Merry Christmas Eve!

Hey! I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday so far. I have some random pictures to post and then the slideshow of the pictures we took this weekend when we went home to Louisiana.


Jeff on console in case you missed him on Monday night. They really didn't show a lot of NASA, it was mostly Moscow Mission Control. He's on the bottom of the picture:



Maggie doing her trick of getting a stick caught in her collar. She is really good at doing this!




Me with my new haircut:




Pictures from this weekend:

Jeff on tv

Hey! Most of you know already, but Jeff is working "console" this week. He is on the evening shift that starts at 3pm and ends around 11pm. Today the Russians are doing an "EVA", which means that they are going outside the space station to do some work. This causes some issues with how they fly the station. Jeff is the lead ADCO and has an important job and will be pretty busy tonight. There will be live coverage on NASA tv starting at 5 or 5:30 tonight. He is wearing a red shirt and sits on the left front row. Just wanted to let you know that he will be on tv if you are interested and have NASA tv. It's channel 283 on Direct tv.

Well, sorry it's taken me so long to update this, I've been a busy girl since I got home on Monday. Tuesday we stayed home and did a few things around the house (well, not me really, but Jeff and my mom did). Wednesday my mom and I did some shopping since I didn't get all of it done before surgery. Wednesday night Jeff and I met some friends at a favorite pub we like to go to. We had a good time hanging out with everyone before the holidays. Thursday mom and I packed and headed back to Covington, where I'll be for a few days. It was an all day trip with a few stops, but it wasn't too bad. My pain is pretty much under control. I think it's much better than my last surgery. Today we did a little more shopping and I think I'm finally done. This weekend we'll be doing Christmas with my families. Jeff is going to come join us tomorrow afternoon and we'll head back to Texas on Sunday afternoon. Jeff has to work console this week so I'll be relaxing around the house while he's at work.

I just wanted to thank everyone for their well wishes during this time. I appreciate it very much. It helps to know that so many people care.

Thanks again, Lauri

Home Sweet Home

We're home!

More details to follow later.

Turning the Corner

The pain team here at MD Anderson were successful in finding the right combinations of drugs that reduced Lauri's pain level while not overly affecting her motor skills. She only had two pain spikes last night, which were handled by the medication. Overall, she got a much better rest last night, at least compared to the last two nights...

The epidural was stopped and capped last night since it was not working effectively. Lauri was instead put only on IV pain medication and oral pain pills and this was effective last night. The epidural line was removed this morning for good.

Great news also came this morning when the Surgery team decided it was time to remove the chest tube. To give you an idea, the chest tube was inserted just below the right side of the rib cage, and runs up inside of the rib cage to just underneath the collarbone area, where the right upper lobe of the lung is located (recall that the right upper lobe is the area the surgeons worked on Thursday). That's about 1 foot of tube inside your ribcage - Lauri is thrilled to have that removed! To remove the chest tube, they simply trim the stitches that hold it in place, and pull it out. It actually feels more "weird" than painful. So they tell me...

Anyway, Lauri is quickly shedding tubes and IV lines, the less leashes the better. We are currently on track for release from the Hospital on Monday. Lauri is taking only oral pain medications now, and we will work with the pain team the rest of today and tonight to converge on the right combination of pills to handle the pain. They have a solution so far that seems to be working. We'll see how it goes the rest of today, and we are looking forward to going home tomorrow!

Another Long Day

Here is another status on Lauri's condition here at MD Anderson. It hasn't been the greatest time so far, so I won't sugar-coat it...

Lauri had another rough night last night fighting pain due to a relatively ineffective epidural. Around midnight Friday night, her pain level escalated. The pain team worked throughout the night, changing epidural solutions and adding a PCA pump, which basically acts as an "on demand" narcotic pain killer. It was a long night...

The PCA pump's medication caused Lauri to get really groggy, so much that she could not hold a conversation, or focus her vision, or do much of anything. It also looked like the PCA pump wasn't really bringing the pain level down. By mid-morning, the pain team decided to stop using the PCA pump, and switch to pain pills.

By late this afternoon, Lauri's pain level spiked again. The pain increased quickly, due to a still fading epidural, and the oral pain pills weren't enough to keep it under control. The pain team was called again, and they decided to add an additional IV pain medication and change the solution on the epidural again. They also upped the dose of the oral pain medication. Lauri is more comfortable now, and is finally able to rest.

Lauri's epidural is still in place, but is not very deep and leaks medication. The pain team has decided that the leak is not new, they see it from time to time, and the epidural does not need to be replaced. The epidural coverage is spotty at best, leaving areas that are not numb, where the chest tube can cause irritation and extreme pain.

The pain team is working very hard to get things under control. It doesn't mean that we aren't a little frustrated, since this same course of action/reaction happens every time we come here. It seems that in an effort to save storage space here, instead of converting medical records to digital copies, they instead burn the records so that they can complete the exact same steps again the next time you come back! It all goes to my conspiracy theory about hospitals - they are money machines! Ha ha, I hope you sense my sarcasm... Seriously, it is a difficult problem, and they are doing their best.

The source of most of the pain is the chest tube, and it looks like we "might" be able to get it removed tomorrow. Things will get much better once we get to that point.

On a lighter note, Lauri's lung appears to be healing well, no leaks. We expect to be released from the hospital on Monday. I'll try to update the blog again tomorrow, hopefully we will have an easier night tonight!

Recovery at MD Anderson

Lauri's recovery continues to progress well. We had a hard time with recovery yesterday, leading to us not getting into a room until around 1:15 am this morning. After surgery yesterday, several factors caused Lauri to have to remain in recovery a lot longer than we had hoped.

Lauri has drain lines that allow for fluid to drain from the operation area. The drainage yesterday was more than the Surgeon had planned, but it corrected itself before the Surgeon had to do anything. Simply put, we needed some extra time for Lauri's lung to heal up and stop bleeding. If it didn't slow down, the Surgeon was going to have to go back in to fix the problem. Luckily that wasn't necessary!

Lauri's pain management team also had trouble again with the epidural. The Anesthesiologist (drug dealer for short) described the problem as too much block. The epidural block volume ended up going further than the doctor had intended. Lauri’s left arm ended up going completely numb, and she lost nearly all strength in the arm, meaning she could barely lift it, and could not grasp anything with her left hand. While this is certainly overkill, it wouldn’t have been a big deal had it occurred on the right side, instead of left, where the surgery was done! Basically, the epidural was working too well in the wrong place. The doctor pulled the epidural back out a little bit, and reduced the basal rate (steady rate) of the medication pump. Reducing the rate reduced the volume of medication. The solution worked, Lauri is now much more comfortable, and has regained use of her left arm.

The above issues were resolved by around 8:40 pm, with the Surgery team signing the release paperwork for Lauri to move to an inpatient room. However, by the time all the paperwork was in place (about 10:00pm), the room was assigned to someone else! The entire hospital is filled to capacity here, so finding another room was a challenge for the team here. We were instead moved to a temporary room to wait until this afternoon when we are supposed to go to our normal inpatient specialist floor, specializing in lung surgery patients. We just got news that the room is ready and we should be heading that way.

