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| The fridge-before. |
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| David helps me make a cabinet. |
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| Looks just like the factory made it! |
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| GOPHERS! Naw, just me cleaning out a fence post hole. |
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| Getting ready for the "maters". |
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| Bobbi likes the fence, thank goodness. She even worked in the garden to celebrate! |
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| Dave and Steve helped with the stove. Now- what are we gonna do about the backsplash.. |
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| Janie, Bobbi and Barry show their stuff! |
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| Here's a shadowy picture, but you can see the fence is up and the three new beds are filled. There's more room left! |
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| Bobbi and her mom say "well done". |
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| Bobbi relaxes before the "traditional meal". |
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The new fence will look like the one her parents used for their llama pastures. |
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The new and improved garden! Thanks homies! |
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Okay, look fast. She'll probably make me take this wig photo off! |
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Can anyone read an MRI? |
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The famous garden. There's a bed of cucumbers off to the right. |
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Alayne flew all the way from Seattle to visit! |
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Bart, Bobbi and Courtney No- Courtney is not standing on a box. |
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The OA dance team dances for Bobbi.. Click HERE to view the huge version |
| (click the above link to view a video) |
MAY NEWS and EVENTS
May 30, 7:00pm - Well, Bobbi's white blood cell count was high enough for chemo...barely. They've rearranged her schedule now. From now on she'll get shots to build her blood up twice a week then have chemo Friday mornings. That's okay, I suppose`. She feels good- just tired. Tonight we're in Greenville, SC visiting brother Steve and his family.
May 29, 7:00am - June is almost here- that will be our sixth month fighting Bobbi's cancer. There's not much new to report. Her tumors seem to continue to respond to chemo, but of course the chemo is leaving her very weak. Feeling guilty about resting, she will work on projects with a burst of energy that soon leaves her pretty drained. Still, we're better off than many people and grateful for every new day. For me, one of the odd things is everyone around me being concerned about how stressed I am. Almost everyone mentions it. I thought I was dealing with it pretty well, but I guess I'm so stressed I can't tell how stressed I am ;-) OMG- I've got stealth stress! Now I'm really stressed! LOL.
Anyway tomorrow, if her white blood cell count has risen enough, Bobbi will have the last treatment of her second round of chemo (her sixth of a total of nine). Pray, keep your finger crossed, knock on wood and do everything you can think of, and I thank you in advance. I also hope you walkers are proceeding with your training. My bruised heel is coming along, so I too will continue training soon. We should be up to three miles a day, but I may need a little more time. Sarah is going to walk my butt off, I just know it.
May 27, 7:00am - Wow- we got a lot done this weekend! We had a nice cookout Sunday and got the stove in too! Then yesterday we got the custom cabinet for over the reinvigorate done AND worked in the garden. Dave, Donna and Jordan even came over for hamburgers on the grill (and Dave cooked them!). The cabinet was a tough one. We'd been "discussing" it for months. It seems LOWES will not let you order custom sized cabinets and they didn't make any that would go over the fridge.... so I bought a base cabinet and robbed the doors off of it, rotated them 90degrees and build the cabinet for them. Not bad. The main thing is Bobbi was pretty frantic that I'd never get around it (wasting all my time in the garden you see), so now that it is done there's a big burden lifted. She is very pleased (and that's good for me!). She even worked in the garden to celebrate!
I don't know if her white cell count has come up much. She is still often tired and sometimes nauseous. She looks good to everyone but her, so you all tell her you want to see more of her!
May 26, 7:00am - Happy Memorial Day. Well, let's continue working on the kitchen today. Last night David and Steve (and Donna and Susan) came over for a cook out. They helped me install the new stove in the new kitchen. Bobbi just fretted I was going to waste all my time in the garden, so I had to do something. The stove is very nice and will be easy to keep clean (a plus when your hubby is a slob). I have to finish building the cabinet to go over the fridge and then at least the $!#@!@ cabinets will be done. I think we'll also experiment with some supplements to help build up Bobbi's blood. Because of her chemo there are some things she absolutely can not have (like folic acid and some B vitamins) so she's refused to take any supplements..... The good news is the nodes under her arm continue to shrink (it seems to us) and the inflammation of her breast has lessened some more. She's still taking her ear drops and her hearing is improving!
May 25, 5:00pm - Oh my gosh- no update for four days! What's wrong with me.... sorry folks.
We had a full couple of days. Bobbi could not go anywhere because of her low white blood cell situation, so I went to Boy Scouts Thursday night, then went to the high school Friday night to watch some of my scouts graduate! On Saturday Cousin Barry and his sweet wife Janie came for a visit and a little chicken. Barry just heard about Bobbi, but wanted to make sure he showed Pink Pride! There's a picture of them all together. Y'all call Bobbi and tell her how good she looks because I about had to beat her to get her to let me take her picture.
