What's with the big black cloud of cancer over everyone I know lately? Ugh. I hate, hate, hate that stupid thing. Seems its always the nicest people that get hit by it.
Today, both a co-worker of mine and a close family friend are undergoing surgery for cancer related things. The co-worker had breast cancer about 4 years ago, went through chemo and all that and it was in remission. Well, they discovered last week that its back and today they are removing her left breast. :( I just hope that gets it all.
The family friend is really more like actual family...she's been a close friend of my family since before I was even born and is one of the sweetest people you will ever meet. This spring she was diagnosed with cancer, has undergone 3 chemo treatments, is having surgery today and will have more chemo following this. The surgery today will determine how severe it all really is. I'm nervous for that reason...I mean, of course any surgery is scary...but I am so afraid they will discover that its worse than they think. :( She's a retired nurse herself, and she is at a great hospital with great doctors (same one I delivered Riley at actually, and the same one she worked at for years) so I know she's in good hands, but you know. The worry is still there.
Then..oh no, I'm not done. There's more. My other co-worker's granddaughter (who is only 14) was diagnosed with a very rare and very difficult to treat type of leukemia just a few weeks ago. She's up at Childrens' and has been going through some serious chemo. She does 10 days of chemo, EVERY day...then gets a break of like 2 weeks...then 10 days of chemo again and this is all supposed to go on for SIX months. Remember, she's 14. She's just a kid!! The chemo has been hard on her...she is throwing up all the time, sores in her mouth, all the chemo-related side effects...doesn't want to eat but needs to, she of course is completely bummed out b/c she's stuck in a hospital room, in the middle of the city, in the summer-time, 2 hrs away from all her friends, her home, her family, etc. It would be hard on anyone. She's had to have multiple blood transfusions, her parents were just tested to see if they are bone marrow matches, and today they found out she has fluid on her lungs which they are trying to pump out now. :( Bad, bad, bad.
Lastly...yesterday my brother in law calls me to tell me his wife's grandma (who is young by my grandma standards-only 60 something) was just diagnosed with inoperable cancer. She's going to go through chemo and all that but it basically doesn't look good. If you remember, these are the two that got married last September at the courthouse, were planning on having a "big" wedding this September but then found out she's pregnant (due in Nov) so they cancelled the big wedding. Well, that's back on because they figure if they want her grandma there for it...they need to do it ASAP. :(
So its all just bad and sad and yuck. If you could pray for all 4 of them, it would be much appreciated. :(
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Its me again already, can you even believe it?!
Yep, you're not seeing things. That's right, TWO posts from me less than 2 weeks apart. Shocker, I know. :)
So the shopping trip went well. Riley was a little angel-baby for me the whole time. Yay! Slept all the way there (1 hr, 15 min drive), slept the majority of the time we were shopping, and I actually had to wake him up to feed him(at which point he realized, oh yeah, you're right mom, I'm super hungry!)-which I did in the dressing room and that worked out fantastically! Went to lunch with my friend Jana and her little boy, who is 19 months and fascinated with babies. When we were shopping I was not allowed to get out of his sight with Riley or he would start yelling "Bay-bee! Bay-bee!!" until he could see him again. At lunch, he was making faces and noises at Riley and it was cracking my boy up, so fun! After we parted ways with Jana and son, we headed over to Target and picked up a box of diapers using one of the many gift cards we still have from baby showers. I've decided everytime I go past a Target (this one that is over an hr away is the closest one to me, yes, I live in the middle of nowhere) I am going to stop and use a giftcard to buy diapers :). Then we did the nursing in the car in the parking lot thing...headed home and the boy was asleep after about 10 minutes and up until we were about 15 min from home...when he decided the world was ending. But hey, an entire day of angel-baby behavior...I can take 15 minutes of upset for that (it was actually less than that b/c I stopped and found his binkie for him about halfway through, which made all right with the world until he spit it out again). Of course the main goal of the trip was to find clothes for both of us for the baptism and did we do that? Nope! Couldn't find any cute dresses or skirts for me, and what is up with the lack of baby boy dress clothes? Dresses for baby girls, five million at least...button down shirts for baby boys, zero. Boo. I have a long sleeve shirt he can wear but right now the forecast for the day of the baptism is like 87 degrees. Um...a bit warm for long sleeves. I've even looked online (looked at both Old Navy and Gap per Jess's suggestion) and nothin'. :( Oh, but I did find some new work clothes for me, that FIT and look cute. Do not underestimate the value of clothes that fit...I feel like a whole new woman in my new clothes! Or at least a little less like a pudgy sloppy mess of a new mom. :)
The baptism itself, I think we finally got sorted out. It wasn't easy...but we have an official date and time. Turned out we can't even do it on Sunday..we had to move it to the Saturday evening mass in order to accomodate both the godparents and the priest. Not ideal, but its set and this boy is getting baptized for sure! :) Then afterwards we'll do cake (if I hurry up and order one!), some snackie type foods and drinks back at the house (hoping for outside if the weather's nice).
