Breast Cancer, The Journey

Breast Cancer, The Journey

Monday Evening, November, 7 2011 (thirteenth post in this series)

We started this blog to document our travels and for the most part we stick to that goal. However, we are “off the road” for a few months and I need to catch up on the thread we started earlier this year on our daughters “journey” with her breast cancer diagnosis.

Kelly publishes update emails that describe her journey. I am posting the last three on today's blog. My goal is to present, through Kelly's words, the major elements of what is entailed in making the decision to have a double mastectomy. The process is incredibly involved, including several surgeries and a great deal of physical and mental pain.

I started this series in March of this year with this post. As you can see from the header to this post, this is the thirteenth post in this series. Here are Kelly's updates:

6/23/11

My healing process has had its ups and downs, but I’m still so thankful that I will not have to have any radiation or chemotherapy!!  The recovery from the surgery has gone at least as well as I expected, if not better.  My only remaining symptom from the surgery is the fatigue that I expected, but wish it would progress a bit more quickly.  I continue to work on patience!

The reconstruction process has been a bit more than I expected, but, I guess if I stop to think about it, it all makes sense.  When they did the mastectomies, a plastic surgeon placed “tissue expanders” as the first step in the reconstruction process.  I guess I didn’t stop to think exactly what expanding the tissue might entail.  Each week (or every couple weeks depending on our travel schedule), I have to have saline injected into the tissue expanders, thus stretching the tissue.  At first I described the process as being similar to having your braces tightened, but I’m now realizing that the similarities are pretty limited.  Luckily I only have two more “fill” appointments and then I will have about three months to heal from this process before the next surgery.

Kelly and Damon



8/26/11
I continue doing well with my cancer journey.  My last “fill” was July 18^th and I expected to be back to myself by the next week, but realized that it was another time to practice the art of patience.  The reconstruction process continued to be challenging, but I finally felt like I had a breakthrough last week.  I started sleeping without ice, sleeping almost through the night, and being able to sleep on my sides for a few minutes at a time (all things I took for granted before this journey).

I have discovered that physical therapy is a great tool during this process.  I have found a therapist who knows what she’s doing and is incredibly supportive.  She helps me remember that it’s not uncommon to take five steps forward and then a couple back, but I’m so thankful that she’s helping me through this process.  We started with the simple art of breathing because I had to re-train my body since I hadn’t been able to take a deep breath for so long.  She has taught me some great stretching exercises and we’re hoping to progress to some weight work in the next week or so.

My next surgery is scheduled for November 9^th so I shouldn’t have any more appointments and will continue the healing process until then.  During that surgery the tissue expanders (or rocks as I fondly refer to them) will be removed and permanent implants will be placed.  That surgery will be a day surgery and should be much simpler than the first one.  As Madison says, the surgery will also probably be easier than the fills.

Kelly and Damon

11/4/11

One of the most moving points of our fall was our participation in Race for the Cure.  Damon and I used to do the full walk/run before we had the girls and even up until Molly was walking.  We still look back at that last year because Damon had Madison on his back in a backpack and I had Molly on my front in a pack and they both kept getting in and out of the backpacks and it wasn’t a whole lot of fun.

Each year since then we’ve done Sleep in for the Cure which was just our speed.  This year Molly talked us into going down for the family event and we’re so glad we did!  We were amazed at the number of people who come for that event.  It was an emotional day for me, realizing that I wasn’t walking for the women in pink shirts, but was now wearing the pink shirt.

It was also a day to remind me of my good fortune.  Seeing the women without hair and talking to a woman who went through lots of radiation and chemo helped me keep my perspective and continue to feel lucky in my situation.

The next surgery in my reconstruction will be next Wednesday.  During this one they will remove the tissue expanders (AKA rocks) and replace them with saline implants.  I’m looking so forward to having something more comfortable and I know it will be nice to be able to comfortably cuddle with the girls.

Damon and I went to the pre-op appointment yesterday and learned that, although this surgery will be SO much easier than the last one, some of the restrictions will be the same.  This surgery will be about 2 ½ hours versus the 4 hours for the last one.  This recovery is expected to be shorter, hopefully only a week or two.
I’m still coming to grips with the fact that I won’t be able to lift my arms over my head (including washing my own hair) or drive for two weeks and I won’t be able to work out for a month.  I will only be able to lift 5 pounds for about a month.  I guess these are small sacrifices compared to other things I could have gone through.  I am especially thankful that I won’t have drains this time!

As I continue to focus on humor, I’m picturing the “Iron Maiden Bra” that I’ll be wearing for a couple weeks.  I’m sure it’s going to be very sexy, but I promise not to send pictures!

Kelly and Damon

Hello from Evergreen, CO

Hello from Evergreen, CO

Wednesday afternoon October 26, 2011 (eight travelogue of this trip).

Well, as you can see from the title, we are home. As I write this, there is about 8-10 inches of snow on the deck and it is predicted to snow most of the day.

I wanted to comment about the Wal Mart in Topeka. After it got dark we noticed a large neon sign in front of the coach (all we could see from the windshield was the end of the sign). I went out to investigate, and it was a great looking sign marking the site of the Chief Drive-In Movie Theater (see photo). Apparently, they built this store on the drive-in movie sight and left the great sign. 

 Great Looking Neon Sign in front

of the Topeka Wal Mart

Monday night we stayed in the Wal Mart in Goodland, KS. We have stayed there before and it has pretty good parking and ease of entry.

Yesterday we left right at sun rise to make sure that we would beat the storm. They had predicted it would not hit until the evening, but you just never know. We got here at about 11:00 AM – plenty of time to unload and park the bus in the shop. I elevated the bus with the jacks and have it sitting of jack stands so that I can do some work underneath and in the lower bays (more comfortable working position) over the winter.

That is the good news. The bad news will be detailed in a minute.

Periodically I present a summary of our travels in the bus. The bus made it's inaugural trip in March of 2006. Since that time we have driven it over 65,000 miles, through 27 states and have stayed in the bus 716 nights.

This trip covered close to 3100 miles and we were on the road 41 days. The bus performed very well. We had one minor incident in IA where the charge air cooler hose came off. It took about 15 minute to get it secured back in place. Other than that, we had no problems.

Now for the bad news. As most of you know we tow a rather heavy service truck behind the bus. About a mile from the house, the hitch broke and the truck swerved from side to side quite a bit. It could not have happened in a worse spot, as the truck swerved into the ditch and the right front wheel hit a big rock and tore up the front end pretty good. I lost a tire, a high dollar aftermarket wheel and at least two of the control arms. Because of the snow, I can't inspect for further damage. My guess is that it will be several hundred dollars to repair – with me doing the work. Long ago, I converted to very robust safety chains, and the kept the truck from breaking away from the bus.