We've had a busy couple of days. The garden is about finished! Woohoo!!! All the beds are full of dirt, I added two more rows of corn (and planted it) and started putting the trim boards up and cutting the fence posts to the correct height.
May 21, 11:00pm - Now this is a late post. Okay- complications. Bobbi could not have chemo today because her white blood cell count was too low. Dangit. Anyway, the next penning they had was Friday next, May 30th. So much for going away next weekend. The real bad thing is her white blood cell count is low, so she's very susceptible to any infection. I'm afraid we have to ask anyone who's sick, been sick or been around someone who is sick to not visit for a while. I guess that means we're staying home this weekend too, and we won't be able to go to the high school graduation Friday night. Dangit! Other news- my sore heel seems to be a bone spur. Sarah's gonna kick my butt at the walk-a-thon.
Anyway, we came home and worked in the garden till after 7pm. Bobbi and her mom worked on the butterfly garden and I finished the fence and filled two of the new raised beds with soil. The girl's were supervised by what I got done by myself. Donna said "it's the most beautiful garden I ever saw", but she was exaggerating ;-) Then we loaded up and drove to Hendersonville to get a new stove! How far away is that? About 12 gallons!
May 20, 10:00pm - Now it's 10pm and the power company is shutting the power off any minute, so I'll be brief. Today was a good day. Yesterday was a little rough, but today is good. Tonight we went to the Cherokee Cancer Support Group's monthly dinner. It was very nice. Then we went and visited Uncle Roy. He's recovering from surgery to remove a gall bladder stint that got infected and nearly killed him. He's better, but recovering slower than we'd like. Tomorrow is chemo day- the last session of the second of three rounds of chemo. The stuff seems to be working, so cross your fingers (and toes). No chemo next week-I think we'll go away for a while.... but it better be a nearby away place at $4 a gallon! Maybe we'll go to Dollywood! LOL. Pity the prez wasn't in health care instead of the oil business. Halliburton would have cured cancer by now.
May 19, 12:00pm Well, we had a heck of a few days, but in a good way, so I was not able to update until now. You see, we've been camping. Our Boy Scout troop hosted a huge pack of cub scouts from the Charlotte area and we were rather busy. We were prepping for the last two months as best as we could. There was to be 150 boys and 100 adults, but gas prices kept the numbers down. Still, we had 75 Cub Scouts on our hands. Bobbi taught all the cubs how to make some traditional items like bone pendants, drums, rattles and such and I conducted a class on how to make arrows out of river cane. Later we had Cherokee games instruction (which our boys handled) and blowgun shooting demonstrations. In turn, we were invited to share a "traditional meal" that had been catered- trout, corn dumplings and frybread. I have some video I'll post when we get it downloaded. Anyway, it was a long weekend and it started raining when we were packing up. I got home, took a four hour bath and then went to bed (no sleep'um good on ground) for the rest of the evening.
Bobbi handles it, but she was pretty tired most of the time. She went to bed (in a tent of course) early and got up late and had to take several naps, but she made it. Several people suggested we go home in the evening and sleep in a real bed and return in the morning, but she would not hear of it (much to my chagrin). She stuck it out. How's that for tough?
May 15, 7:00am - Holy Moly, what a week! Where to begin? Okay, Well- Bobbi is doing pretty well, that's the main thing. Here's what's happened. First of all, on Monday evening a guy at the hardware store asked me how Uncle Roy was. "Pretty good" I said. "Is he still in the hospital" says he. $#@!@!!! What????? So, I did some investigating and found him in St. Joseph's Hospital recovering from surgery to remove a medical item left inside him by mistake last December when he had surgery to remove his gall bladder at the area hospital which recently lost some accreditations for lapse procedures (add one more lapse to the list). He's recovering, but very slowly and he's in a lot of pain still. It seems the thing they left cause severe infection and Pancriitis (hope I spelled that right). They were afraid he had pancreatic cancer. David and I went to visit him and he sure appreciates any visit.He's in St. Jo's room 825.
Next, yesterday was chemo session number five. That's the second session of three in the second round of three rounds of Bobbi's initial course of chemo (four more to go). Now, some good news is this was the first "day after" that she actually felt pretty well. In fact, we were both up very early and feeling pretty good. Her hearing continues to improve, but they insisted she start taking her steroid pills (she hates them).
