willamette from us. The first thing we HAD to do was of course, drive in a go kart race. I like driving the karts at Oaks because the doubles are slightly faster than the singles, so Aidan and I always have a pretty good chance of passing other cars. The doubles do start out slower than the singles however, so even though we had the third from pole position, we ended up in fourth place by the time the whole pack was on the track. Well, on this day, Aidan and I had a stellar run, passing all three singles that were in front of us and taking first place by a huge margin! That's a picture of us in first place on our last lap. It's so funny because a few of the men who are always in the front of every pack do not like being passed by a double at all! I guess it's the closest some of us grown-ups can get to serious racing. I love it. I wish I could afford to race real racing karts. What a kick that would be!

Aidan wanted to go down the big slide all by himself this time. For some reason, the parent who is most afraid of heights (me) gets nominated to take him down the big slide every time. So, I got us two blankets and we started up the long climb. Before we got too far, Aidan was turning around, wanting to carry his own blanket up the stairs. Oh good grief! Alright then. I gave him his blanket and he happily continued up to the top. When we got there, I decided to put him in the center track so he couldn't try to grab the sides in an attempt to slow himself down. I could just picture him trying to grab the sides so hard that he tipped himself over... I asked him if he was ready. He had the biggest grin on his face when he said, "Yes!" So I helped him inch himself forward to go down the slide.

Throughout this whole thing, I had forgotten to tell him what to do when he got down to the bottom. Mama, Grandma and Grandpa said he stood up and was looking all around. Mama went in for the rescue and escorted him out the gate. He felt really good about being able to go all by himself!

The next ride he chose to go on was the roller coaster. It's a kids coaster, but it's pretty fun. Aidan's goal is to ride the whole thing with his hands up. He tried this time, but I couldn't get the lap bar to go down far enough, so I spent the entire ride holding him in the car because he kept bouncing so far off the seat. But he gave it a good shot and managed to keep his arms up for almost all of the first drop.

Grandpa got this shot of Aidan on the Frog Jump ride. I don't know why he likes this one (it only gently goes up and down), but he does.

On Sunday, we all took it easy and hung out at home. The weather was quite toasty and so we put water in Aidan's blow-up slide pool. The first splash is always the coldest!

Of course, Aidan got to have a captive audience all day long and tried to entertain by being silly. I guess it worked.

After a simple hamburgers and salad dinner, we had cake and ice cream and Aidan opened presents.

It was starting to get really hot during the next week, so I was closing up the house and using our portable A/C unit to try to cool the kitchen area a little bit. When I do this, I close up the bedroom doors so the A/C doesn't have to work so hard. This means the kitties have to sleep in the living room. I put them both onto the chaise and they didn't move. I took this picture of them because before SEH died, Attie and Ziggy did not get along at all and would not even tolerate being touched by each other. Now, they're all they have, so they're both becoming a bit nicer towards each other. Yes, Attie's back feet are actually touching Ziggy's tail and no one is growling or hissing!

Last month, we got to take Elijah (right) and Lukas (left) on their first geocache hunt in a wilderness park area near their house. I think the boys really enjoyed the "treasure hunt". I'd like to take them again sometime, if their mom, Mia doesn't hate geocaching too much.

The big party happened on July 1st. We had three other kids in Aidan's age group and three who were not, plus the parents. It was quite a large gathering for us, but we think everyone had a decent time. I'll just post the pictures with minimal commentary for your viewing enjoyment.

Aidan, Luke and Eli wearing their medals after the treasure hunt game.

Tracy and Krag's son, Henry, who will be one year old in August.

Juli and Bill.

Juli and Bill's son, Austin.

Juli and Bill's daughter, Juli.

Diane and Glenn, Nancy's mommy and daddy.

Mia, Eli and Luke's mommy.

I thought this was a good picture of Eli, Mia's son.

Luke, Eli and Aidan eating double-double-chocolate-chocolate cake. Mmmm! Our favorite kind! I don't think you can get more chocolate into a cake than this one had.

Aidan, Nancy, Eli and Luke.