Funny thing was, I had just added to my to-do list, an item for me to thoroughly check all of the hitch components over the winter.

As a side note, I have a bunker where I store the trash bags until I can take them to the dump. It is pretty darn secure, as the walls are made of railroad ties and the top is made with 2X6 boards. When I walked around back it was fairly obvious that a bear had ripped the boards off and dug through the trash. What a mess. There have been several reports of bears in the area. We are careful not to have any food in the trash, but they probably smelled the food containers containers (we even rinse them out, but their powerful sense of smell tells them that food is/was present. It will be interesting to see if they come back.

That is all for this trip.

Hello from Topeka, KS

Hello from Topeka, KS

Sunday evening October 23, 2011 (seventh travelogue of this trip).

We are parked at a Wal Mart in Topeka KS (map). This Wal Mart parking lot is large and fairly easy to get into. We can park quite a ways from the store and that makes us feel comfortable that we are not blocking valuable parking.

Yesterday we stayed at a Wal Mart in St Charles MO and it was rather difficult to get into and the parking was not the best. Indeed we had to unhook the truck to get parked in an appropriate location.

We left the Blue Springs parking area about 9:00 which should have easily gotten us to St Charles by 10:30 AM. The drive was less than 60 miles. It always seems that the short drives are the worst. Even though it was Sunday morning, the traffic was terrible and then, we came to an area where they had I 70 shut down for a accident. It took us about a half an hour to edge forward in the traffic (they were diverting folks off the highway.) When we got within a half of a mile of the wreck, they opened up the highway and we did OK after that. That said, the traffic was still pretty bad and our exit was a bit of a challenge, but we made it.

By the time I got into the Wal Mart lot (did I mention it was very tight?) I was a wreck. As I was unhooking the truck two folks came up and asked if I was a Colorado driver. I thought that was a strange question, and then the guy introduced himself as Kevin Brown – the son of the lady we were going to spend the day with.

As a bit of background, Kenny and Kay Brown had three boys in the same time-frame as our three girls. Kenny and I were good friends and we attended a lot of car shows together all over the country. Kenny and I would work on some paint project in the garage and Pat and Kay would play all kinds of games an compare notes on what it was like to raise the “opposite gender” children. They moved away from Denver about 44 years ago, but we stayed in touch. Kenny passed away about 10 years ago.

Kevin and I have communicated a few times over the years and we have a lot in common. He is an engineer and loves cars (races a 2009 Challenger). After Kay, Pat and I had lunch, Kay dropped me off at Kevin's house and we had a great time. I got to see his car and we talked like old time friends.

Pat and Kay continue to have lots in common. Now, they are both into genealogy. They picked up where they left off many years ago without missing a beat. The three of us had two great meals in the amazing downtown historic district of St Charles.

Today we got an early start so that we could get out of the Wal Mart lot before it became “crazy”. We had planned to drive the 900 miles to Evergreen in four days so that the drive would be relaxing. I wanted to make sure that we got through Kansas City today (not a fun drive normally, and today they had I 70 closed for construction – had to take I 435 around the town to the south). By the time we got out of the traffic, we could not find a place to park, so we jumped on the turnpike and ended up here. That was a bit over 300 miles.

We are watching the weather in Evergreen and there is a winter storm watch for Tuesday, late afternoon (sever inches of snow possible). That is changing our plans. We will try to get around early tomorrow and get close to the CO/KS border, so that we have a fairly easy shot into Denver on Tuesday. If the conditions look bad, we will stay at Chatfield State Park for a Day or two until the weather gets better.

That is all for now.

Hello from Highland, IL

Hello from Highland, IL

Friday evening October 21, 2011 (sixth travelogue of this trip).

We are in the parking area for the Blue Springs restaurant (map). We wrote about this place in a blog a couple of years ago (here). We have stopped here many times over the years and really like the home style cooking, blue plaid table cloths and there “foot high” pies. We called ahead to see if we could park in their lot overnight. They said fine. When we got here the lot was much smaller that we had recalled, but we have a spot for the night.

Getting here was quite an adventure. We were heading towards St Louis on I 64 and had to go across country to get to I 70 (about 25 miles). I forced the GPS to re-route us, but did not check the route. That is always an open invitation to disaster. The GPS put us on some very marginal farm road that were not wide enough for two vehicles to pass comfortably. In addition, there were at least a dozen sharp turns that were quite a challenge. One had a drop-off on both sides and I just barely made it. We came to a bridge that had a 10 ton limit and before I could think we were across it (we weigh over twice that amount!!!!).

We chose this spot because we wanted to be fairly close to St Charles, MO. We are about 50 miles away and can avoid the terrible traffic in St Louis by arriving early on a Saturday. We plan to visit a friend from many years ago. Kay was married to a good friend of mine who taught me how to paint cars. We were in the same car club and we really got to know them well as each of us began to raise our families. Ken passed away a few years ago, but we have kept in contact with Kay. She and Pat have a lot in common including genealogy. By arriving fairly early Saturday, Pat and Kay can have a few hours together. We will then start home on Sunday.

Now, let's catch up. On Tuesday, we left the site of the rally and returned to Choo-Choo Garage. I was scheduled to do a welding workshop today at Choo-Choo, but that got canceled. Tuesday we visited with some of the folks that came over from the rally. We went to dinner with Sean Welsh on Tuesday. We missed seeing his wife Louise (she went to CA to visit family). We have met up with them several times over the years in lots of different locations. They are neat folks and I love to pick Sean's brain on all kinds of subjects. Sean documented our visit in his great blog (here).

We set Wednesday aside to do some sight seeing. Our first stop was the Battles for Chattanooga museum. They had a slide show detailing the civil war battles in the Chattanooga area. We then went across the street to Point park. These are located on the top of Lookout Mountain. Even though the weather was cold and overcast, the views were great (see photos). The drive up to the top of the mountain was very steep and twisty. It was heavily wooded with gorgeous trees that were beginning to display the fall colors

 Point Park on Lookout Mountain

 Civil War cannons in Point Park overlooking 

Chattanooga and the Tennessee River

Our next stop was the Moon Pie General Store in downtown Chattanooga. Moon Pies are very popular in the south and they have been made in the Chattanooga plant since 1917. RC Cola was also formulated in Chattanooga. The video in the Moon Pie store said that the coal miners loved their 10 cent lunch (Moon Pie and RC Cola each cost 5 cents in the 20's).