Lauri did a great job with all the issues yesterday. These things take time, and full hospitals don’t make it any easier. Lauri is doing very well, beginning to eat more and get energy back. Thanks for all the well wishes, and we will keep you posted as we go!

Lauri Made It!

We just got to see Lauri about 30 minutes ago, and she is doing great! She is awake and feeling good, all things considered. She is in some pain, but the Anesthesia team is working hard to run that down before it gets too bad. She will remain in Recovery until the pain is under control and a room is ready for us.

Lauri's Surgery Status #2

We just met with Lauri's Surgeon, he says Lauri's surgery went very well. He did not find any other spots other than the one we knew about. He says the resection went well, and working through the scar tissue was not as much work as he originally thought it would be.

Lauri is being moved to the Recovery Room now. We will get to visit her there once she has recovered enough to have visitors. That's all we know so far.

Great news, though! No unexpected tumors or difficulties, and Lauri did great through the surgery!

Lauri's Surgery Status

Lauri and her entourage braved the Blizzard of '08 to get to MD Anderson for a check-in time of 9:15am this morning. Lauri was in good spirits, not concerned about the surgery at all. Her blood pressure was actually normal, as was her pulse...

Lauri was wheeled back from the staging area to the Operating Room at 11:43 am. We expect the surgery to take approximately 3 hours, followed by a 3 hour recovery from anesthesia. We expect to see Lauri around 5:00 pm this evening.

We did just see the OR Nurse and she reports that Lauri is doing well. The nodule has been removed and the Surgeon is working on closing everything up now. Lauri's vital signs were good too. We expect to see our Surgeon for an update once everything is complete - I'll post again after we see him.

SNOW!!!

It is snowing so much here. I'm just going to show you instead of writing about it.

Surgery time

My surgery is tomorrow. I have to check in at 9:15am to start preop. So my surgery will probably start around 11:15 (they told me it usually takes about 2 hours to prep). I will be in surgery for about 3 hours, then in recovery for a couple of hours, then too a room when I'm ready. Jeff will update the blog sometime tomorrow after I get settled. Please be patient! He will do it whenever he gets a free second. That's about it. I'm ready for this and looking forward to a cancer free New Year.

PS. It's snowing here!

Day at the Hospital

Today I had some presurgery things to do at the hospital, like labs, chest xray, ct scan and a visit with my surgeon. My mom came with me and it was a long day. I had a ct scan of my lungs as well as my pelvis/abdomen and the only nodule they saw was the one that we are getting rid of on Thursday. It has grown only slightly in the last month, from 7mm to 8.5mm and it did not make any new "friends" either. Yay for that. The surgery will take about 2.5-3 hours, since he has to go through old scar tissue. But he will use the same incision, which is nice. I can expect to be in the hospital anywhere between 3-7 days, depending on when I get the chest tubes out and how long it takes to get my pain under control. Hopefully it will be better than last time. I'm starting out in a better place physically, so that definitely helps. I won't find out what time I go in until late tomorrow afternoon after they set the surgery schedule. I will try to post it whenever I get the news. I have a bunch of family coming in so I have lots of support. I'm just ready to get this over with and then be cancer free...again. Third time's the charm, right?

Stay tuned for more updates tomorrow night!

Pictures from trip

Here is a link to the photo album we made of our trip to California. It's pretty cool!

Click here!

If you click on slideshow in the upper right corner, you can see the pictures better.

Pictures

So we've made a rough cut of the vacation pictures so if you absolutely can't wait until we narrow them down again, you can go ahead and view the 377 pictures I put on shutterfly. There are no captions but they are pretty self explanatory. Anyway, enjoy!

Click here!

Thanksgiving vacation

Jeff and I got back last night from a week's vacation in California for Thanksgiving. Jeff's brother lives out there and we stayed with him for the week. It was a family affair with Jeff's parents and sister going as well. We had a great time, but it's good to be back in our own house. As usual, we took tons of pictures, but we'll have to edit them, so I'll try to have Jeff post those sooner, rather than later. I'll give you a quick recap of what we did. Monday we went to San Francisco, rode the Trolley, strolled through Chinatown, headed down to Fisherman's Wharf, went to Ghirardelli Square (as in Chocolate!), and ate some yummy dungeness crabs by the water. Tuesday we headed to Yosemite and spent the night there. We enjoyed the beautiful scenery and mountains. Thursday we headed to the beach so Carrie could see the Pacific ocean. It turned out to be a beautiful day and not too cold. We stopped at the Golden Gate bridge on the way back and got some nice pictures from different vantage points. We headed back to the apartment around lunchtime and watched football until Thanksgiving dinner was ready. We chowed down on turkey and dressing and all kinds of yummy things. Then around midnight, the younger girls decided to head to the outlet mall for some Black Friday shopping. We didn't get back till 5am! After a short nap, we headed to Sonoma to the wine country. We visited a few wineries and had a great time. Then back to the apartment to pack and get a little shuteye before our early flight on Saturday. We got back to Austin around 12:30 and headed to Fredericksburg to spend the night. We left around lunchtime and arrived back in Houston around 5pm. So we had a very busy week and now it's back to the real world. I have one week to cram in some work, before I have to go to the hospital next week. Never a dull moment around here.


Anyway, I hope everyone had a great holiday. We sure did! Now, on to Christmas!

Surgery Date

Lauri and I spent this morning at MD Anderson meeting with our Surgeon (again). We have set a date of December 11, 2008 as the day of surgery. Our Surgeon will run another CT Scan on December 9 just to be sure there are no other spots of interest, and to confirm the location of the spot he is already targeting. On December 10, Lauri will have her Anesthesia Consultation, which is standard procedure before surgery - just a review of what to expect with the anesthetic. We moved the surgery up to December due to personal schedules on our side, not due to a change in urgency by the MD Anderson team.

Our Surgeon says to expect another 3-5 day hospital stay (yay, memories!). The procedure will be the same as before. Based on the location of the spot, he says the surgery should be straight forward with the spot easy to get to for him. In fact, our Surgeon will use the same incision line for this surgery as was used before, meaning no new scars (gill lines) on Lauri's back. He will also try to use the same incisions for the drain tubes as well. Lauri thinks this is all really great. Me? I think getting some extra gill lines would be pretty cool, especially at the next swim party... Now if we can just get Lauri to swim like Phelps... Seriously, though, it is really a wonder at how good our Surgeon is - and how considerate he is to making the incisions the least invasive and visible as he can.

Our Surgeon says it is a good sign that only one spot has shown up over the past year. He says the goal of the surgeries are to remove all of the "seeds" of cancer. With only one spot showing up after the last two surgeries, this can be a positive indication that we are making headway in removing all the "seeds". While there will always be a chance for it to return, we hope and pray he is right - that these surgeries bring us closer to being cancer free forever.