A couple of days later, Aidan received a package from Aunt Karen and Uncle Joel. Aidan was jumping up and down and saying over and over again, "Spencer and Toby and Terrence! I love these!" Um, do you think he liked them, or what?

On July 4th, we took our 2nd annual waterfront bike ride to watch the fireworks. Aidan was really looking forward to seeing the fireworks this year. He wasn't going to be scared this time. We were all so tired from riding around for about four hours, but there was no way Mama and I were going to get away with going home before the fireworks started. So, we found a nice spot next to the OMSI building and watched the whole show. As usual, we all had a good time, no matter how tired we were the next day.

We went to try to find a geocache called, "Bring Some Bread" on the next weekend. The cache is in sort of a ditch that turns into riverbank, just on the other side of an apartment complex parking lot. There are lots of nutria who live here and they're all very used to taking food from people because the people who live in the apartments make sure they're never lacking something to eat.

It was kind of scary at first when the nutria realized that we had food, they all come up to you at once. I don't think they can see very well though, because they would put their front paws on our legs and stand up, sniffing for the food. We had to put the food right in front of their mouths before they could get it. If you tossed the food so that it landed even very near them, they didn't see it at all. I loved it when they would stand on my shoes and stretch up my legs to sniff for more food. Their paws were so soft. Wet, but soft!

Mama refused to feed them. I think she was a little freaked out by these huge rat-like creatures with giant front teeth. They were sooo gentle though! They would very gingerly and gently take the food from your fingers. They didn't even snatch the food, like most animals would if they're wary of people.

Aidan had a ball feeding the nutria. We never did find the cache, but we found the reason for the cache title.

Mama found a well-made Sunny Patch shovel and rake for Aidan. Now, he doesn't have to fill his wheelbarrow using his hands. Here he is, filling his wheelbarrow from the pile of wood chips/mulch that we had delivered for free by one of the electric company's tree trimmer trucks.

True Confessions

2006-06-08T12:36:00.000-07:00

Finally. Someone else who has the same problem as me...

Portland Rose Festival

2006-06-04T22:15:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, we thought that since Aidan is a Portland native, he should experience a couple of the many Portland staple events, the Rose Festival at Waterfront Village and Starlight Parade. The Starlight Parade is an after-dark parade that begins at 8:30. It's really great to see all the lights. This year, they had a pirate theme going and made the festival very family oriented. Being the huge pirate fans that we are, we had to go see the two tall ships that sailed in on Thursday. One of the ships was the "Lady Washington", most recently seen in the movie, "Pirates of the Caribbean - Curse of the Black Pearl" (one of my all-time favorite movies). The other ship was the "Hawaiian Chieftain", a steel hulled representation of trading vessels common to the Hawaiian Islands in the late 1700's and early 1800's.

The most thrilling part for Aidan was finally being tall enough to go on about three of the rides. He doesn't really want to go on the kiddie rides anymore. Our guy needs waaay more excitement please, and he can go by himself, thank you very much.

Here are a couple more shots I got of Aidan having a ball on the rides.

Devon & Thai Are Married!

2006-06-01T16:07:00.000-07:00

On May 28, 2006, Devon and Thai were married. It was such a nice wedding and things went so well. Thai is beautiful, and I'm still in shock that Devon is all grown up. Here are a few photos. I found out that my camera died on me and so I hardly got any pictures at all. These were all I could salvage. I hope someone can send me some good pictures...

Three Generations

Greg Lee, Devon Ward and Richard Lee

(Greg Lee - My mom's younger brother / Devon Ward - My sister's son / Richard Lee - My mom's father)

Vicky Lee, Katherine Lee and Richard Lee

(Vicky Lee - My Uncle Greg's wife / Katherine Lee - My mom's mother / Richard Lee - My mom's father)

The Young Family

(From center to right) Thaiying Sun / Linda Marie Young - Thai's mother

Getting Better At Drawing

2006-05-07T20:41:00.000-07:00

"Caterpillar" by Aidan K.S.W. - 05/04/06

And a happy one, at that!

"Our Golden Van" by Aidan K.S.W. - 05/07/06

No title needed on this one. Who wouldn't know that this was a picture of our bean-shaped van?