For our last stop we went to the Choo Choo Hotel. This hotel is the converted train station (details). It is a fabulous hotel. There are several train cars that have been converted to hotel rooms. In addition there are several other train related displays including a Baldwin Steam locomotive. The hotel lobby is the original train lobby/waiting room with a beautiful domed ceiling. I have included a couple of photos.

 Choo Choo Hotel Garden with train cars used for sleeping rooms

 Baldwin Steam Engine

A lot of businesses and locations have the words Choo Choo in them. Apparently that all stems from the Glenn Miller song in the 40's with the title Chattanooga Choo Choo.

We left the Chattanooga, area on Thursday and drove to Kuttawa where we stayed at Huck's Travel Center Truck Stop. We don't normally stay in truck stops, as they tend to be very noisy with the truck engines idling and trucks coming and going. Since it was chilly (got down to 34 degrees) we did not have the windows open and the noise was not a problem.

The drive from Chattanooga, to Kuttawa was beautiful. There is a pretty good pass which the locals call Mount Eagle. There is a town at the top called Monteagle, which probably gives the pass its coined name. In any case, it is not quite as dramatic as some of the passes in Colorado, but it is still pretty steep and long. The road is lined with trees beginning to display the fall colors.

That is all for now

Hello from East Ridge, TN

Hello from East Ridge, TN

Monday Evening October 17, 2011 (fifth travelogue of this trip).

We are in East Ridge, TN at the Camp Jordan Park (map). This is the site of the Bus Conversions Magazine bus rally. The rally is over, and we are the only ones left in the park from the rally. Friday was “arrival day” (may folks arrived Thursday) and the majority of activities took place over the weekend.

Even though we moved from Rossville, GA to East Ridge, TN the trip was only three miles. Indeed, when we moved here, I did not hook up the truck. I put the bike in the bus and then rode it back to the shop so that I could pick up the service truck.

The rally turned out to be a compromised event. The editor had over 100 people respond that they would attend the rally and started planning accordingly. It turned out that only about a third of that number actually registered and that caused a significant scaling back of the activities. The events had to be moved from the large arena building to an open-air pavilion and an outdoor stage. That was not all that bad, as the weather was quite nice and the outdoor locations were not a problem.

A friend of ours, helped the editor arrange the music for the event. Saturday night had three good entertainer individuals/groups. Two of the Sunday groups were good, but the other two went way overboard with religious music and preaching to the audience. We stayed through the full program the first night, but left early the second night. Both nights the “crowd” was embarrassingly small. When we left last night, we were the last ones left in the audience, but we heard them continue to play.

There was also what sounded like good gospel music Sunday afternoon, but they scheduled the technical sessions at the same time. That resulted in only a handful of folks in the audience.

I did three seminars and they had reasonably good attendance, given the small number of people here. Because of the tight schedule, and all of the compromises, there was no vendor area, nor any time to set up a formal display. This morning I set up some fire extinguishers and ended up selling several. When we attend a bus rally, our sales expectations are not very high. Just the nature of the beast. Most of the folks know me and those that want to buy product don't wait for the rally.

Pat only had three ladies in her session, but they were all friends and they had a good time. She got a couple of good orders.

Our regret when we are vendors and doing seminars, is that we don't get as much time as we would like to talk to old friends and meet new ones. However, we made the most of the time we had and got to talk to a lot of folks.

The technical sessions associated with the rally did not draw registrations. It could have been because of the cost, or extended schedule (mine was scheduled for this Friday). As a result, they canceled the remaining sessions. That leaves us with some time to do a bit of sightseeing before we leave. Not sure what we will do, but the first order of business is to relax tomorrow. We came in several days early to help with the rally. Unfortunately, there were almost no other volunteers, so we have been running the whole week.

That is all for now.

Hello from Rossville, GA

Hello from Rossville, GA

Wednesday Evening October 12, 2011 (fourth travelogue of this trip).

When I started this blog, we were parked at the Choo Choo Garage in Rossville, GA (map). This afternoon we moved to a different state (trip was all of three miles), but that will be the subject of our next post.

The Choo Choo Garage is a pretty famous bus repair shop and the site of the Bus Conversion Magazine Workshops. I helped with the first two workshops – mostly as a gopher and video camera operator. However, being me, I just had to jump in and “contribute” to the workshops {grin}. Indeed, the two presenters and I made a pretty good team as each of us came from different backgrounds.

Now let's catch up on some of the events since our last post. Last Friday we took an unbelievable tour of the KitchenAid factory in Greenville. This is the only plant in the world to manufactures the counter-top or “stand” mixer. When I say only, that is significant. They export this type of mixer all over the world including China – from this plant! The pride of the workers is amazing. But, even more amazing were the huge number of workstations hand assembling components for the mixer. This is work that is typically sent overseas, but KitchenAid has staunchly refused to ship jobs overseas (Tom are you reading this). Indeed they are working towards bringing jobs back to the US on some of their other product line.

They charge $5 for the tour but it is well worth it. The lady that gave us our personal tour was a great ambassador for the company. She took us all over the huge plant and had knowledgeable answers for almost all of my technical questions. Probably the most impressive part of the tour was seeing all of the beautiful colors that are used for the mixers.

Saturday we left Greenville and drove to Lexington, KY and stayed at a Wal Mart. Our main reason for stopping there was to visit with a customer and his wife. Bill and I have grown to be great friends over the years and he has offered great support when I was struggling with some issues a few years ago. I have told some of you about Bill - he was a government psychologist who evaluated many major criminals including John Gotti and the unabomber. I have talked to Bill on the phone many times on many subjects but had never gotten to meet him.

He was as fun in person as he is on the phone and his wife Genie is a great lady. We had a lot of fun looking at the Prevost that he converted himself - a beautiful bus. Bill and I also went to visit another busnut who is working on an Eagle with 4 slide outs. It has an amazing amount of great work. While Bill and I were looking at buses, Pat and Genie went to a horse race. In the evening we toured around areas where there were beautiful horse farms. Lexington is in the heart of the horse country that Kentucky is so famous for.

Sunday we drove from Lexington to Rossville and met with Mike Sullivan who is the president of the Bus Conversion Magazine and who has almost single-handily arrange the Bus Conversions Rally. Monday we helped Mike with some of the details. Yesterday and today were two of the workshops. There will be one more this week and several next week including the welding workshop that I will co-present.

The color of the trees on the drive down from Greenville were gorgeous. As we got closer to Chattanooga, we noted that the colors were not as great. We are quite a bit south of the areas with the best colors and we will probably see the trees change here in the next week or so.

That is all for now.

Hello again from Greenville, OH

Hello again from Greenville, OH

Friday Morning October 7, 2011 (third travelogue of this trip).

This week has sure gone by quickly. We leave tomorrow.