Cruise

So I just got back this morning from a 4 day cruise to Cozumel I took with 3 of my best friends. We had a great time, the weather was awesome and the food was fantastic. This was my 4th cruise and the first one that was only 4 days long. It was just the right amount of time to be on a boat. Michelle and I did a little shopping while in Mexico, and Lesa and Krislyn went to a private beach. We both had fun. We even got to watch some of the LSU game on the ship as well. There were a bunch of Tiger fans on board, but unfortunately, we lost in overtime, but it was fun watching the game with the other fans. So anyway, I have some pictures from our trip. I hope you like them.

Click here.

Or watch the slideshow:

Here We Go Again

Lauri and I visited MD Anderson today to get the results of CT Scans, Blood Tests, and X-Rays taken the day before. You might remember that two months ago we had a similar checkup that found a 4 mm nodule that had not been there in previous scans. The scans taken yesterday served as a second data point to see if the nodule was growing or was staying the same size. Growth would indicate cancer, while no growth would indicate something benign - like scar tissue.

Unfortunately, the CT scan showed that the nodule, located in Lauri's right upper lobe, has grown to 7 mm in size. Our Oncologist looked into previous scans and knowing the location of the nodule now, she was able to see a spec in the same location as far back as February 2008. If there is any good news to be taken from this it is that the growth of the tumor is fairly slow, only growing to 7mm over 10-12 months. Further, only one spot was found.

Since we are within 1 year of the last surgery, our Oncologist says that chemotherapy is not required. We are instead proceeding directly to surgery. Surgery to remove the mass will take place sometime in January. Our Surgeon who completed the last two surgeries, called Thoracotomies, will be doing this surgery as well. He was brought up to speed on Lauri's case today, and agrees with our Oncologist's treatment plan. The scheduling team at MD Anderson is working on a final date for the surgery.

Our Oncologist believes that we have likely not seen the last of Lauri's Sarcoma. It will probably become more of the norm to continue to battle this cancer for the rest of her life, with the constant goal of ridding the body of all the cancer cells. While there is certainly no guarantee that the cancer will return again after the surgery in January, there is no guarantee it will not either. Since it has returned after her previous round of surgeries, it does make it more likely for it to return again. There is always a chance it will be gone forever, so we will keep praying for the chance, no matter how small...

The reality is that we are now assessing the prospect of having to pick up with life with cancer. Knowing that the disease is here, possibly to stay, means that you have to take advantage of every moment, never let your head fall, and keep a positive attitude in the face of great stress and adversity. Sounds easy, right? If there is anybody who can do it, Lauri's the girl. And if she is gonna do it, then I better figure out how to do it too...

Having a family is very important to us, and plans for that family have obviously changed due to the latest news. We discussed family planning with our doctor, and there are great risks that Lauri and I have to evaluate before we can have the blessing of children. To give you an idea, Lauri would have to risk her life to have children. Our Oncologist will not be able to run her scans to monitor Lauri's condition during the pregnancy. We would have to rely solely on symptoms: shortness of breath, excessive coughing, labored breathing - to get an idea of if the cancer is growing. The cancer would need to grow significantly to show symptoms, and may be so advanced that the doctors can do nothing to fix it. In our favor is the fact that Lauri's cancer growth has been slow to this point. While we have no reason to believe that rate will change, there is always a possiblity that it could.

Bottom line, if Lauri and I decide to give children a go - the world will know. And we will make that decision using the best data, knowledge, and medical opinions available - along with a little soul searching...

That's about it for now. In for another round? Here we go again...

Today show

So you all remember that Lisa and I went to the Today show while we were in New York. In case you missed it, Lisa's husband Josh made a little video and posted it on youtube. Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aYAWXTc1Ro


Or:
click here.

Halloween

Jeff and I went to one of his coworkers parties for Halloween. It was a costume party so we obliged and dressed up. Can you guess what we were?




I was a ner...I mean Flight Controller and Jeff was a nurse. Don't we look great? We had a great time! I was kinda disapointed in the lack of trick or treaters we had in our neighborhood this year. I guess we have older folks living around us and many houses didn't even have their lights on. Oh well. Now what to do with all this candy I bought?

Maggie and Bromley couldn't be left out of the festivities, so here they are in their costumes:




And Bromley:


They were a cop and prisoner, if you couldn't tell.

Anyway, that's about all for now.

I have my 2 month checkup on Monday and get the results on Tues, so stay tuned for results from that. Pray that the "suspicious" area is gone or stayed the same.

I almost forgot...

Lisa and I went to the Today show on Tuesday morning. We got up super early and found Rockefeller center all by ourselves and froze to death while waiting outside. We strategically placed ourselves behind some ladies with pink t-shirts (breast cancer) because I knew they would get some airtime. Sure enough, we got plenty! I still haven't seen the show, but can't wait to. I shook Al Roker and Meredith Viera's hands! They were all super nice and chatted with the crowd. Meredith made sure she went around and saw everyone. So down to earth. Anyway, we had split off from the rest of the group so we didn't have our camera's with us. But luckily, Carl brought his backup camera and let us borrow it for the morning (I woke him up at 6am to get it!). It was running low on batteries and has an EXTREMELY slow recovery time, hence some of the terrible pictures. But, it was better than our cameras on our phones. So here are the pictures I took.

Pictures from Today Show.

Trip to the East Coast

Well, it has been awhile since I have posted anything. We have been extremely busy. After Ike, we came home and got ready for our trip to the East coast. Our friends Erin and Cory were getting married in Lancaster, Pa, so of course we had to go. Jeff's Aunt Sherry and Uncle Carl live in New Jersey, just a hop, skip and a jump away from there, so we wanted to visit them while we were there. And since New York was very close to them as well, we had to do that too. We were gone for 8 days and had the best time. We have TONS pictures, so hopefully that will make up for the lack of posts. Believe it or not, I have deleted a bunch and there are still like 600+ pictures. So look when you have time! Anyway, the pictures will kind of let you know what all we did while we were there.

Here are the pictures of New Jersey and PA.

Here are the pictures from New York.

Back to the motherland

We have received word that our house has gotten power restored, so we plan on heading back to League City tomorrow morning. We will fill up on gas and get some groceries before we head out, since supplies are still limited. We have some work to do, like taking the boards off the windows and cleaning out the fridge. Fun stuff. Jeff is scheduled to work starting Friday for a week. I have no idea when I'm going to work. I'm going to try and work a couple of nights this week. We'll see. My nephew is getting christened in Louisiana next Sunday, so I have to go home for that. Jeff will unfortunately not be able to make it. Duty calls. So anyway, that's our plan as of right now. Hopefully we can get things back to normal fairly quickly.

The Refugee Lifestyle

Lauri and I have left Houston and are now staying with Family in Fredericksburg TX. Lauri has not been called in to work relief at the Hospital yet, and NASA is not expected to reopen until "no earlier than Thursday," so we will be here in Fredericksburg until that time.

The house in League City fared very well during the storm. We rode out the storm at my Aunt's house in The Heights in Houston (just west of Downtown). The winds were tremendous, the eye of the storm in fact passed right over our League City house, and very near my Aunt's house. The house shook as the winds of the eyewall came through. A scary time, but the house stood strong.