"The Black Car" by Aidan K.S.W. - 05/07/06
Note the aerodynamic front end with headlights and the single door. Looks just like our Civic Coupe to me...

Yesterday, we were so sick of cleaning and working in the yard that we just took off for a half-day hike at Powell Butte. We haven't done that in a while, well, since last summer, and we had a great time. There are about six geocaches in this park, as it's huge, so we looked for four of them and managed to find two. We used a phone-a-friend on the last one because we knew we were looking at the hiding spot but could not find the cache for anything. We called Gramom and she looked up the cache for us. Just our luck. It was temporarily unavailable. According to the cache owner's note, it should have been put back well before that day but I guess they hadn't done it yet. All in all, we had a real good hike and found two great caches stuffed full of stuff.

This picture was taken on the butte, where there are markers pointing to all the mountains and places that can be seen from this site.

This is another part of the butte, near a book cache. For some reason, almost the entire top of the butte is covered in a layer of these rounded stones. Of course, people feel the need to make piles of stones all over the place and we were no exception. Here, Aidan is doing his part in adding to one of the larger piles.

Nature Boy Chicken Farmer

2006-04-26T17:31:00.000-07:00

[sigh]

Aidan refused to put clothes on this afternoon. I just got tired of arguing with him about it and let him be.

He didn't finish his apple, so I told him to give the rest to the chickens. He said, "I can't go outside with no clothes on..." "Then go put on the clothes I left for you on your bed," I replied.

I guess he decided that he could indeed go outside with no clothes on.

The Tomato Cage Solution

2006-04-23T15:27:00.000-07:00

We turned around to install the tomato cages today, and when we looked back again, Aidan had installed a tomato cage on himself. He said, "I'm a tomato plant!" As parents, we immediately saw another useful aspect of what Aidan had done. We finally had a way to keep him in one spot for more than a few minutes!

Boy, looking at this picture reminded me that it has been a really long time since I was able to fit inside of a tomato cage...

We've been watching a pair of eagles sitting on their two eggs lately. It's quite interesting to see how they interact with each other, working in shifts. They each have their own personality that comes through on camera. There is a forum where people around the world who are watching this pair can chat, ask questions and make comments about the eagles. The female is larger than the male and has "big hair". The male always looks neat and put together, like he washed up and slicked his hair down before doing his shift. He also is constantly cleaning the nest, rearranging the lining to get it just right. The female is a very vocal gal. If you hear an eagle, it's most probably her, sitting on the eggs, talking to herself. I think the eggs are due to hatch ("catch" in Aidan speak) in a couple of days. Here's the link if you'd like to watch too.
http://www.infotecbusinesssystems.com/wildlife/

It's Springtime!

2006-04-22T19:23:00.000-07:00

Today was a beautiful day! Aidan and Mama went to the store and got some tomato starts and flowers for the bed in the front yard. Of course, Aidan wanted to help, and to him right now, to help means to do it all by yourself. In fact, it now really does take us FOREVER to get anything done because he has to do it himself. We must do some extensive planning ahead if we have to be anywhere at a certain time. Oh, and on top of it all, you have to make sure he tries to go pee pee before you go... If you make the grave mistake of helping him to hurry things along, he gets really upset and has to start all over. So then you haven't saved any time at all. He also says, as Mama and I are taking a break, "Well, I'm not going to rest. I'm just going to get the job done." Okay! Gooo to it!

This is how you plant a tomato plant (just in case you didn't know how yet).

First, you dig a hole where you want the tomato plant to grow.

Then, you pour the baby plant out of the container.

Now you have to loosen up the roots.

After you get the baby plant out, you have to drop it into the hole.

Next, you fill in the hole with the dirt that you dug out.

Then you can pat, pat, pat the dirt around the baby tomato plant. Kind of like when Mama tucks you in at bedtime...

Finally, you water the plants with a [1/4 filled due to weight-carrying limitations] watering can to give them a drink.

Now you know how.