Pat has been having a ball using the various resources available here. In addition to the great resources at the Garst Museum, she has spent some time at the county records facility looking at old documents. But the really great resource has been the Library. They have a genealogy department. The woman who works there is so very helpful. She is apparently a contract person (low pay, unfortunately), and just loves her job. She has been working directly with Pat and the two of them have made some pretty good progress.

We have again gone to a couple of graveyards. Some folks think that is kind of weird, but it is rewarding to find the markers of our ancestors. Besides that, the graveyards are beautiful in their own way.

I have been spending quite a bit of time on work related efforts. It seems that when we left town, the world discovered that our business exists {big grin}. I have had to process a couple of nice orders for our fire detection and suppression system and have an order for a specialized version for an industrial customer (indeed, all of my orders have been non-RV). That is a great trend. Hope it keeps up.

We are heading to Chattanooga next week to participate in the Bus Conversions Rally (website). I have been working with the Bus Conversions Magazine owner, offering several seminars (including Pat's rubber stamped greeting card seminar) as well as any type of help he needs. I am also scheduled to be a co-presenter of a one day welding workshop (assuming there is sufficient registration). We will arrive a couple of days before the workshops begin and help with the various activities needed to facilitate a rally of this magnitude.

The welding workshop will be a first for me. I am doing the “textbook” presentation and the other person will work with the attendees to do actual hands-on welding. I think it has the potential for being a good session. I have been spending a lot of time pouring over welding books to get the slide presentation developed. I have a lot of welding experience (since I was 15 years old), but I have never tried to “teach” a class.

Our daughter asked about the fall colors. The trees here are just starting to turn and the colors, so far, are great. I think we will hit the best colors in Tennessee. I had mentioned that the weather was rather cold when we got here. It has now gotten pretty nice with daytime temperatures in the high 70s/low80s and nighttime in the mid 40s.

I had noted that we are staying in the campground at the Darke County fairgrounds. I had linked to a satellite view in the last blog and that view shows how extensive the facilities are. Here is the link: (map). There are a large number of barns and facility buildings. The grounds are immaculate. Many years ago, I attended a car show in the '56 Chevy in Hamilton, OH. My brother-in-law and I drove up here to attend a very large steam tractor event. I fell in love with the fairgrounds when we were here and it has been just as neat as I had remembered. At least one source says that the fairgrounds is located on 176 acres and has 1000 campsites. The Darke County Fair is said to be among the largest county fair in the US.

Last night and this morning we are trying to catch up on washing. It is sure nice to have the washer and dryer in the bus. That lets Pat do the washing while we relax and do other things. We have 30 amp service at the campground, but that is not sufficient to run the dryer. We are running the generator when we do the drying, but that is a very small price to pay for the convenience.

That is all for now.

Hello from Greenville, OH

Hello from Greenville, OH

Tuesday Morning October 4, 2011 (second travelogue of this trip).

We are camped in the Darke County Fairground campground (map). We planned this stop as a part of a large circle trip including being vendors/presenters at the Bus Conversions Rally in Chattanooga, TN.

If you have been a long-time reader of our blog, you might recall that we stopped here as a part of a trip to an FMCA rally in Bowling Green, OH in 2009. This is the town that Jim's father and grandmother were born in. The blog detailing the information is (here).

Our trip here took a day longer than we had planned. We left Prescott on Wednesday 9/28, planning on driving about 300 mile (half way to Greenville). However after a bit over 100 miles, Pat saw a sign for Fairfield, IA. Her genealogy work had indicated several of her grandmother's relatives were buried there. She had wanted to travel there for sometime, so we made the decision to spend the night there. We were able to find the rather remote graveyard and located the gravestones of her relatives. Two of the gravestones were impossible to read other than the name Miller. Pat called a relative in Iowa and confirmed that both of the grave markers were her ancestors. When asked how they knew, they said that they lucked into visiting the grave just after a hail storm and the markers had been “cleaned” by the hail!

Thursday night we stayed in a Wal Mart in Champaign, IL. We arrived in Greenville on Friday afternoon. Saturday and Sunday we spent some time at the Garst Museum (http://www.garstmuseum.org/home.php). They bill themselves as “Home of the Annie Oakley Center”. Anne was born in a log cabin close to Greenville and is buried in Brock Cemetery in Greenville. Frank Butler, her husband of over 40 years (also fellow showman), is buried beside her. He quit eating after she died and passed away 18 days after she did.

The Garst museum is a wonderful place. It has great exhibits. More importantly, it houses the Darke County Genealogical Society. They have extensive resources.

Prior to our trip, Pat had sent letters to several people with the names Shepherd or Culbertson (Jim's grandmother's maiden name) in Darke county. As a result of one of those letters, we got to meet Rick and Nancy Shepherd. They are great people and we hope that we find that we are related – so far no link yet, but we are both searching. Yesterday they took us on a tour of the Ithaca and Abbottsville cemeteries. We were able to locate several grave sites of Jim's relatives. We will be going back and spending more time at both locations.

That is all for now.

Hello from Prescott, IA

Hello from Prescott, IA.

Monday Morning September 26, 2011 (first travelogue of this trip).

We have been in Iowa for several days, but I am just now finding the time to write this blog. We left Evergreen on Thursday (9/15) and spent the night at our old standby: Wal Mart in North Platte, NE. We arrived here on Friday. Pat's brother, Jeff and his wife Julie arrived on Friday as well. We are staying at Pat's cousin Jeanne and her husband Bill's house in the bus.

We love to visit Iowa any time, but especially this time of the year. The heat of the summer and the cold of the winter are forgotten for a while and the great seasons (spring and fall) are fantastic. The photo below is the view we see out of the bus windshield. The photo does not begin to do justice to the amazing landscape.

View out the front of our bus

It has been very hectic since we arrived. Saturday and Sunday we did quite a bit of visiting with relatives. Sunday we celebrated Pat's aunt Jaris' birthday at the nursing home. We got to visit with a large number of friends and relatives. Jaris had a ball.

On Monday we took a great tour of the area including visiting some of the bridges of Madison County (see photo). This is scenery was wonderful and it was a great day.

One of the Bridges of Madison County

The weather here has been very cool. Indeed, it is generally cooler than Evergreen. Most of the nights have gotten into the lower 40s and it has been as low as 37 one evening. We even put an extra cover on the bed to stay warm. That said, the days have been comfortable most of the time.

Pat has been working on Genealogy with Jeanne. We have visited several cemeteries to find grave stones of some of her ancestors. We again visited the house where her dad was born. The people who live there are very welcoming and they both have fabulous collections of all kinds of things. The house has been extensively remodeled, but part of the original house is still evident.