Thirdly- yesterday about a dozen of my coworkers came over to our house and helped me catch up on yard work. Not only did they catch me up, but they more than doubled the size of my garden! They even built three more 4'x12' raised beds. We also ripped out the old fence and mulched around the perimeter. We'd have done more but it rained like crazy. Later I was able to start putting in the new fence. I'm using landscape timbers on more or less eight foot centers and 48" "utility" fencing (Bobbi hated the old "t-posts"). The posts are 4x6 (more like 3x5) landscape timbers which costs about half as much as 4x4s. I'll top the new fence with 1x4s to make the fence look like the ones Bobbi's parents used at WINDSONG to keep the llamas in. Do I work with a great bunch of people or what?
May 12, 2:00pm - I didn't get a chance to update the page on Mothers Day. Sorry. We had a nice time at Kim's house. Bobbi's brother Greg
installed a new skylight in what will be the upstairs bathroom, and then we all had a nice luncheon. We had four kinds of quiche! I was wiped out from laying on their couch
all day, so when we got home I laid on our couch to recover. Both of us being pretty tired, we were in bed before 10pm.
Today Bobbi went to the Ear, Nose and Throat doctor and she says she can heal much better! Details will follow, but it seems there was a lot of fluid buildup from the radiation.
There still is inside (behind the eardrums) which she will take medication for. She is pretty happy about it- she/we though she was going deaf.
May 10, 4:00pm - Sorry about skipping yesterday. Today is a beautiful day in Cherokee. Bobbi is feeling well. She needs a lot more rest than she is used to taking, so after talking her into a late morning nap she's feeling a lot more perky this afternoon. I've had meetings all day with my AISA pals, and I think I'll spend some time working in the garden before working on next week's cub scout camporee. I still don't have a great mother's day gift for her or Kim, so if you think of something call me!
May 8, 4:45pm - It's Thursday- Scout Meeting day. As soon as she was recovered from radiation enough Bobbi jumped back in to Cub Scout meetings. Today is no different, except she had chemo yesterday and she's pretty tired. She's dictating what she wants to say to me, but I type too slow. Anyway, we'll just keep an eye on her tumor with MRIs every six weeks and keep on keepin on. Next weekend we have 150 Cub Scouts and their parents we're hosting at Lost Cove Campground, so we're gathering crafts, blowguns and darts, Cherokee Marbles and other activity items to keep 150 8-year-olds entertained for a weekend. Oh my gosh, but she says she is up to it. Then in July we have hundreds of Scouters and Scouts (boy and girl) coming here for the annual AISA seminar. As chairman of the organization I've been pretty much MIA, but my friends, as always, are taking up my slack. Bobbi and I love you all very much... have we said that lately?
May 7, 8:45am - Well, today is the first day o f the second round of chemo. I have the ZUNE Sam got Bobbi all programmed with 6 hours of music that she likes and she's ready to go. It's another day I can take it easy and keep my foot up, and hope a bruised heel isn't really Plantar Faciitus ( bone spurs).
May 6, 8:45pm - What a day! Okay, sorry for the scarcity of news. Here's the straight poop. We never heard from anyone about the MRI till this morning. Dr. Pekal's office called yesterday and said yes- they thought they saw "something", but the neurosurgeon should look at it. Dr. Rhoton, the neurosurgeon, called and asked to see Bobbi at 1:45 this afternoon. According to UPS tracking his office got the CD of the MRI late this morning, but they couldn't find it, so I drove it in. Bobbi and Kim were already in Asheville looking for new wigs (the June Cleaver one she has ain't working for her). So we all met at Dr. Rhoton's office after 1pm. Since it was a last minute appointment we didn't see him till 3pm. Here's what he said. The spot I thought I saw was a blood vessel. That's the good news. The bad news- yes, there is "an enhancement" in the vicinity of where the tumor was removed. It could be scar tissue, but we need to monitor it closely with regular MRIs. It's likely there's a Cyber Knife procedure in our future.
Bobbi has stopped having the flash-bulb headaches that prompted the MRI in the first place. Other than that Dr. Rhoton is not displeased with her condition at this time. The odd sensations, hearing loss and vision impairment are consistent with someone having had a brain tumor removed and a course of radiation. We're at the point where "not terrible news" is like good news so we went out and celebrated! We went to a late lunch and then to the movies- we went on a date! By the way, "88 Minutes" is very good. So that's it. Tomorrow is Chemo Day again, and I need to get something nice for all my girls for Mothers Day (at least 4 girls!).
May 4, 8:45pm - Okay, well, today was a full day. Bobbi had to ride my lazy butt like Zorro to get me motivated, but once I got going I got stuff done! We wired Kim and Sonny's new master bedroom (the whole unfinished second floor of their house), bath and spare bedroom. That's four separate circuits (including the one for the jacuzzi tub). I got all that done by 6:30 then came home and worked in the garden till now! I got in two more rows of corn and repair some of the damage (dogs, frost, etc). I tell people I'm glad to go to work 'cause I need the rest, but they always think I'm kidding. We'd be out there still if it wasn't dark.