I was able to get into League City right after the storm passed on Saturday evening. The house, surprisingly, had no damage from wind or flooding. The storm surge was not as extensive as expected, so it did not get all the way into our subdivision in League City. Kemah, the town next door, had a lot of storm surge problems, though. We are quite impressed and pleased with the house, it withstood the worst that Ike could throw at it, and survived without any issues. Here is a post-Ike picture, taken on Saturday:



While our house was OK, the city is not. Most of the street light signals are blown away, with power lines dangling in the street. There are many trees snapped and fallen, same with power poles. Some homes have damage, and there is extensive flooding. There will be lots of cleanup to do, but it will get done in time.

To give you an idea of the water level, here are some pictures of Clear Creek, taken at what was the access road from the FM 270 bridge, between NASA Rd 1 and FM 518.

quick update

jeff and I are in Fredericksburg. We arrived here around midnight. Our house had absolutely NO damage to it. We are truly lucky. More later. Gotta get some sleep...

Hurricane Ike - Evacuation Status

Getting ready for Hurricane Ike to come ashore, don't have a lot of time to write... Here are the details:

Lauri and I have evacuated with Bromley and Maggie to my Aunt Nancy's place in The Heights (downtown Houston). We will ride out the storm from here, assess damage, and then likely move out from here to somewhere that has power after the storm has passed.

We have boarded the house, taken everything that was important to us, and left the rest. They are forcasting storm surge to be possibly in excess of 15-18 ft in the Clear Lake & League City area, with sustained winds between 100-110 MPH. Our house sits at about 16 ft elevation, about 5 miles from the bay. Basically, we packed up what we could, said a prayer, and left. Depending on how the storm goes, we might have significant water in the house.

We will try to post pictures and status after the storm passes, once we can get power. Take care, and stay safe! We will do the same...

Update

Well, it's been a week so I figure I would update everyone. My family is doing fine in Louisiana. Everyone but my grandparents in White Castle had power back on as of yesterday. Hopefully they will get power back soon. They have a generator, so they are doing ok. Everyone is trying to get things back in order and then Ike shows up...We thought at first that he was headed straight for us, but now it looks like he's headed out west. It's still kinda early to tell, and of course, he could turn at the last minute, but I think we will be ok. We did not go home this weekend for the christening. There was no power at the church. It might be resceduled for 2 weekends from now. We'll see. Other than that, we are doing fine. We finally talked to Fingers (the furniture store we were having problems with). Our chest of drawers is in and going to be delivered on Friday and they are going to fix the china cabinet when they are here as well. I'm glad we are getting this resolved because the store is getting bought out by another company and I was afraid I would not get our issues resolved in time. So we'll see on Friday if everything is to our satisfaction. I hope Ike stays away so they can come.


I guess that's all the news for now.

Back at home

We arrived back at home at 6pm tonight. A little bit of traffic on the way home, but not terrible. We saw about 80 ambulances on I-10 headed west. Not sure what that was about, but very odd. The dogs slept well on the way home. They had a busy three days. We had a total of 5 people and 4 dogs during our stay. We were almost outnumbered! Besides our two dogs, Jeff's parents have their golden retriever puppy, Macy, who is about 6 months old and Carrie, Jeff's sister has a puppy, Cami, who is about 6 months old as well. The puppies wanted to play 24/7 and our dogs didn't really want any part of that. There were some tense moments, but no blood was shed. Lucky for Cami! She was the instigator! But we had a great time and lucky for us, Gustav headed straight to Louisiana. Not lucky for my family and friends, who are spread all along I-10/I-12. Everyone got some of the effects of Gustav. Only power outages and minor wind damage. My dad got some water in his house, but I don't think it was very much. So everyone did ok. My nephew is supposed to get Christened this weekend coming up, so we hope everything is still on for that. Otherwise, back to work for Jeff and I starting tomorrow. Hope everyone had a good weekend, but I know Gustav screwed up most people's plans, no matter if you were in Texas or Louisiana. I have some pictures from the weekend. Enjoy.

Safe in Fredericksburg

We are in Fredericksburg. We got here about 8pm last night. Not too much traffic and the dogs behaved themselves in the car. We still don't really know where Gustav is headed, so we won't worry about him just yet. We are getting ready to watch the LSU season opener. It was originally scheduled for 5pm tonight, but with the hurricane looming, they moved it up. LSU typically does better playing at night, so we'll see how they do on a very early morning. I think they will be fine. We were awoken this morning by an LSU song. It was great! The dogs also have their school spirit going on with their LSU jerseys. Texas plays tonight at 6pm so we'll all switch clothes to cheer them on. Anyhow, we're excited that college football is back. Not so excited that hurrican season is in full swing. Gotta run, the game is about to start. Hook 'em, Tigers!

Labor Day

So we are headed to Fredericksburg to visit Jeff's parents. We have to pack a lot since Gustav has not gotten far enough for us to tell where he is going to hit. We hope it doesn't hit us or Louisiana, since most of my family still lives there. But we've secured what we're going to secure and Jeff may make a trip back down here if need be. Hope everyone stays safe and dry. Happy Labor Day!

Results

So we just got home from my doctor's visit. I had my 3 month scans yesterday. My leg looks fine, but there is a 4mm (ie, very tiny) area of suspicion on my right lung. They claim it wasn't there on the last scan so that's why they are concerned. It doesn't look like the other tumors I had before. It's not rounded and uniform like the others were. So the plan is to just wait and see. I go back the first week of November in 8 weeks instead of 12. That's about it. We are not too concerned because they have done this too me twice before and it's turned out to be nothing. We saw the scans from May compared to yesterday and could really see no difference. But we are not the experts, so what do we know? If it does turn out to be a tumor, it's still way too small to do anything about anyway, but it is treatable, so that's good news. Anyway, that's the news for today.

