Welcome to our world Julian Vincent Romey!

This is my sister Jacki and 5 of her grandkids, Archer, Airah, Aubree, Romey and Bailey. We welcome #6, Julian Vincent Romey!! He is the son of Holly and Noel Romey, born today at 12:22. He weighed in at 6 lb, 6oz and is 19 and 3/4 " long with lots of dark hair! Welcome little Julian to our family! I'm happy to be a Grand Aunt once again. I could go on and on telling stories of Noel. I would often pick him up from Preschool for the Blind when he was little. He came back to my house late afternoon when it was time to cook dinner. He was curious about everything and liked to explore every knob in the house. One time he almost set his hair on fire when he was playing with the knobs on the gas stove! After that I invented a game called experiencing time. I sat him on the little yellow stool, gave him a timer, turned it to one minute and challenged him to stay on the stool and experience time for one minute. He did it and was thrilled that he could stay there till the bell rang one minute later. Each day we increased the time a little till we got up to 30 minutes! He would just sit there, talk and experience time! That little guy now is a chemical engineer and has a baby of his own!
This is Papa Julian with his grandson Dylan. We are really looking forward to the visit of Kirs, Rob, Row and Dilly in May coming clear from India!
This is Julian with Rowan when she was little.
I have to say that this man is one tough cookie. He is going to radiation every day for 5 and a half weeks and going to have chemotherapy every week during that time. I'm tired just being his support. I have to say it's not easy for either of us, but it will be worth it to get rid of the cancer. I drug him "kicking and screaming" as he said to the Wellness Community. This is a free cancer support community housed in a old home on Palm Lane in Phoenix. They have support groups, exercise classes, nutrition classes and other talks on fighting cancer. Well when we walked in the the leader of the group thought that I was the patient and she praised Julian for coming along to support me! She did say that she thought that I must be in recovery so that made me feel a little better. Needless to say, he is doing pretty well and so far is tolerating the treatments well. They give him all kinds of IV meds before the chemo to prevent side effects (a steroid, antinausea medication, benadryl, extra fluids etc) and he has 3 - 4 different anti nausea meds to take at home. Julian says, "I'm still vertical and above room temperature"!

Spring garden and Radiation tattoos

This is spring in my yard. I love these change of season things in my own yard. Spring brings snow peas and broccoli which means sweet dipable veggies and many more stir fry meals. The orange blossoms are blooming and fragrant. We still have some oranges to pick and juice so I can have fresh OJ in the freezer all year. It got a little warm over the weekend, so I made the first iced tea of the season and turned on the swamp cooler for the first time
Roses are sending out their first beautiful enormous blooms.
Irises are blooming
Purple irises bloom about a week after the white ones.
These are my Rio Samba roses. They start yellow, turn to orange and then pink. All flowers love spring in Arizona.

For other news on the home front, Jules and I went to the radiation oncologist yesterday. Studies have shown better results using both chemo and radiation at the same time, so he went today to get tattoos to guide them in the radiation each day. He wanted to have the last supper tattooed on his chest however, they put tiny little dots which almost look like a freckle. He will have radiation for five and 1/2 weeks, five days a week. It will take a maximum of a half hour each day. They don't expect that he will have burning on his skin and he will hopefully tolerate it well. He will have to get a feeding tube, but will only use it if he starts having swallowing problems. This may happen temporarily due to inflammation and swelling of the tumor in his esophagus. We would have waited on the tube, but the doctor said that it takes about a week to get a feeding tube put in. He could become very weak if he cannot eat for a week and be unable to tolerate the chemo & radiation. Good nutrition is very important for a positive outcome. We like the idea that he will be chewing most and hopefully all of his meals. Jules says that it is hard to get steak through a feeding tube. Even though we eat steak only about once a year, this is very important to him! He will have his 1st Radiation treatment and 2nd chemo on April 21.

Roller Derby, other family stars and chemo

Stella Guns the all Star!
This is Star (in front hauling ass) in the regional Roller Derby game in Las Vegas. She has been having a lot of fun and she can go like fire from a gun, thus her name Stella Guns. The Utah team won! Congrats Star!
Diane and Bill came to visit this past week. This picture is Diane's reward for feeding me sand cakes when I was a little tyke!
Mom, Diane, Faye and I, sisters, moms, grandmothers, aunts, daughters some of our many hats, all having fun
Faye and baby bun!
We also enjoyed a surprise visit from Sean a couple weeks ago. His knock on Grandma's door was the first she knew he was in town. We had dinners and he did various things around Mom's house. He made her a roll out trash can in the kitchen, fixed something in the shower and most important fixed her bike! She said, Sean, you don't need to do that. Sean said, Grandma, I have to you used to ride me in the basket to the library! When Sean got older he would ride Faye and then Ryan around in the bike. This bike has a lot of history

Jules is finished with his first round of chemo. He got his pump off the other day. It seems to be helping. He can eat apples and grapes again! He will have another round of chemo in a couple weeks. However, we have to see Dr. McBride Monday who wants to discuss radiation. We are leary at this point. We are thinking that he should do 2 rounds of chemo and see how it is responding to that. We will go and see what Dr. McBride has to say. The chemo wasn't fun, but it was OK. The nausea was well controlled with anti nausea meds. At home we are concentrating on diet, eating foods that are shown to be cancer fighters. We are going to start growing broccoli and red clover sprouts and eating other fruits and veggies, etc that show promise. We are talking a lot and continue trying to figure out the best course of action.