Speaking of weather. The rain. It can stop now. Please? Actually, we have gone about 4 days now with only about 1/10 of an inch...which is exciting. Since prior to that we had rain more or less every.single.day. Which makes it extremely challenging to you know, get crops planted! And of course I tell my friends in other parts of the state that yep, we're still planting and they go, "Really? We finished up here WEEKS ago..but we sure could use some rain!" Well, apparently we've been getting the entire state's rain. Um, hey mother nature, lets spread the wealth a bit, huh?? Give those northern and central Ohio people some of this rain and let us have some sun! Good news is the corn is done. Soybeans, we still have about 100 acres left to go, but progress is being made. Then we're on to hay...which we should have already had first cutting done by now but once again...the lack of more than 2 dry days in a row sort of throws a wrench in that. You can't cut hay if there's not enough time for it to dry. Ahhh...its always something with this farming stuff!! :)
Can't have a post without a picture, right??
He loves his Brutus Buckeye!! Don't you worry, we will be teaching him "Go Bucks" and "O-H-I-O".
So the shopping trip went well. Riley was a little angel-baby for me the whole time. Yay! Slept all the way there (1 hr, 15 min drive), slept the majority of the time we were shopping, and I actually had to wake him up to feed him(at which point he realized, oh yeah, you're right mom, I'm super hungry!)-which I did in the dressing room and that worked out fantastically! Went to lunch with my friend Jana and her little boy, who is 19 months and fascinated with babies. When we were shopping I was not allowed to get out of his sight with Riley or he would start yelling "Bay-bee! Bay-bee!!" until he could see him again. At lunch, he was making faces and noises at Riley and it was cracking my boy up, so fun! After we parted ways with Jana and son, we headed over to Target and picked up a box of diapers using one of the many gift cards we still have from baby showers. I've decided everytime I go past a Target (this one that is over an hr away is the closest one to me, yes, I live in the middle of nowhere) I am going to stop and use a giftcard to buy diapers :). Then we did the nursing in the car in the parking lot thing...headed home and the boy was asleep after about 10 minutes and up until we were about 15 min from home...when he decided the world was ending. But hey, an entire day of angel-baby behavior...I can take 15 minutes of upset for that (it was actually less than that b/c I stopped and found his binkie for him about halfway through, which made all right with the world until he spit it out again). Of course the main goal of the trip was to find clothes for both of us for the baptism and did we do that? Nope! Couldn't find any cute dresses or skirts for me, and what is up with the lack of baby boy dress clothes? Dresses for baby girls, five million at least...button down shirts for baby boys, zero. Boo. I have a long sleeve shirt he can wear but right now the forecast for the day of the baptism is like 87 degrees. Um...a bit warm for long sleeves. I've even looked online (looked at both Old Navy and Gap per Jess's suggestion) and nothin'. :( Oh, but I did find some new work clothes for me, that FIT and look cute. Do not underestimate the value of clothes that fit...I feel like a whole new woman in my new clothes! Or at least a little less like a pudgy sloppy mess of a new mom. :)
The baptism itself, I think we finally got sorted out. It wasn't easy...but we have an official date and time. Turned out we can't even do it on Sunday..we had to move it to the Saturday evening mass in order to accomodate both the godparents and the priest. Not ideal, but its set and this boy is getting baptized for sure! :) Then afterwards we'll do cake (if I hurry up and order one!), some snackie type foods and drinks back at the house (hoping for outside if the weather's nice).