Furniture woes

So as you all know, we ordered some new furniture a couple of weeks ago. Everything was delivered on Thursday, August 7, except our chest of drawers, which is on back order. We got the china cabinet in and everything looks great. Except when the delivery guys came with the china cabinet, they failed to remove all of what they call "gliders" off the bottoms of the two pieces. These gliders are small plastic discs nailed into the bottom of the top piece and the bottom of the bottom piece so you can move them into place without scratching anything. Since only half of these were removed, the top and bottom pieces didn't sit flush like they were supposed to. This is a problem. These two pieces are extremely heavy, so Jeff and I were not able to take the extra gliders off by ourselves. I had to call the store and explain the situation and have them send two guys back out to remove these gliders. Now I should also mention that while they were delivering the pieces, they did some damage to the piece, which they reported and were going to send someone out to fix this, about a week later. They were going to send the guys out the next Thursday and we would receive a call on Wednesday that told us what time to expect them. Jeff gets a call on Wednesday saying they didn't realize that 2 guys were needed and the next available time two guys could come out would be the next Thursday (Aug 21, two weeks after delivery!) This was unacceptable so after asking to speak to a manager, someone was all of a sudden able to come out early Saturday morning (Aug 16.) This was also the day that the guy was coming to fix the damage done by the original delivery guys. So we had someone coming between 8:30-9am to take the gliders off and someone coming between 10-2 to fix the damage. So the 2 guys show up bright and early on Saturday morning and take the gliders off. He was also the guy that was scheduled to come fix the damage. They had booked him twice for some reason. This was great news for us, since we didn't have to wait around all day. He ended up hurting his back lifting the piece. We felt bad about that, but what can you do? We knew it was super heavy. So we went about our day and later on, Jeff gets a call from the store saying that the guy is not going to be able to fix the furniture today because he got injured on a job earlier that day! Do these people not communicate with each other? He got hurt at our house, but the job was done. Whatever. Long story short, the guys removed the gliders, fixed the scratches and also noticed that one of the gliders had been removed from the top piece, but the nail had not. So when the first delivery guys pushed the top piece to straighten it out, they scratched the crap out of the bottom piece. (Are you following all this? It's kinda complicated). Anyway, this gauge is pretty significant, yet you can't see it since the top piece covers it. But who wants new furniture that is damaged? So they took pictures and were supposed to file a report. They said that they were going to have to take the bottom piece back to the warehouse and fix it and then bring it back. I'm envisioning more headaches for me, since someone has to be home for them to pick it up AND bring it back, and who knows how long that will take. I can't use my cabinet! I want to put my stuff in it! Very frustrating. So Jeff and I thought that the better option was for them to give us a credit to our account and we would call it a day. We hadn't heard anything from them, so we called on Tuesday afternoon and found out that they had ordered a new bottom piece and that was on back order! Ughhh! We asked to talk to a supervisor about keeping the piece and just crediting our account the depreciation value of the piece. They said a supervisor would call the next afternoon, which would have been Wednesday. Fast forward to today, Friday and I hadn't heard from them. So I just gave the customer service people a call and asked them what is going on. After 23 minutes on the phone with her, most of which I was on hold and never spoke to a manager, I got an offer of $100 credit, which I refused. I think they are getting off easy with only giving me $100. I know it's going to cost them more than that to come pick this old one up and give me a new one. Plus, I STILL can't put my stuff in it since I don't know if I will be able to keep this one! So I am now waiting on a call from a manager on Monday because they have to talk to corporate to see if they can give me more than $100 credit. So it's been 2 weeks and my china cabinet looks beautiful in my dining room. But it would look so much better with all my nice things in it too! Hopefully we can get this resolved pretty soon. I will post pictures whenever we get everything in it.

Grandparents 60th Wedding Anniversary

So last weekend, Jeff and I made a quick trip home to Lafayette, Louisiana for my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary party. They didn't know we were coming so it was a pleasant surprise for them. We had a wonderful dinner at Don's Seafood Hut and got to visit with some family we haven't see in awhile. We had a great time and congratulations to my grandparents for making it 60 years together. What an inspiration!

Tax free weekend in Texas

It's tax free weekend in Texas, but really only on clothes. I found a list of what is exempt and what is not. Happy shopping!



TAX-FREE
Baby clothes
Backpacks for use by elementary and secondary students
Belts with attached buckles
Boots - cowboy, hiking
Caps/hats - baseball, fishing, golf, knitted
Coats and wraps
Diapers - adult and baby
Dresses
Gloves (generally)
Gym suits and uniforms
Hooded shirts and hooded sweatshirts
Hosiery
Jackets
Jeans
Jerseys - baseball and football
Jogging apparel
Neckwear and ties
Pajamas
Pants and trousers
Raincoats and ponchos
Robes
Shirts
Shoes - sandals, slippers, sneakers, tennis, walking
Socks (including athletic)
Shorts
Suits, slacks, and jackets
Sweatshirts
Sweat suits
Sweaters
Swimsuits
Underclothes
Work clothes and uniforms



TAXED
Accessories (generally) - barrettes, elastic ponytail holders, wallets, watches
Backpacks - unless for use by elementary and secondary students
Baseball cleats and pants
Belt buckles (without belt)
Boots - climbing, fishing, rubber work boots, ski, waders
Buttons and zippers
Cloth and lace, knitting yarns, and other fabrics
Dry cleaning services
Football pants
Golf gloves
Handbags and purses
Handkerchiefs
Hard hats
Helmets - bike, baseball, football, hockey, motorcycle, sports
Ice skates
Jewelry
Laundering services
Leather goods - except belts with buckles and wearing apparel
Pads - football, hockey, soccer, elbow, knee, shoulder
Personal flotation devices
Rented clothing (including uniforms, formal wear, and costumes)
Roller blades and skates
Safety clothing, glasses
Shoes - bicycle (cleated), bowling, golf

Damage from Eduard

New Furniture

So Jeff and I have been wanting to purchase some new pieces of furniture for our bedroom and dining room and we went out today to look. We were mainly looking for a new chest of drawers and new nightstands for our bedroom, but we were also scouting out new china cabinets as well. So we went to a local furniture store and found a nice set that we really liked and would go well in our bedroom. It was even named "Fredericksburg". How ironic! Anyway, it was pretty expensive but exactly what we were looking for. We then headed down to Finger's Furniture to see what they had. They didn't carry that same brand but we found something comprable and much cheaper that would work. We also found a beautiful china cabinet that would look awesome in our dining room and match the furniture in there. And the price was right, so we couldn't pass it up. So everything but the chest of drawers will be delivered on Thursday! We're very excited! Here are the pictures of the new furniture:

Old china cabinet:


New china Cabinet:


Chest of Drawers:


Nightstand:


I can't wait for them to come in!

Garden Woes

So most of you know that I planted a small pot/container garden this year. I have some tomatoe plants, banana peppers, jalapenos, green bell peppers and chives. The garden has been growing ok for me. I've had great success with my banana peppers and gotten a few veggies off the other plants. I've been having trouble with one jalapeno plant. Seems these nasty, fat green horned catepillers like the spicy plant. I've killed about 5 of them off this one plant. They hadn't touched my tomatoes or the banana peppers, just the one jalapeno plant. Until the other day. I looked at my garden on Wednesday and had about 5-6 banana peppers that were almost ready to pick. I was going to give them a few more days to get a little bit bigger. I went to check on them on Friday night (it was evening, so getting dark out) and noticed that my banana peppers were all gone! Looks like someone/something plucked them off with their teeth! I thought that a bird had gotten to them and was thinking that Maggie was a poor watchdog if she let the birds eat all my peppers! So Saturday morning I got up and went to see the plant in the daylight and noticed that not only were the peppers gone, all of the leaves were gone as well! And then I found the vandalizer- The biggest green catepiller I have found yet! I promptly removed him and killed him so he couldn't destroy any more of my plants. I'm hoping it can recover, but I'm not too sure. We'll see. Here are the pictures from the rest of the garden:



Anyway, the rest of the garden is plugging along slowly but surely. I'll keep you posted on it.

Big news!

Just wanted to let everyone know that Jeff passed his ADCO final and is now an official certified flight controller! He has worked really hard for this and I am so proud of him. Anyway, he says he will blog about it at a later date, but we'll see! Just wanted to get the word out! Congratulations, Jeff!