I have had to spend some time getting parts shipped in to fill a nice order. I have made a change to my system and had to have some brackets made here in IA. Fortunately, there is a great manufacturing company in Corning (where Pat was born and about 10 miles from here). I have had them do some work for me in the past, but they outdid themselves this time. The brackets are very nice looking and they did them the same day.

Bill and I have done some project work here at the farm (I love to help in any way I can) and I have been able to get a few things done on the bus and service truck that did not get done before we left.

That is all for now.

Flying in a Gooney Bird

Flying in a Gooney Bird.

My family arranged for me to take a flight is a C-47 military aircraft as a birthday present. It was a very special event, as I have always been very impressed by the design and product life of this aircraft. My flight took place on Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2011.

The C-47 (aka Gooney Bird) was developed based on the DC-3 civilian airplane. Here is a bit of background on the two versions of the plane:

The Douglas DC-3 is an American fixed-wing propeller-driven aircraft whose speed and range revolutionized air transport in the 1930s and 1940s. Its lasting impact on the airline industry and World War II makes it one of the most significant transport aircraft ever made. Many DC-3s are still used in all parts of the world. Translated, that is over 75 years of flying and the clock continues to tick.

The Douglas C-47 is a military transport aircraft that was developed from the Douglas DC-3 airliner. The first flight was Dec. 1941. It was used extensively by the Allies during World War II and remained in front line operations through the 1950s with a few remaining in operation to this day.

During World War II, the armed forces of many countries used the C-47 and modified DC-3s for the transport of troops, cargo and wounded. The US Naval designation was R4D. Over 10,000 aircraft were produced in Long Beach and Santa Monica, California and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The Oklahoma City plant produced 5,354 C-47s from March 1943 until August 1945. The 10K units was in addition to the over 16,000 civilian planes.

While I am not a strong student of aircraft, the DC-3 has always fascinated me. Many years ago, I arranged a business trip so that I could fly on a commercial airline that was still flying the DC-3. I was so thrilled to fly on an aircraft with so much history.

Can you imagine how thrilled I was to be able to fly on the military version? The flight was out of the Colorado Springs Airport. The pilots flew us north so that we could fly over The Garden of the Gods. All in all, a very impressive and fun adventure.

Here are some photos (not the best quality as they were taken with my cell phone).

The C-47 is a classic "tail dragger"

Looking out the window with an opening

that was used to permit firing rifles during the war.

Taking pictures out the window.  

They let us get out of our seats for most of the flight.
Note that you can see the structure of the fuselage
and the seats are very primitive.

Flying over The Garden of the Gods

Looking into the cockpit during the flight.

The right side seems to be original, while the pilot

has a modern display.

Hello from Chugwater, WY.

Hello from Chugwater, WY.

Wednesday morning August 31, 2011 (third travelogue of this trip).

Well, we are a day behind our schedule. More about that later.

Sunday, we toured Yellowstone and The Tetons. We drove the truck. In total, we drove a bit over 320 miles!!! It had been years since we viewed the gorgeous and amazing Tetons. We had lunch at a great little restaurant in Teton National Park. We then drove north towards Old Faithful. We saw it erupt just as we entered the area, so we knew that we would not be able to wait for the next eruption. We did walk around the area and had a quick snack in the lodge.

We then drove around the north loop (Madison, Norris Canyon Village,and Fishing Bridge). From there we headed back to Cody (about 50 miles from the east entrance). We saw some elk and lots of buffalo. We had hoped, like everybody else, to see moose and bear, but it was not to be.

We had planned to leave the campground early Monday and be home Tuesday. We had the engine started, but noticed one our the chapter members was having a problem with his bus. He was not able to release his parking brakes (cause by a failed brake diaphragm). He had the parts to convert to a more modern system (from DD3 to Spring brakes for the bus crowd). It took 4 of us the whole day to do the conversion. Mounting the parts was the easy part. Getting the air brake control system was the challenge.

We all left yesterday morning and we met up with them a few times – the last time a bit north of Chugwater. The system was functioning well.

If you follow our blog, you know that we have stopped here a couple of times (once on the way up to Cody). It is a quite little town that makes a good logistic stop. Last night I unloaded the bicycle and rode around the town. Once you get off the main street, the town does not look like it is “dead”.

Responding to Judy's comment on PETA and the pig race. PETA would have no problems with the race. The pigs love it, as they all get a nice treat at the end of the race. The track is very small and they don't have to run a lot. You can tell that they have done the race a bunch of times. As soon as the gates are raised, they run very fast. The owners of the saloon had to work with the Montana legislature to get approval so that the patrons could wager bets. I think they said that the proceeds go to worthy charities and a state fund for recreation. The whole event was a lot of fun.

We got an off-line comment from some friends asking us to post some pictures. We have gotten very lazy about taking pictures (took a few) but even more so about taking the time to process them so that they can be posted.

That's all for this trip.

Hello from Cody, WY

Hello from Cody, WY.

Saturday Evening August 27, 2011 (second travelogue of this trip).

We are parked at the Absaroka Bay RV Park map. This was the site of the Eagles International Rally. It has been a blur since we got here. I will try to catch up as quickly as possible.

We arrived here Sunday about mid-day. While the rally was scheduled from Wednesday (8/24) to Friday (8/26), there was a lot of pre-rally events. Sunday we rode with some folks up to Red Lodge, Montana so that we could have a great dinner at the Bear Creek Saloon and Steakhouse. The town is in the middle of nowhere and is about 60 miles from the campground. The food was great, but the real fun was the pig races. They are famous for this event.

On the way up to Red Lodge, we went through a big thunderstorm. On the way back we could see a pretty large fire going up the side of the mountain – apparently started by the lightening. We heard later that it is a fairly large fire. It has rained a bit this week, so we hope that helped the fire fighters.

Monday we drove up South Fork road to the end of the road (about 30 miles). It was a pretty drive. The end of the road is not far from the boundary of Yellowstone and there were several signs warning of grizzly bears in the area. About the only wildlife we saw was a large herd of elk. Monday night the hosts had a great spaghetti dinner at their house for the early arrivals.

Tuesday we kind of cooled our jets, and I worked on an article for Bus Conversions Magazine.

Wednesday, the buses started rolling in. We had something like 32 Eagle buses and 4 or 5 other types of buses. That is a great turnout in this economy and with fuel being so high. That evening we had a big pig roast.

Thursday, we all took a trolley ride around Cody and then went to the Cody Rodeo. This rodeo is held every night during the summer and is a well known event.

Friday we had a board meeting at 9:00 and a General Membership Meeting at 10:00. The major item was a discussion/review of the chapter bylaws which are undergoing revision. A couple of us were very concerned about some folks who were very vocal prior to the meeting. However, it went well and the bylaw committee got some very good input. Friday night we had a great pot luck dinner.