Swim Class

2006-04-07T13:36:00.000-07:00

We've been enrolling Aidan in swim classes. He's doing well, once the first-day-new-teacher fear goes away. Also, he was so cold during his first swim class, he was shivering terribly and his lips were blue. So, I got him a wetsuit. Now he's much warmer in class and can concentrate on the activities instead of shivering. Another plus to your kid wearing a wetsuit is that it's super easy to keep track of them.

I took these pictures on Wednesday because I wanted to show you all how cute he looks in his shorty wetsuit. One more thing I'd like to point out is for you to notice Aidan's mouth position in the picture of the kids sitting on the side of the pool. Open. Wide open. This kind of smile/laugh looks great and really wins people over most of the time, but an open mouth is definitely a hindrance in effective swimming. It's like the mouth turns into a scoop on the front of a tractor, and well, you can guess what happens next. He not only laughs with his mouth wide open, he cringes/retreats with his mouth wide open too. Case in point:

Needless to say, he swallows quite a bit of water during most classes, especially when there is any sort of splashing going on.

Alright. Enough commentary. On to the pictures!

Aidan Gets His Banana Split

2006-04-01T22:33:00.000-08:00

We are so proud! Remember we were going to lock ourselves in the kitchen for as long as it took to potty train Aidan? Well, that was on Sunday. Monday, it seemed as if we'd accomplished nothing in the nauseatingly tiring six hour potty boot camp. But Tuesday, oh that was a different story. Aidan started sitting on his potty chair downstairs, then twice more upstairs with no prodding from me. He was doing this of his own accord. I noticed him trying again in his room about half an hour later, and continued what I was doing (which happened to be washing tons of training pants from the day before). All of a sudden, Aidan comes bursting out of his room saying, "I did it! I pee-peed!" Of course, I was pleasantly surprised, and ran after him to look. Sure enough, a full pee-pee load was right there in his potty chair bowl. After some praising, he said, "And now I have to put it in the big toiyet." And so he did. And then he flushed. And then he said, "Now I have to wash my hands." And he did.

I was so proud and pleased and relieved! All was not in vain. He was listening and learning on Sunday. We called Mama at work to tell her the good news.

Things have not slowed down yet. He's getting more and more control, and it really bothers him when he misses. He can't stand having sopping wet pants and socks. He takes his wet things off and puts them on the side of the bathtub for me to rinse out, and then goes into his dresser to get a clean pair of pants and puts them on. Then, he cleans his own puddles up. Wonderful! I couldn't ask for more!

He was physically ready. He just had to see where the pee-pee came from and practice repeatedly. We used techniques from the book, "Toilet Training In Less Than A Day" by Nathan H. Azrin, Ph.D. and Richard M. Foxx, Ph.D. This book werked for us!

He saw a banana split on TV a while ago, and that has been the "prize" that we've been holding out in front of him, so to speak. We took him to Baskin Robbins today, and he had a banana split for lunch. Then he came home and ran around the backyard for a couple of hours.

It has been hard work for him, and he's really concentrating on getting this thing down pat. I'm sure this isn't the first picture of a kid who fell asleep on the potty, but I had to take one of our own anyway. It's so cute the way he's working in earnest to make this potty thing work. The other day after having an accident, he said, "I'm sorry, Mommy. I will get it next time." The intent is there. All he needs to do is practice. He's doing very well.

Yep, we're pretty happy he barely squeaked in just before his fourth birthday. We were beginning to think he was going to be wearing diapers in college...

This is what I came down to yesterday afternoon...

Talk about abs of steel!

Mr. Helpful

2006-03-25T12:55:00.000-08:00

About every other day, Aidan goes and gets the small vacuum out and announces that he's going to vacuum the floor. We're sure not going to say "no" to that!

We got the Eureka Boss floor vacuum because my Dirt Devil/Royal Stick Vac died and I couldn't get another one as they're not made anymore. (Stupid move on the part of Dirt Devil/Royal, in my opinion...) Well, the Eureka handle telescopes down for storage, and this height is just right for Aidan to be able to pilot it. He was thrilled when he found out it did that!

Today, he started in the mudroom. I added the kitchen because it needed to be cleaned.