Speaking of weather. The rain. It can stop now. Please? Actually, we have gone about 4 days now with only about 1/10 of an inch...which is exciting. Since prior to that we had rain more or less every.single.day. Which makes it extremely challenging to you know, get crops planted! And of course I tell my friends in other parts of the state that yep, we're still planting and they go, "Really? We finished up here WEEKS ago..but we sure could use some rain!" Well, apparently we've been getting the entire state's rain. Um, hey mother nature, lets spread the wealth a bit, huh?? Give those northern and central Ohio people some of this rain and let us have some sun! Good news is the corn is done. Soybeans, we still have about 100 acres left to go, but progress is being made. Then we're on to hay...which we should have already had first cutting done by now but once again...the lack of more than 2 dry days in a row sort of throws a wrench in that. You can't cut hay if there's not enough time for it to dry. Ahhh...its always something with this farming stuff!! :)
Can't have a post without a picture, right??
He loves his Brutus Buckeye!! Don't you worry, we will be teaching him "Go Bucks" and "O-H-I-O".
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
How difficult can one baptism be?
My sister is going to drive me crazy. I scheduled Riley's baptism for June 28. After she and her husband, who are supposed to be his godparents told us that date would work. So I got it all set up with the church, let our parents and siblings know so they could be there....and then this past weekend (3 weeks after I did all this) she tells me that my twin nephews (who will be 7 in July) won tickets to this minor league baseball game where they get to meet the players, get autographs, go on the field, etc. through some deal that their baseball team won some fundraiser..and its June 27 in the evening and so could we change the baptism? For a minor league baseball game. Um. Well, I kind of had it all SCHEDULED already. And she's all, we're free the rest of the summer...and I'm all, well I don't want to WAIT until later in the summer, we had it set up, you had said that weekend would work, why can't we just DO it? Its a minor league baseball team, they are 6, they'll get over it and they'll probably get another chance to do something like this at some point..b/c once again, they are 6. Ugh. So frustrating. SO...we go round and round and I tell her that well, I'd really rather not change it. Its on people's calendars and you know how quickly summer calendars fill up, ours included. We have one available weekend in July...and a couple in August but I'd really rather not put it off that long. So she e-mails me back yesterday saying, ok just go with what you had planned, we'll go to the game, drive halfway here that night and get a hotel, and drive the rest of the way in the morning. She's not thrilled about it, but she'll do it. Ok, fine. Then, I get an e-mail this morning. Oh, so it turns out that the game is Sunday night, not Saturday night! Ha! So now we have to bump it up to an earlier time on Sunday so they can leave our house by noon (they live about 6 hrs away from me)...but they will come on Saturday like they originally planned. Seriously. How on earth can one baptism be so difficult? I'm just glad we got it sorted out (I think!)....after just a few days of unnecessary stress. I am sure it will still be chaos on the day of it...with them scrambling to get out of here on time, but its more or less set at least. Ahh.
Now if only I can find myself and the little guy something to wear to this baptism. I'm off to do some shopping with a friend of mine this weekend, so I'm hoping I can find us both something then. Challenge #1: Finding a nice outfit for a 3 month old. Seems like everything I see for baby boys is "play clothes". Challenge #2: Finding something that fits, looks halfway decent on this post-baby, pudgy around the middle, body of mine and works for church and our after church backyard cookout, and is easy enough to nurse in. Could be a tall order! Challenge #3: It will be my first "long" drive with just me and Riley. Its only a little over an hour, but it makes me a little nervous anyway. I'm sure he'll be fine. Heck, I ran a part down to Kelly on a farm 30 minutes away the other day and we were fine going both there and back without ever getting out of his carseat so this shouldn't be any different. Challenge #4: I will have to either nurse in public or in my car on this trip probably twice, if not 3 times. I can do in the car, I've done it before...just park far enough away from most other cars and general traffic, hop in the back and no problem. If I have to do it somewhere public...little more nervous about that. But we'll see. Hopefully I can sneak into a dressing room at the store or something if need be.