Today we watched many of the Eagles depart. There are still about 6 coaches here now. We went to the famous Buffalo Bill Cody Museum. It is a great museum and is famous for its extensive firearm collection.

Tomorrow we will make a tour into Yellowstone. I suspect it will take most of the day. We will travel in the truck. We had thought about driving the bus though the park and down towards the Tetons, but that just did not seem to provide us to much opportunity to see the park and driving the bus on a sightseeing tour did not seem like a lot of fun.

We did have one exciting event this week. A couple of us were sitting in chairs close to our bus. One fellow noticed that one of our tires has some very severe wear. I thought I had been careful to check the tires, but apparently the part of the tire that was not worn was where I did my inspection. I was pretty sure that the bearing setting was too loose but I never got a chance to adjust it. In truth, I simply blew it and forgot the put it in the priority list. I was able to locate a good used tire, and they came out and installed it yesterday – all for the bargain price of $182. That is a very good price – especially when you hear the horror stories of traveling folks being gouged.

That is all for now.

Hello from Thermopolis, WY

Hello from Thermopolis, WY.

Saturday Evening August 20, 2011 (first travelogue of this trip).

We are at the Fountain of Youth RV park in Thermopolis map. This is a small little campground, but it has a wonderful hot springs pool. The hot springs flows over 1 million gallons of water in 24 hours. I think the temperature is 130 degrees and it has a very heavy mineral content. We spent about a half hour in the medium temperature pool (they won't let you in the hot temperature pool). It felt really good, but I don't think we feel all that much younger {grin}.

We are on our way to an Eagle Bus Rally in Cody, WY. We are only about 30 miles from Cody, and could have easily made it there today, but we thought it would be fun to spend some time in a hot springs. Little did we know that we would have our own pools in the campground.

We left Denver on Friday and stopped in Chugwater, WY. We stopped in Chugwater last year and documented our “relationship” with the town in this blog. As we noted in that blog, we have fond memories of taking an Eagle bus to a membership ranch we belonged to and stopping in Chugwater to get great meat for the meals at the Ranch. It is sad to see the town main street almost deserted. The only place that is open is a great store/restaurant that is said to have the oldest continuously operating soda fountain in Wyoming.

The Eagle Rally does not start until Wednesday, but we hope to do quite a bit of sightseeing prior to the rally.

That is all for now.

Hello from Grand Junction, CO

Hello from Grand Junction, CO.

Wednesday morning July 20, 2011 (third travelogue of this trip).

Monday, we went to my favorite breakfast restaurant (Lambs Grill) and had breakfast. We then went to the Mormon Family Library and worked with the wonderful folks who really seem to want to help you with learning more about your family genealogy. At noon, I went over to the Mormon Tabernacle building to hear a wonderful organ recital.

The Tabernacle building architecture (something like a fancy huge quonset hut with rounded ends) looks very much out of place in Temple Square, but the organist demonstrated why - the acoustics are absolutely fantastic. He dropped a pin on a wood block and you could hear it all over the building. The organ is unbelievable. It was originally built in the 1860s by Joseph H. Ridges. It has been updated several times, the largest of which was done in 1948 under the direction of G. Donald Harrison. It has 206 ranks, 11,623 pipes and is organized into 8 divisions played from a five-manual console. Needless to say, the recital was amazing.

After lunch, Pat went back to the library and I did some work in the room. Pat did not make huge headway in her quest to explore our family genealogy, but she did learn about more resources. I suspect she will return to the library in the future.

Yesterday we drove to Grand Junction. Our original plan was to make our typical stop in Green River, UT. However, that stop is quite a bit short of the half way mark and we wanted to get closer to home. We booked a room at the Hampton Inn, but they upgraded us to the Marriott Springhill Suites (same owner). The room is very unique but well done. The hotel is brand new and the folks seem quite friendly. The hotel is on Main street which has undergone a huge reconstruction. There are many sidewalk cafes and great local restaurants. We went to the Rockslide Restaurant and Brewery and had a great meal (ribs) which was neat since we were celebrating my birthday.

We had a lot of fun strolling by the sidewalk cafes. They had a lot of people enjoying their leisurely dinner. However, just as we got to the room, a huge rainstorm (more like a monsoon) hit with almost no warning. We had to wonder what all of the happy diners did

That is all for this trip.

Hello Again from Salt Lake City, Utah.

Hello Again from Salt Lake City, Utah.

Sunday evening July 17, 2011 (second travelogue of this trip).

The Stampin' Up! Convention concluded Saturday, late afternoon. Pat tells me that there were 3,300 attendees. That is up a bit from last year but down from several years ago where they had to divide the convention into two sessions and around 7,000 demonstrators attended. They, like everyone else, are suffering from a “soft” economy. There is no doubt in our minds that they will thrive when the economy improves.

I have been able to find a wonderful local restaurant for breakfast – Lamb's Cafe. The food is great and reasonable and the coffee is the best I have tasted in a restaurant. In the evenings I have been going to a pub with a sidewalk seating area. The draft beer is local (several varieties) and the sandwiches are great (take half back to room for lunch the next day).

I have been amazed at the number of local beers available. Somehow I pictured Utah as being mostly Mormon and anti drinking. Sure not the case. The beers run the gamut from very light to dark stouts. The ones I sampled were great.

I have been doing quite a bit of catching up on computer work during the day. Still way behind on some reading projects, but I will probably never catch up on those. The Marriott charges $12.95 per day for Internet access, so our air card is really paying for itself.

On Friday I drove about 40 miles north to the town of Hooper to visit a good friend of mine. Kent is another bus nut and a really great guy. He is really struggling with cancer and I worry about him all the time. He seemed to be doing reasonably well and continues to plan for the future – including several big bus projects. We had a ton of fun talking about all kinds of things and then went to two car shows in Ogden. We then went to a local hamburger stand that is famous in the area. Great burgers.

We are staying over a couple of days so that Pat can spend a day at the Mormon Family History Library. She has said several times that she wanted to spend a day there to see what resources are available. As was noted in a comment to our last post, the reputation of this resource is extremely good. Pat has been working on our family genealogy for the past few years and hopes that she can get some new information to expand her work.

We did not have anything scheduled today, so we just relaxed. Pat is absolutely worn out from all the activity and it was fun for me to cool my jets as well. Still got some work done, but at a more relaxed pace. My new fire detection system project is really consuming a lot of time right now. I sure hope it is worth all the work. The system performs very well and the total system is far superior to anything on the market, but it will be more costly. The person we are developing the system for seems to have good contacts.