When I took this shot, he asked, "Mommy, why are you taking a pichure of me vacuuming the mud floor and the kitchen floor?"

I didn't really have a good answer for that one...

No explanation needed for this shot, but I guess I can add a bit of commentary...

Yes, you are correct in gathering that Aidan is not potty-trained yet. He has decided that he's really not interested in learning how to do that. So, it has been difficult. Tomorrow, Rita and I are shutting ourselves up in this house and we will potty train Aidan whether he likes it or not. We'll wear 'im down! It's not going to be that awful for him, but it will be painful for us to do absolutely nothing else until he's got it. The process involves getting him to drink tons of water and juice to get him to pee about every fifteen minutes. The teacher must catch every opportunity to get the pee pee in the toilet, thus the reason we'll be sitting all cozy-like in the kitchen together. It's learning from repetition.

We so hope this enables us to make some progress in this area...

Snakes

2006-03-19T10:52:00.000-08:00

Friday was a somewhat sunny day. Chilly, and basically not raining. Aidan wanted to go outside and play in his sandbox, so I got his coat on him and out he went.

About half an hour later, he came rushing in the back door. "Mommy! I have to come in and get away from the snakes!" He sounded kind of panicky. I was thinking, my gosh, it's kind of cold for snakes to be out now and besides, I've never seen one snake in our yard, let alone more than one. I ran upstairs to check it out.

When I got up there, he looked quite worried. "I'm getting away from the snakes, Mommy." "Oh, I see. Can you show me where the snakes are?" "Yes, they're right there." He led me back out onto the back porch.

There laid three flat sticks of wood, and running for their lives were many young earthworms. "I was going to build a fence, and then I saw the snakes, and then I went in the house to get away from the snakes."

I really had to control myself and not laugh out loud. I picked some of them up and explained what they were and that they didn't bite or anything. They just tickled. He was okay after that.

"Yes, they're just baby earthworms, and they're good for the dirt, and they don't bite, they just tickle," he said.

Bread Crusts And The Melting Dilemma

2006-03-10T14:54:00.000-08:00

I never thought I would cut the crusts off my kid's sandwiches. My mom never did, and us kids learned to eat the crusts just fine. I remember my sister refusing for a while, but my mom still never gave in. We weren't damaged by the experience in any way, that I'm aware of.

A couple of months ago, Aidan began eating only the middles of his PB&J sandwiches, leaving at least an inch and a half around the edge where the crust was. This was quite a waste, and he wasn't getting enough sandwich to satisfy his hunger. Each time, I would ask him if he would like to finish his sandwich and each time, he would say, "No, I don't want to." Then, he started saying, "No Mommy, I'm all done eating my sandwich."

Okay...

I couldn't figure out why he wasn't finishing the sandwiches. It really never occurred to me that he didn't like the crusts, since he'd been eating them just fine up until that point.

So, a few days ago, I decided to try cutting off the crusts to see if anything changed. I set his plate down in front of him, he said, "Thank you", and proceeded to inhale the whole plate of food. I'm not kidding. All of it was gone in about three minutes! I watched to see if this would continue each day if I cut the crusts off.

It did.

Now, I'm cutting the crusts off of my son's sandwiches. I can't believe it. The things our kids can make us do...

Aidan's snowman is melting.

First, the left eye fell off. Then the nose, and after that, the mouth. There were all the pieces to the snowman's face lying on the ground in front of the body. Aidan couldn't stop looking at it. He looked kind of sad when he looked at his snowman.

We explained that the snowman was going to melt as the temperature came up, and that the snowman would water the grass and plants. Aidan asked if all the snowmen that people built were going to melt. We said they would. Aidan still looked sad.

Today, he was looking out the window at his snowman and he said to me, "The other eye fell out."
"It did?"
"Yes, yook. The other eye fell out. One eye fell out, then his nose fell out, and then his mouth fell off. They're on the ground. See them?"
"Yes, I see them. That's just what happens when the snowman melts."

Aidan was still very serious and sad, and kept looking at his snowman for a while. Finally, he said, "He's sad. The snowman is sad 'cause he doesn't have any eyes or any nose or any mouth."

