Friday, May 28, 2010

Kids visit from India and Jules update

Kirsten, Rob, Rowan and Dylan have spent the last 9 days with us in Phoenix. They live in India and we haven't seen them for a year. One of their first nights here were spent at Faye and Javier's house playing with, "my cousins, they boys" as Rowan calls them. She walked into the door in one of her rare shy moments, hiding behind my legs. We walked into the boys room, they showed Ro and Dil how to play pool and the shyness was gone in about a minute. From there it was rough and tumble fun and games all evening.
Ro and Dilly with Papa. A quick update on Jules: He finished radiation yesterday (Friday) and had his last weekly Chemo on Thursday. The day Kirs et.al arrived (May 20) he was supposed to have chemo, but his counts were too low (platelets). I drove him to radiation and chemo that day because he was dizzy, went to school a little late, left to pick up the kids from the airport, dropped them at home and returned to school. I would have gotten a sub, but alas, none was available. It always takes about an hour to get the blood work results back before they start chemo, so I just dropped him off thinking he would be there all day. As it was they gave him some fluids which helped him feel somewhat better. Mainly he is just energyless and feeling washed out. However, the timing of having to miss one chemo was perfect. He was able to enjoy their visit. They will do another ultrasound in about a month and Dr. McBride (radiation) will decide what's next. He goes back to chemo in 2 weeks and we will see what they say. Right now we are on hold and happy for it. The kids left today,but we had a great visit. I will put more pictures up in the next day or so.
Niko teaching Dilly how to fight with foam padded swords
Niko teaching Rowan how to fight. Notice the fancy leg movements. Later in the evening Maceo was playing hide and seek in a dark room with them resulting in many delighted squeals.
This is Rowan with her sting ray. She got to touch a real sting ray at the aquarium in Salt Lake City and was very proud.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Hangin in there, shower cat, baby shower

Here's Jules on Saturday the worst day of his week. He looks good, huh. He gets washed out over the weekend after chemo on Thursday. He has 2 more weeks of radiation. Eating is getting a little more difficult, but he is still eating. I made him power bars (I can give out the recipe if you like). I made up the recipe, wrote it down cause I knew that I wouldn't remember what I put in them. There were about 30 or so bars and there are now only 2 left. I guess they are good. He sometimes has popcorn for dinner. Pretty much eating whatever sounds good to him or that he thinks he can get down, concentrating on high carb, high protein, high calorie.
He decided to clean out the rain gutters and trim the Palo Verde tree in the morning. After resting and watching the horse race which took about 3 hours for a 2-3 minute race, he cleaned off the patio in the afternoon.
Not bad for feeling washed out. I guess it's called mind over matter, guts, bravery, toughness
This is Merlin soon after he and I took our morning shower. A little scraggly, but clean! I'm trying to break him of the habit of drinking out of the toilet bowl, but not because I'm worried about him getting sick from it. Did you know that there are many, many more germs on desks than on toilets? Toilets tend to have less germs because we wash them more often than most desks, or pens, or phones. So why, do you ask am I trying to break him from drinking out of the toilet? Because he puts his front paws into the toilet water as he drinks and leaves cat paw prints around the house. Sounds cute maybe to a cat lover, to have cute little cat paw prints around the house. Maybe it would be cute if they were painted on and not adding to my dirty house!
This is Faye and Javier, Niko, Nathan and Maceo. Jeremy is 16 now and doesn't always go on trips, you know how teenagers are. His friends are around his Mom's house so he spends more time there. Anyway this is the family that Baby Jules (Juliana) is due to join the end of July. Can you picture those boys holding her, baby sitting, changing diapers? They will probably have long conversations about wet burps, vomit and poop.
Faye's surprise baby shower at school. It was very sneaky and she had no idea they were planning it.
She got so many cute little girl clothes!
Faye and I at the shower.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Prayer Quilt & Tribute to Chris

This is the quilt being knotted and prayed over in church. There is a story about the material. My Peru roomie, Susan who you see reaching up in the right side of this picture bought the material with the forest scene on a trip to Calif. She states that she had no idea why she was buying it, but did
none the less. When she asked what colors and things Julian likes, he responded greens and blues and the outdoors and she know why she had bought the material. It was up in church being knotted and prayed over when he was sick with a high fever. It was delivered on Wednesday the day Chris died just before we left for chemo. The quilt was the one bright spot in that horrible day.

This is Chris. He is funny, caring and a bright spot in the world. He and Jules have talked almost daily for years, jokes, politics, guy stuff. When Jules got cancer Chris called twice a day to see how he was doing and to keep his spirits up. He can built anything, loves to ski (always wanted to ski with Star), loves to make music, eat at Mickie D's, and play practical jokes. Everybody liked him instantly. He likes cats even though he is allergic to them. He always said that our cat Merlin converted him to a cat lover and he would have adopted him in an instant.
We went to the North Rim with Don and Connie and Chris and Mary. We have had great couple times together. We have watched the show "24" together for years. We have appetizers, dinner, watch 24, then half way through have a delicious dessert. We switch off one week at our house, the next week at their house.
Chris and Mary
Mary and Chris and Jules. Chris had fun every day, whatever he was doing. Chris and Mary are really funny together as you can see in this picture. Chris we really miss you. We wish you were still here. I went back and read this and thought, you are still here. However, I being selfish want to be able to talk and laugh with you. It's just not the same.