I tried to attend the practice of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on Thursday night. The information in Temple Square says they practice most Thursday evenings, but not this past Thursday. I then went to hear the organ recital on Saturday. I could not tell if it was a normal recital or not, but I was a few minutes late and they had locked the doors. I should be able to attend one tomorrow and I will be on time {grin}.

That is all for now.

Hello from Salt Lake City Utah.

Hello from Salt Lake City Utah.

Thursday afternoon July 14, 2011 (first travelogue of this trip).

Before we get started on documenting this trip, I want to mention that I have not given up on adding more details and photos for our family vacation in Dillon, CO. We had a blast and I want to tell the readers a bit more about our great time. Maybe next week.

We are in Salt Lake City for a Stampin' Up! Convention. Pat attends each year. I have accompanied her twice. The last time was in 2009 (documented here). We are again at the Marriott Downtown (map).

As was the case last time, we have a corner room that overlooks the continuing construction of the huge reconstruction of downtown Salt Lake (details here). Most of the huge cranes are gone, but the construction continues. I am still able to do a little “sidewalk supervision”.

We left Denver about noon on Sunday (7/10) with the intention of taking a leisurely, scenic drive in the PT Cruiser. We chose to take US 40 through Colorado and Utah. We enjoy this route as an alternative to the interstate. We stayed the first night in Craig, CO at the Hampton Inn. It was a great experience as the room was very nice and the employees were quite friendly. They even gave us a tip about a great Mexican food restaurant.

Our next stop was Park City. We had decided to try the Hampton Inn again, but it was booked. We decided to fall back on our “normal” choice: Holiday Inn Express. It was your typical Holiday Inn experience which is just kind of OK.

The drive from Park City to the Marriott is about an hour, so we did not leave Park City very early. As usual, Pat was a bit behind in getting her swapping cards read for the convention, so she worked on them at each of the motels.

Swapping cards is quite a tradition at these conventions. Most attendees prepare between 100 and 200 cards and then trade them with other demonstrators. It really gives them a large base of ideas for cards they can prepare for their workshops.

Pat qualified for the VIP level at the convention. That gives her access to a large room in the Salt Palace Convention Center where she can relax (yeah, right). It also qualified both Pat and I for a special tour of the Stampin' Up! headquarters and distribution headquarters. It is a huge, beautiful new facility that Stampin' Up! paid cash for. The distribution facility is huge and extremely well equipped. At the time of our tour, they were filling two large UPS trailers for the day's shipment. We were transported both ways in beautiful Prevost Buses (for the readers with buses, that is our bus content).

Pat is on the go from basically sun-up to sun-down. There are tons of activities and, of course, meeting new and old friends. While she is attending the activities, I am trying to catch up on a bunch of work/projects. I have also been taking long walks and viewing the amazing Temple Square which is just a block from the hotel. On the walks, I was able to scout out a great historical, local restaurant for breakfast, and a pub with sidewalk tables and a huge variety of beers and good sandwiches for dinner.

That is all for this post.

Hello from the Oakland Airport.

Hello from the Oakland Airport.

Thursday Evening July 7, 2011 (first travelogue of this trip).

First of all, these next few posts will be a bit confusing. I did the first post from Dillon for the family vacation and was too busy to do any further posts. I will catch up on those posts – hopefully next week.

On Tuesday 7/5 we left the campground early and drove home so that I could get ready to fly out that night. Some of you who know me, know that I always try to arrive at the airport at least 2 hours early and usually 2.5 hours. Well, as I headed down the mountain, I hear that I-70 was closed due to an accident. It was in an area where there is almost no alternatives. The sad story is that I missed my 6:45 flight and had to take a 9:45 flight.

I got to Oakland about 11:00 PM and rented a car. I had loaded my destination (The Marriott in Walnut Creek) into my Hand held GPS. Only problem, was that there was a lot of construction at my first exit (big work lights that blind you and an exit you can't see). I ended up taking the Bay Bridge to the island in the middle. There, the construction had closed my entrance back on the bridge going the other way. It took me a bunch of time to get back on track and I arrived at the hotel at 1:30. Had to get up at 5:45 so that I could get to my appointment.

This trip was to present our new fire detection and suppression system to a very large potential end user. We did all of the preparation work at the suppression vendor's shop and that worked well, as their shop was well equipped..

The project has grown in complexity by a factor of at least two – depending on how you categorize the project changes, the factor is really more like three. I had spent a great deal of time during our family vacation to make a detailed display and test all of the new components.

The preliminary testing yesterday went exactly according to our design. Today the customers came to the shop for our presentation and then we traveled to their location to do an simulated installation on one of their large pieces of industrial equipment. Again, the system functioned flawlessly.

The project is a huge technical success and I think the customer was very impressed.

Unfortunately, the team dynamics are a real mess and I am very frustrated. These issues are not new. I would love to detail a few of the issues, but that would not be very professional.

I can only hope that I can find a way to continue working on the project.

That is all for this trip

Hello from Dillon Colorado.

Hello from Dillon Colorado.

Sunday morning June 26, 2011 (first travelogue of this trip).

Tuesday, we drove all of 60 miles to the Heaton Bay Campground (map). Our daughter Kelly and her family camp here every year around the fourth of July. They have fantastic fireworks over the lake and it is an area where there is lot of fun things to do.

We decided to make this our family vacation. Kelly and her family will be here the full two weeks and our reservation is the same. Our oldest daughter Lisa and her family will come up the 29^th. Their two boys have been with us a couple of days. Youngest daughter Judy and her family sold their motorhome a couple of months ago, so they are staying in a condo that Pat “rented” as a part of our timeshare. We arranged the condo, as it give us all a place to swim and do some laundry.

When we were getting ready to leave for the campground on Tuesday, the morning news showed a picture of the campground with 3-4 inches of snow on the campers. By the time we got here, everything was melted off. Judy's older boys and a friend are going snowboarding this morning, as Arapahoe Basin is still open on the weekends.

I took this picture of the bus on the day after we arrived. There is still a lot of snow on the mountains.

Last night four of the kids slept in the tent. They came into the bus about 4:00 AM as they got cold. The weather service said that the low is supposed to be the mid-40s at night, but they said that our outside temperature thermometer was in the thirties. I think they had a great time. The youngest granddaughter (5 years old) had not slept in a tent and was really looking forward to sleeping with the cousins. I think they still had a lot of fun.

My new project is getting pretty hot and we are scheduled to do an install in California as soon as we get back. I will probably have to fly out the day we drive home. I have been spending a few hours most days testing all of the components here in the campground. I also had to make a trip to Denver to get a couple of things done at the house and meet with the person who has done such a great job designing the new system. This install threw us a bit of a curve, as they want a dual suppression system and an automatic battery disconnect. Our system needs a minor modification (provisions already built into the design) and some special relays for the battery disconnect. So far everything seems to be working very well.