I didn't know how to respond. This was having a bigger effect on Aidan than I expected. I tried telling him that the snowman was happy on the inside, but he wasn't going for that one. "No, he's sad. His happy mouth fell off."

Good grief...

You know those charts in medical exam rooms that show pain levels from 1 to 10? They have different faces at each level to aid patients in telling the doctor what level of pain they are having.

Well, we were sitting in an exam room the other day, when Aidan said, "Yook. Feelings." I didn't understand what he was talking about, so I asked him, "What do you see? Where?" "Right there. Feelings. See the feelings?"

Oh! I get it now! Feelings, as in, emotions. I thought that was cute.

Jigsaws And Snowplay

2006-03-09T13:04:00.000-08:00

We found a couple of 48-piece floor puzzles at Value Village and thought Aidan might enjoy them because he's been doing puzzles on www.jigsaw.com for a while now. Well, we got home late and it was time to get ready for bed. But Aidan insisted on doing the dinosaur puzzle NOW. We did manage to get him into bed once, but he came back down to the basement and said he had to do his dinosaur puzzle. Okay. I let him. He was very excited. It took him 50 minutes to complete it the first time that night. Not bad!

Here he is putting the last piece into the "I Spy" puzzle. This one took him about an hour to complete. I think he's ready for 60-piece puzzles, don't you?

It snowed all night last night and most of today. This snow is very wet and heavy, just perfect for making snowpeople and snowballs. Aidan and I went out and had snowball fights and worked together to make his very first snowman. What do you think of it?

After an hour or so, both our outer layers were pretty soaked, so I let Aidan play a little longer before we went in for PB&J's and hot chocolate. He's a happy kid today.

Stuff On My Cat Site

2006-03-06T20:35:00.000-08:00

This is really funny stuff.

(Click on the title.)

Hangin' Out and Skating...

2006-02-25T19:26:00.000-08:00

Today, we decided to go skate for a while, and maybe get a little bit of exercise in for the week. We checked out what is probably the smallest official Portland Parks and Recreation skatepark, Wilsonville.

After warming up for a whole 10 minutes, I decided to drop in from the top of the 5' funbox and got all wishy-washy on the other side when I hit the 6' quarter pipe. Unfortunately for me, the media (Rita) was there and got the whole thing on camera. What a mess! My board went flying up over the top of the QP and through the guard rails. I thought Rita was gonna bust a blood vessel, she was laughing at me so hard... (How mean!) Well, okay, I guess it did look kind of funny from her point of view.

Witnessing this scene prompted Aidan to begin giving Mommy lessons on how to do it.
"This is how you do it, Mommy."
And I had to watch as he demonstrated, over and over and over again.
"Okay. I think I've got it now. Can I try again?"
"Yes Mommy. Try it again. You can try to do it like I did."
[sigh]
I tried to do as I was shown, and I think I passed! Yippee!

(For those who are interested, in the picture to the left, I'm skating an Alva Splash deck with old school Gullwing Pro 9" trucks and Powell G-Bones. Pretty darn old school, but a very comfortable setup for me.)

So, we all skated (even Mama!), and wore ourselves out for the day. I managed to not injure myself, and had quite a lot of fun. Aidan is still pretty sick, so we didn't want to stay out that long anyway.

I think Aidan and I will come out here a couple of times during the week. This skatepark is so boring, no irritating teenage boys will skate there, so I feel pretty good about letting Aidan do his own thing on his board without being run over. That is the main reason I can't take him to a skatepark right now, because he wants to be right in the middle of everything. He is getting better at the "taking turns" thing though, and maybe being in this situation more often will help bring it home for him. It's perfect for me right now too, because I can practice on two different quarter pipes with different transitions. I hope to be grinding the coping on the larger 6' QP by the end of next week.

Here's a blast from the past!
This is the only picture I have of myself skating as a teenager. I was about 15 years old, so that would make this picture circa 1978. That's an original issue Alva deck, Tracker Half Track trucks and green Sims Snakes. Oh, and don't forget the Norcon helmet!