So in good news. I don't think I've mentioned that hey, I have a new nephew! Ok...so he's like 7 weeks old at this point. I'm a little slow on the updating as you know. Haven't met him yet, he's my brother's newest little one and they live almost 4 hrs away. But they are planning on coming to the baptism so I'm looking forward to Riley meeting his "baby cousin"! So that is nephew #6 for me...and believe it or not nephew #7 is coming in November. This one is on Kelly's side. Remember last fall I mentioned that my brother in law suddenly got married at the courthouse? Well, they're having a baby now too. It was a surprise for sure. Not in the plans...after all, they just got married and were actually planning a "big wedding" for this fall, also they're YOUNG. Well, he's not all that young (24) but she's only 20, which I know a lot of people start families that young. I just can't imagine myself being a mom at that age, but that's me. So it was certainly a shock. But, even though it was a surprise, its exciting because she has been told that she would never be able to have children. She has severe endometriosis and some other health issues (part of why they got married last year-she couldn't get health insurance on her own and needed it) so its pretty exciting that she was able to get pregnant. Suprisingly to me, they told the whole world at like 5 weeks pregnant...something I will never be able to understand is how people can do that. After my own miscarriage, having numerous friends that have miscarried, I can't ever feel confident in a pregnancy until well into the 2nd trimester. I am amazed by the people that can tell the world immediately and assume that everything will be fine no matter what. Thankfully though, even with some severe cramping and spotting, everything appears to be fine. And they found out recently they're having a baby boy! I'm thrilled that Riley will have a cousin his age right down the road. I'm sure they'll get in lots of trouble together!! Between the two of them, plus our good friends (also Riley's babysitter) are having a little boy in August...watch out!!
If you've read this far...you deserve a reward. So here it is:
3 months old already!! I can't even believe it! My boy is growng up so fast :)
Now if only I can find myself and the little guy something to wear to this baptism. I'm off to do some shopping with a friend of mine this weekend, so I'm hoping I can find us both something then. Challenge #1: Finding a nice outfit for a 3 month old. Seems like everything I see for baby boys is "play clothes". Challenge #2: Finding something that fits, looks halfway decent on this post-baby, pudgy around the middle, body of mine and works for church and our after church backyard cookout, and is easy enough to nurse in. Could be a tall order! Challenge #3: It will be my first "long" drive with just me and Riley. Its only a little over an hour, but it makes me a little nervous anyway. I'm sure he'll be fine. Heck, I ran a part down to Kelly on a farm 30 minutes away the other day and we were fine going both there and back without ever getting out of his carseat so this shouldn't be any different. Challenge #4: I will have to either nurse in public or in my car on this trip probably twice, if not 3 times. I can do in the car, I've done it before...just park far enough away from most other cars and general traffic, hop in the back and no problem. If I have to do it somewhere public...little more nervous about that. But we'll see. Hopefully I can sneak into a dressing room at the store or something if need be.
So in good news. I don't think I've mentioned that hey, I have a new nephew! Ok...so he's like 7 weeks old at this point. I'm a little slow on the updating as you know. Haven't met him yet, he's my brother's newest little one and they live almost 4 hrs away. But they are planning on coming to the baptism so I'm looking forward to Riley meeting his "baby cousin"! So that is nephew #6 for me...and believe it or not nephew #7 is coming in November. This one is on Kelly's side. Remember last fall I mentioned that my brother in law suddenly got married at the courthouse? Well, they're having a baby now too. It was a surprise for sure. Not in the plans...after all, they just got married and were actually planning a "big wedding" for this fall, also they're YOUNG. Well, he's not all that young (24) but she's only 20, which I know a lot of people start families that young. I just can't imagine myself being a mom at that age, but that's me. So it was certainly a shock. But, even though it was a surprise, its exciting because she has been told that she would never be able to have children. She has severe endometriosis and some other health issues (part of why they got married last year-she couldn't get health insurance on her own and needed it) so its pretty exciting that she was able to get pregnant. Suprisingly to me, they told the whole world at like 5 weeks pregnant...something I will never be able to understand is how people can do that. After my own miscarriage, having numerous friends that have miscarried, I can't ever feel confident in a pregnancy until well into the 2nd trimester. I am amazed by the people that can tell the world immediately and assume that everything will be fine no matter what. Thankfully though, even with some severe cramping and spotting, everything appears to be fine. And they found out recently they're having a baby boy! I'm thrilled that Riley will have a cousin his age right down the road. I'm sure they'll get in lots of trouble together!! Between the two of them, plus our good friends (also Riley's babysitter) are having a little boy in August...watch out!!
If you've read this far...you deserve a reward. So here it is:
3 months old already!! I can't even believe it! My boy is growng up so fast :)
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