Summer in review

Wow! So it's been 30 days since my last post. Sorry! We have been extremely busy this last month. I'll try to start from the beginning. I went back to Louisiana in June in preparation for the birth of my sister's baby, Grayson and the births of two of our good friends babies. Jeff was able to join me for a few days and we had a good time during our mini vacation. We went to Abita Springs, Louisiana, home of Abita beer. It's the next town over from Covington, where I'm from. So we ate lunch at the Brew Pub and then went on a tour of the brewery. It was really cool. Jeff really liked that you could drink all the beer you wanted during the tour. Plus, the whole thing was free! You can't beat that!

We went to a Camp Avondale staff reunion. For those of you that don't know, Jeff and I both worked there during summers in high school. That's where we met and he proposed to me there. So it was nice to go back and see old friends and see how the camp has changed over the years.

Grayson arrived on July 2. He came home on July 4 and we had a small celebration/homecoming at my sister's house the next day.

So I have a huge picture album from our trip that you might enjoy.

Click here.

After coming home, I found out that I had an abcess in my tooth and needed a root canal. Bummer! I got that taken care of and feel much better. Other than that, I have been working like crazy since I got home. Seems like every NICU I know is busting at the seams. Works out great for me! So I'm taking advantage of it while I can. That's mainly the reason for the lag in posts. I am just too exhausted to do anything after getting home. So hopefully I won't take as long to post again next time.

Enjoy the pictures!

Plea to dog owners

Hello All, we are in Louisiana awaiting the arrival of my first nephew. Today my sister and I were on the highway on the way to Target when a dog in the back of a truck, started hanging from his collar from the side of the truck. The driver had no idea that his dog was dangling and getting strangled while he cruised along the highway at around 65 mph. I slowed down cause I didn't want to run over the dog if it got loose. I started honking trying to get the drivers attention. I got the attention of the car in front of me who was actually a lot closer to the truck. The dog eventually slipped out of the collar and made it's way to the side of the road, dazed and pretty banged up, but out of harm's way. The car in front of me sped up and stopped the truck and told him that he lost his dog about 3/4 mile back. Thankfully, I didn't have to stop, since I had an almost 9 months pregnant woman and a toddler in the car. So I'm hoping that he got his dog back and learned a very valuable lesson. So for all you dog owners out there, please, please don't tie your dog up in the back of the truck. Put him in a kennel or inside the truck. And always pay attention to the dog if he's in the back. Things can happen very quickly and luckily this dog survived.

Anyway, just wanted to warn everyone out there about this dangerous practice. We are having a good time here and enjoying some much needed vacation. We'll have plenty of pictures to post after the baby comes. Stay tuned...

Finally some rain...

We finally got some much needed rain today. A huge thunderstorm rolled through this afternoon and gave us some rain. After it passed through, a beautiful double rainbow filled the sky. We got some pictures of it.


This is from the backyard:


It was so clear!


From the front yard, you can really see the double rainbow in this picture:





I've been working like a mad woman since I got back from Covington. So that's why the blog has been neglected. Jeff is back from Moscow and has tons of pictures from his trip. He's in charge of that posting, so we'll see how long it takes him to do it. :)

And finally, congratulations to our friends Stephen and Amanda. Little Emilie Kate was born last night in Baton Rouge. We can't wait to see them next week when we go back to Louisiana.

Pictures from Covington

I have one more day in Covington, so I thought I would post some of the pictures we've taken so far.

We had a bbq at my mom's house on Saturday, then we went to Global Wildlife Center today and I went to my best friend's brother's wedding on Sunday, so there are pictures from everything.


http://picasaweb.google.com/jeffery.mauldin/CovingtonJune2008

I'm having trouble embedding the website, so you'll have to copy and paste this link in a new web browser. Sorry!

My trial and travels

So as you all know, I got picked to sit on a jury this week. I couldn't discuss anything about the case until after we had reached a verdict. Well, we finally ended yesterday so I am free to talk about it. It was a juvenile case that happened in Galveston. The story goes there was a group of teenagers (around 13-14 years old)that met at Sonic. One young boy named Erick, started "flirting" with the waitress that was on roller skates. She went to take out the trash behind the building where it was dimly lit. Erick followed her back there and somehow, she ended up face down on the ground and he was on top of her. Another young boy, DayDay (probably spelled wrong, but that's how they pronounced it), yelled, "She's down, she's down", ran over there and unclipped her money bag while Erick held her down and then those two ran off with the money. They have plead guilty to robbery and have been convicted already. Now the juvenile on trial was Darian, or Dada as they called him. He was at the scene and we had to say if he was involved in the robbery or was an innocent bystander. We heard testimony from several kids that were there, the girl that was knocked down and a cop and a detective. The kids were "sworn" to tell the truth, but you know how that goes. One kid was obviously lying. We could tell because of his body language and his story didn't match anything else we had heard. But anyway, after one hour of deliberation, we concluded that the state did not have enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Dada was guilty of "robbery", so we unanimously voted that the charges were "untrue", which is how you vote in a juvenile case. There were many holes in all the stories, and this was NOTHING like Law & Order. The lawyers weren't as polished, names kept being confused, the witnesses were scared teenagers and there was just not enough evidence in our opinion, to prove he had any part in the crime. So anyway, that was my first experience with jury duty and it wasn't bad at all. I actually got to leave town earlier being on the jury, than I would have if I wouldn't have gotten picked. So everything works out. I left for Louisiana around 12:30 and arrived here a little after 5. Not too much traffic until I hit Baton Rouge. Then last night we went out to eat with a group of people that my sister and brother-in-law know and that I know as well. I then went back to a friends house and we played rock band on the PS2. I only know how to play the guitar (since we have guitar hero), so that's what I played. I surely didn't want to sing, cause that would have been torture for everyone else and I would have most definately been booed off. Anyway, I had a good time visiting with old friends. Today we're packing up and heading to my mom's house for our family vacation. It should be fun. Anyway, that's all for now.

Moscow

So as most of you know, Jeff is in Moscow supporting the latest shuttle mission. He said that he has taken lots of picutures, but he has only sent me one. So here it is...

Jury duty and new shutters

Today was my second day of being a juror. It's not too terrible, but there are definately better ways I can think of to spend my day. I have to go back tomorrow, but I think we will be done, and I'm hoping by lunchtime. I'm not allowed to say what kind of trial it is until it's over, so you'll have to wait and see! I plan on leaving for Louisiana after I'm done, so I'm hoping to get out at a reasonable time.

On another note, I got out kinda early today so I got to be here when the new plantation shutters were installed. My friend Dee Ann was kind enough to stay here and let them in until I could get home. They look awesome! So much better than the paper shades we've had up since we moved in. I have the before and after pics here.

Master bedroom before:


Master bedroom after:



Office before:




Office after:


Bedroom 1 before:



Bedroom 1 after:



Bedroom 2 before:



Bedroom 2 after (we just got faux wood blinds in here):





I think they look a ton better and I love the versatility. Now I can actually let the light in!