In case you think I've forgotten, there is still no word on the MRI- zip, nada, nothing, kanigit (Cherokee for zip, nada, nothing. It's also a Monty Python term for how French people pronounced the word "knight", but I digress. I'm afraid we were not home in time to invite Dick and Becky over...rats! It's driving me as nuts as it is some of you (some us were already nuts to start with), but I'm afraid I've just been a bastard about it. You should excuse the word if it offends you. Cancer- that's a dirty word to me. George Carlin should add it to his list. Anyway, I had until now prided myself on my "grace under pressure" (maybe I was deluding myself). I imagined myself to be pretty cool under fire, but this..... this disease is eating my lunch for me. Sometimes I'm just barely holding on, and waiting five !$#!%$#!#! days for someone to read an MRI ain't helping. I should have stopped at that ashram in Oregon instead of driving past it. Dang- am I whining again????? I beg your pardon. Hey- whatta ya think of the new navigation bar?
May 4, 10:00am - Hiya folks! Just a quick note. We had a great camping trip! I slept about two hours, and Bobbi slept fairly well, but we still got several of the murals at the campground fairly well along. I'll post pictures when I download them from the video. When we got home we were pretty whiped out and spent the rest of the day trying to recover from all the fun we had!
We're on our way to Kim's house to visit and to help get the new upstairs rooms ready for the June "blessed event." I was hoping to get a round of golf in this afternoon, but my bruised heel is giving me fits. I am the weakest link. Anyway, I'll post more later on this afternoon or evening.
May 2 , 11:00am - No news yet on the MRI. We're waiting for a diagnosis. Dr. Olson (aka Cousin Dick) looked at the image and said something like "ya can't tell diddly from a single image like that!" or words to that effect ;-) Someone else said that when her brother had the same symptoms after brain surgery it was diagnosed as nerves remaking connections after the trauma. No matter what it is, we're still waiting to hear.
Bobbi appreciates everyone's support, but she doesn't want to make a statement at this time. Anyway, we should hear something today. In the mean time we're planning a scout camping trip this weekend (tonight and tomorrow anyway) and a trip to Knoxville tomorrow evening to have supper with Sam. If you all need "face time" Sunday looks like a good day. Uncle Roy stopped by yesterday afternoon, but we had to usher him out and run to our scout meeting. I think I'll drag Bobbi away from here after the next round of chemo. I don't know where yet- maybe the beach! I think we need a break.... I know I do. I can't concentrate for more than 2 minutes on anything these days. I'm just weak as water!
May 1 , 5:00am - I guess we're mostly waiting to hear about the results from Wednesday night's MRI. Today is the Cherokee Day Of Caring... sort of a community Habitat For Humanity fix your neighbor's house day. That ought to keep me well occupied .I know I was supposed to announce the first team training walk of the KnockaWalkas... sorry, I just haven't got organized yet.
Oh! Lewis called and said the OA dance team won the south east regional dance competition. Way to go Arrowmen! Our friend Collen from Banner Elk called and offerred us a week at her beach house near Kitty Hawk. Wasn't that nice? I'm afraid it will be a while before we can take any trips, but we'd both like to go to the beach and the OBX is one of my favorite places! With luck we'll be able to make the Scout camping trip this Friday night.
April 30, 10:00pm - Okay, well, Dr. Pekal decided when was now! We just got home from the hospital where we had an MRI. Bobbi admitted she was having more and more headaches, though they were more like flashes. Anyway, the MRI technician said it was going to be a few days before anyone would "read" it and tell us what it said... but we got a copy of the CD! It's probably a bad idea for a layperson to try to interpret an MRI image without years of train. For example I think one view looks like a kitty cat. In the large view the top left one looks like The Cowardly Lion with his eyes closed to me. Bobbi says her headaches are all just behind her right temple area, but on both bottom views we both think we see a mass on the left side. Maybe it's something the cat left. An MRI is a 3D image, so the one static shot we have here probably can't be interpreted accurately anyway.
The good news is afterwards we went out to eat and she actually ate a lot of he meal- fried catfish! She ate all her broccoli and a whole filet.
April 30, 5:00am - Well... it seems as though Bobbi has been having "odd" headaches- like flash bulb explosions of pain.... brief, but then they mostly go away. Dr. Rhoton (brain surgeon) and Dr. Thomas (radiation oncologist) want to do an MRI. I guess an MRI is okay because it's not radiation (like X-Rays). We're waiting to hear from Dr. Pekal to decide on when. That's all I have to say about that.
Page updated May 29, 2008. For more information or to send us photos please contact the webmaster