It is a bit of a bummer to have to work during the family vacation, but it is so beautiful here that the working conditions almost make the work fun {grin}

That is all for now.

Breast Cancer, Surgery Recovery Update – GOOD NEWS!

Breast Cancer, Surgery Recovery Update – GOOD NEWS!

Wednesday afternoon May 25 2011 (twelfth post in this series)

As has been the case all along, we have been spending a great deal of time with Kelly and her family helping out doing whatever we can. Over the past week or so, we are seeing signs of the “old” Kelly coming back. The pain that was engraved on her face is mostly gone and the wonderful smile comes out a bit more often.

As you will see in her update, she is FREE AND CLEAR OF CANCER!!! We could not ask for a better outcome. 

She still faces a great number of doctor visits as the reconstructive process begins. Those treatments, followed by at least two more surgeries are not pleasant to think about. It appears that the final surgery will take place early next year, so it will be a lengthy process.

As we have said many time, SHE CAUGHT IT EARLY AND THAT MADE A HUGE DIFFERENCE!!

Pasted below is the update she posted last night:

Hello Family and Friends!

We hope you’re all doing well!

The good news just continues for us!  My drains were removed last Thursday as expected and, although it was a pretty painful process, it was so FREEING to have them out.  I could actually dress myself without any assistance because I didn’t have any attachments!

Sunday was my first shower and that was a wonderful gift!  Spongebaths are fine, but can only last for so long!

This week is a busy one with doctors’ appointments.  Yesterday we had an appointment with the oncologist who had nothing but good news.  It was a short appointment and she hugged me and told me that I no longer need her (she confirmed that I don’t need radiation or chemo).  It doesn’t get much better than that!  I guess we can check that one off our list and know that we’ll have one less appointment to think about.

Today we had a follow-up appointment with the medical surgeon who said that everything looks just as she would hope and that we will see her in a year when we go for the first of our annual follow-up visits with her.  Another one to check off our list!

Thursday we will see the plastic surgeon again to continue the reconstruction process.  It sounds like we’ll continue to meet with him on  a weekly basis for a while.

I feel really good considering the major surgery I had just over two weeks ago.  I’m down to pain medication on a very occasional basis and I really have no complaints!  I haven’t loved sleeping partially upright every night and I’ll look really forward to sleeping on my side soon, but that doesn’t seem like much to worry about.  I tire very easily, but I know that, too, will improve with time.  I’m still working on that ever-important patience!

The girls have three days of school this week plus next Tuesday and then we’ll be out for the summer!  We’re looking VERY forward to moving at a much more relaxed pace and doing some fun things.

Thank you all for being part of this journey!  It sounds like there won’t be many changes for a while, but we’ll continue to keep you updated.

With love,

Kelly and Damon

Breast Cancer, Surgery Recovery Update

Breast Cancer, Surgery Recovery Update

Monday Morning May 16 2011 (eleventh post in this series)

Kelly and Damon have written an update that is pasted below.

This has been a very trying 10 days for us. It is terrible to see your daughter in so much pain and so helpless. To be sure there have been some positive and “funny” events. Obviously, the positive is the fact that the cancer has been removed and there does not appear to be a need for any further cancer treatment.

As noted in this update and from Judy's comment on our prior post, we went to the sock hop with the girls last Thursday. Some of you are familiar with the fact that I have very sensitive hearing. For two hours I was exposed to perhaps a hundred screaming kids {grin}. I was so glad that they were having fun, but I left the dance with a screaming headache (another big grin). Yesterday, we took the girls to McDonalds and the “playplace” was equally loud. Someday I will learn to carry ear plugs.

The other positive is that we have been able to spend some quality time with the girls. They are at that wonderful age where the love to be with Grandma and PaPa!

Here is the update:

Hello Family and Friends!

I’ve been wanting to write this note for a couple of days now, but have been doing LOTS of sleeping so it’s hard to find time to e-mail between naps.

The past week has been one of peaks and valleys. The highest peak was that we received the final pathology reports and all of the cancer has been removed!  We will meet with an oncologist later this month to confirm that and then determine what future scanning procedures will be like since I will have no more mammograms (hooray!).  As we understand it, we have confirmed that there will be no radiation or chemo and we’re VERY thankful for that!

I did get to come home from the hospital on Saturday as I had hoped, but it wasn’t quite as smooth as I had hoped.  We had some issues with pain medication and thought we got it under control until my pain pump wore off on Wednesday.  Luckily, I was able to endure until our post-op appointment on Thursday and I think we’ve now found a medication that will keep the pain under control. 

As I said, I’ve been doing lots of sleeping, pretty much the opposite of what Damon has been doing since he’s now carrying both of our loads plus getting up to give me meds in the night. 

It’s been GREAT to have my parents “camping” in their bus at Chatfield because they’ve been here every day trying to make sure that we’re all where we need to be.  They had the distinct pleasure of taking the girls to a Sock Hop at school last Friday and I’m sure that was at the top of their list!

The girls have been doing well – between their cousins, their friends and my parents, they’ve had incredibly busy social lives and I know they’ve been enjoying that!
Two quick blessings that I have to be sure to mention:

Before my surgery, I had to have radioactive dye injected into the breast to trace it to the lymph node that was removed.  When the doctor walked in to do the procedure, it turned out to be the same very kind doctor that had identified the abnormality in the second mammogram and very nicely told me that I have to have it biopsied.  I thanked him for being cautious (for catching it so early) and for being so kind to me at what was the beginning of this long journey.  I know this doctor was carefully placed in my path because he is rarely at Littleton for these procedures.

The next blessing occurred with my family in the waiting room.  As the tissue was removed, it was immediately sent to pathology for a first review to make sure that all affected tissue was removed.  As it turns out, the pathologist studying that tissue was a member of our church, someone who is well-known in his field.  He actually took the time to visit with my family twice to reassure them about the tissue.  Again, I know he was carefully placed at Littleton Hospital that day because he’s usually only there about once a month.

I continue to be thankful for so many blessings (especially my husband) as I work through this recovery process.  I am realizing that it is going to be a long process and I will focus on the advice of the plastic surgeon: PATIENCE.

Our next appointment is this Thursday and we are anticipating that the drains will be removed.  I can’t tell you how thankful I will be Thursday night – even though I try really hard, I can’t find a single positive thing to say about them!

I hope you all have a great week!  Thank you for your continued thoughts and prayers!!

Love,

Kelly and Damon