The day...

Today I went down to Galveston and reported for jury duty. I had to be there at 11:15 and I made it on time. Short story short, I didn't get picked to stay, so I left at 12:15. Not too bad. But I called at 6pm and lo and behold, my name was on the recording, so I have to show up at 9:30 tomorrow morning, again in Galveston. So on to day two.

On another note, I got a call from our shutter guy and looks like our new plantation shutters will be installed on Wednesday! Yahoo! They are supposed to be here at 4pm, so I'm hoping I don't have to go back to Galveston on Wed. If I do, I'll have to have someone come babysit until I can get home.

Anyway, that's about it. I'm sure I'll have more news tomorrow.

Surviving...

Jeff's been gone for a few days now and I'm surviving just fine by myself. I worked a couple of nights so that kept me busy. Today I went and visited my friend Oi Ling who just had a baby girl on Tuesday. Very cute!

Space shuttle Discovery made liftoff today and is headed to the space station. Jeff is going in to work tomorrow in Moscow. So hopefully all goes well and he gets to come home on time.

LSU baseball team is doing very well in their games. They have won two so far. They are not on tv so I can't watch. I know Texas lost their game yesterday and I'm hoping they won today. Not sure. ULL girls won their first game against #1 seed Florida and sent them to the losers bracket. Unfortunately, ULL lost their game last night against the aggies, so they are now in the loser's bracket. They are playing right now against Bama. I will watch as much as I can, but I am scheduled to work tomorrow during the day, so I need to go to bed at a decent hour.

My veggies are doing ok. I still have green tomatoes, about 7 or 8 of them. One jalapeno and no more blueberries. :( Not sure if Maggie or the birds got them but there are no more. They sure were good while they lasted, though!

Anyway, that's all for now.

The weekend and more...

Hope everyone had a great Memorial day weekend. Jeff and I were busy as usual. This weekend my dad and stepmom were in town for the Superregionals for college softball. The University of Louisiana at Lafayette (my alma mater) were in town playing the University of Houston Cougars for a chance to go on to the college world series. ULL won 2 out of 3 games to make it to Oklahoma City this week. We even made it in a picture. Can you find us?






So the games were Friday night and all day Saturday. Then we did some shopping for Jeff's upcoming trip to Moscow. He leaves tomorrow morning and will be gone for a minimum of 2 weeks. Hopefully the launch will not slip so he won't have to stay in Moscow for any longer than necessary. But he's excited to go and I know he'll have a great time. Meanwhile, I'll be holding down the fort here and going to jury duty next week. Boo! I'm sure I'll survive.

I have some other random pictures to post as I know ya'll really like pictures on here. So here we go:

Yummy blueberries from our bush!


Josh's birthday dinner:







Me and Oi Ling at her baby shower. She's due any minute now!

CT Scan

I had my 2 month follow up scans this week and the news is good...nothing new in the lungs! The spot they were worried about is stil there, so now they have decided that it's scar tissue. But we already knew that! Ha! Anyway, I get to go back to every 3 months now, so the week of August 25 will be my next appointments. She wants to do an MRI of my left leg as well as ct scan of my chest, chest xray and lab. The full gamut. But I feel pretty confidant that this will not come back and we can move on with our lives. But, prayers never hurt, so keep those coming! Now, I need to get to bed since I worked last night and only got a 1.5-2 hour nap this morning before we had to leave for MD Anderson. I'll be up and ready to watch the American Idol finale though! Go David!

Randomness

So I know I've been neglecting the blog recently and I fear it's going to continue. I have started back to work and my schedule is very erratic so posting will probably be in spurts. So let's see if I can sum up the last week or so.

I have planted a mini vegetable pot garden in the backyard consisting of tomatoes, jalapenos, banana peppers, cayenne peppers, parsley and chives. Some of the plants weren't doing so well, so I got some new ones, and they are going strong! I have pictures to prove it. We also finally planted the blueberry trees/shrubs in the backyard. And so far so good. They are apparently kinda hard to grow, but ours have been in the ground for a week and there are still blueberries on it! Maggie has not gotten into it or the birds. I have actually eaten two blueberries off of it. They were pretty tart, but edible. I'm pretty pleased with them so far.

Jeff's sister Carrie and her new husband Chris came in this weekend and we treated them to a crawfish boil down in Galveston. Once again, the crawfish were excellent. Jeff has really done a good job with the boiling. We invited a few friends down and ate crawfish, went out on the jet skis and just hung out and had a good time. Pictures to follow.

We also had a neighborhood garage sale this weekend which we participated in. We had everything all ready to go from the garage sale that was supposed to happen last year, but we ended up with a torrential downpour and bad flooding, so it never happened. So we just pulled everything back out and set up shop early Saturday morning. We didn't have a lot of stuff, but we did sell our old, big 36 inch, heavier than you can imagine, Sony Wega. It was good to get rid of it. We made a couple hundred bucks for a couple of hours of work, so not too shabby.

Jeff had jury duty today in Galveston. He was not selected for a jury so far, but he has to call after 6pm tonight to see if he has to go back tomorrow. Hopefully, he won't. But I'm glad he is going first cause it'll be my turn in a couple of weeks. I wonder how random it is if we get called right about the same time. And coincedently, we just transferred our voter registration to Galveston county. Hmmmm, makes you wonder.

Anyway, I guess that's all for now. I hope everyone had a great mother's day yesterday.

Here are some random pictures from my grandpa's 90th birthday, Kirsten, my veggie garden and the crawfish boil.


Enjoy!

Confusion

There seems to be some confusion about a post I wrote a little while ago. I mentioned that there was a new puppy in the Mauldin household. That Mauldin household was Jeff's parents, not us. So no, we didn't get a new puppy, but Jeff's parents did. Hope that helps.

More pics from Crawfish boil

Here are some of the pictures that Josh and Lisa took at our house last weekend.

http://jsparris87.blogspot.com/2008/05/2nd-annual-mauldin-crawfish-boil.html

Crawfish boil

On Saturday, Jeff and I had a crawfish boil with a few of our closest friends. We had two sacks of HUGE crawfish that Jeff boiled perfectly. The morning started out cold, rainy and windy, which doesn't bode well for boiling and eating crawfish, but we compromised and eventually the sun came out and warmed us up. It turned into a beautiful day. Thanks to everyone that came and helped us eat all the crawfish. There was even a surpise guest in the live crawfish. Take a look at the pictures to see what it was...

Click here.

Back to work

I've gone back to work, hence the neglect of the blog. Last weekend we went back home to Louisiana for a quick visit. My grandfather turned 90 so we had a surprise party in his honor. It was a lot of fun. We had some good crawfish at my sister's house on Sunday and then headed home. I worked the last two days and I am scheduled to work tomorrow as well. I'll try to post the pictures from this past weekend in a few days. More later...

Out with the old, in with the new...

So I've been gone for a litte over a week now and we just got back last night. I went to Fredericksburg to attend Carrie's Bacherlorette party and then help out with last minute wedding things. I also spent a day/night in Austin visiting my friends there. I had a good trip/vacation before I start back to work (hopefully tonight!). I took tons of pictures at the wedding and then also of the new member of the Mauldin household, a 6 week old golden retriever named Macy (spelling is still in the works). Hence the title of this post, Carrie's out, Macy is in! But we still love you, Carrie! Anyway, the wedding went off without a hitch, the weather was beautiful, Carrie was beautiful and everything was great.

Click here to see pictures of the wedding.

Click here to see pictures of the puppy.

Blueberries

A couple of weeks ago Jeff and I went and bought some fruit trees to plant in the yard. We bought a fig tree and 2 blueberry trees/bushes. The fig tree is planted, but the blueberries are still in their pots because they can be kinda finicky in that they like a certain type of soil, etc, etc. You have to be careful with how you plant them or they will die or won't produce fruit. And we bought two of them because we didn't know if they self pollinate or not. So anyway, they are still in their pots on the side of the house waiting to be planted and we keep watering them to make sure they survive in their pots. I was looking at them today and one is already producing fruit! I couldn't believe it! It's still too early to pick any to see if they are any good, but I was amazed. I thought it would take a couple of years before they would have any fruit on them. So hopefully we can hide them from the birds and pick the berries when they are ripe. So far, our fruit trees have been a success! See for yourself.

NKOTB

I found a picture of the newly reunited New Kids:

click here

Looks like the rumors are true! Can't wait for Friday.

Group Reuniting

Hey ladies, not sure if you heard or not, but there is a group from our childhood reuniting. It's New Kids on the Block! I'm so excited. They are supposed to be on the Today show on Friday. Set your Tivo's, girls, they're "Hangin' Tough" again!

Update...I just realized that today is April Fool's day, so I'm wondering if they are playing a joke on us. I don't know, but I'm going to watch anyway!

It's Naht uh Toomah!!!

For those a little confused, the title of this blog entry needs to be said loudly with a heavy Austrian accent... Moving on...

We have received copies of the latest CT scans Lauri had taken at MD Anderson. I have done some modification to the images to show you the important parts, but if you get confused, please send an email or comment, and we will do our best to shed some light.

To understand CT scan images, you first need to understand your viewpoint. You are looking at a picture of a cross-section of Lauri, viewed from her feet toward her head. Lauri is laying on her back, facing the top of the image. Add all this together, and Lauri's right hand side is on the left side of the image. Clear as mud? Don't worry, it took forever for us to figure it out...

First, here are the comparisons of Lauri's scan taken in September 2007, before the two surgeries, and the one taken in January 2008, after the surgeries. For the Left Lung, recall there was only one tumor:


For the Right Lung, there were two tumors to be removed. Here is the first one:


And here is the second one:


Now, as you know, we were told after the scan in January 2008 that Lauri may have another spot that we might have to worry about. Here is the image referred to in the Radiology report, with the spot in question circled. Note that the spot was only 2mm in size, so you can barely see it.


We went back to MD Anderson in March to have another scan, to see if this spot had grown. Clearly, in the scan below, you can see that it didn't grow. In fact, you can't even see it unless you zoom in, and even then it's hard to pick out.


Lauri and I had our doubts about this whole spot thing. We went back and looked at the scan done in November 2007, after the first surgery but before the second, and looked for the spot. We found the area, and the spot looks exactly the same as it does in the January scan.


So, in our less than expert opinion, we believe this spot is nothing to be concerned about. In fact, it looks like it has always been there, and always will be. So going back to the beginning of this long-winded essay...It's Naht Uh Toomah!!!

There, I said it...

Geaux Tigers!

The LSU woman's basketball team won their game tonight against UNC. They are now in the final four in Tampa. Hopefully they can break their losing streak and actually win this game, which they have not been able to do. Anyway, Geaux Girls!

No more unwanted visitor...

We haven't seen or heard from the opossum lately and I think I know why. This morning I was driving along Louisiana Ave and saw a dead opossum in the road that looked very similar to the one that clung to the neighbors fence last week. So I'm thinking (and secretly hoping) that it is the same one and won't be coming back around. But I'm gonna stay on the lookout and keep you posted.

Good News!

The Results are In!!

Radiology reports from CT scans taken yesterday report no signs of malignant disease! Our Oncologist says that the spot on Lauri's left lung is still there, although unreported by the Radiologist for this scan. Its size remains unchanged; the Oncologist believes if it has grown at all, it is only by a hair's width. She believes that it is probably nothing to worry about, but she would prefer to be overly conservative and do another scan in 2 months to see if it grows again. We have no problem with that, better safe than sorry.

We asked about a forward plan in case it does grow. Basically, the spot is too small right now for Surgeons to even find it, so we would end up waiting until it had grown sufficiently large for them to remove it. Further, our Oncologist says that chemotherapy treatment would not be preferred for a slow growing, single spot at this time.

We also ordered copies of the scans taken over the past several months. Once we get those in, we will try to post some pictures of the before and after scans, so you can get a better idea of what everything looked like. Stay tuned for this one...

In life, rarely do you get news in black and white, especially when it relates to your health. This is certainly no exception! We "probably" are in the clear... Well, we are going to race to the conclusion that Lauri IS in the clear, and the appointment in two months will only reaffirm our assumption. We see this as an acceptable risk, since if we are wrong, we are just back into the waiting game we are in now. Bottom line, we are moving on with life, with eyes wide open and a new appreciation for love, friends, and family.

Thanks to all of you who continue to keep Lauri in your thoughts and prayers, they have been very helpful through this journey. We have certainly had our share of bad times on this journey, but now we can all sit back and take in the good news that the spot in Lauri's lung has not grown, and likely won't grow any more. The news wasn't awesome, but it is certainly good enough for us to breathe a little easier...

Scans

Today I had all my followup scans (Ct, mri, chest xray) and tomorrow I will find out the results. It was a long day at the hospital, but not too bad. Tomorrow I just meet with the doctor and then we should be on our merry way. I hope. Anyway, that's about all. The possum made an appearance bright and early Easter Sunday morning, but haven't seen him since then. I'm hoping the dog scared him off.

Jeff is done with the shuttle mission, but he only has tomorrow off and then back at work at weird hours for the ATV mission. That will be keeping him busy until April 10 or so, then he finally gets a break to go to his sister's wedding.

Until tomorrow...

Unwanted visitor

Our neighbors directly behind us have a yellow lab that is known to bark a lot. And today was no exception. He was barking more than usual around lunch time, so Maggie and I went out to see what was going on. I couldn't see anything, I knew he was barking in the corner at something, I just couldn't tell what. I called to him and tried to calm him down, but it didn't work. Maggie ended up barking back at him, so we went back inside. Fast forward a couple of hours later, after Maggie and I went for a walk, we went outside and sat on the picnic table to cool off. Neighbor dog was STILL barking. And as I looked around to see what he was still barking about, to my horror, I saw this:














A nasty, huge, opossum hanging on for dear life to the fence. He is now gone and I have no idea where he went. I just know he is not in my yard and hopefully won't ever be.

That's all the excitement I have for today!