Spring

As you know it has again been a long time between posts.  Laura continues to do well; Ani is thriving at Occidental and Tim keeps going at Astoria high school!  It's track season so Tim is running the longer track races.  He just got a personal best and broke the 5 minute mark on the 1500 m race last Saturday.  He ran it in 4:50!

Mom and Dad were out from maine for a week.  We ate well and went on some nice dog walks!  Here are some pics:

March 1

Well it's been forever since I posted on my blog.  First and foremost, today is Tim's birthday! He's 17 years old. I find it hard to believe that I have a 17-year-old and a 19-year-old. We will have pancakes and strawberries and whipped cream for breakfast and then go out to dinner somewhere and watch the movie whiplash here at home tonight. Should be a good day.

Laura is doing well. She starts a new job on Monday. She should be working about 16 hours a week as a medical assistant at Columbia memorial hospital. She will be generally working full days on Wednesdays and Thursdays so wish her luck in getting up in the morning and packing a lunch. She can keep her disability payments for at least nine months as work try elk (I am using voice recognition to dictate this and making changes as I read it over but this mistake is too good to change!!  Also you will notice my phone is a better speller than I am!!!) and then she'll either take on more hours or ensure that she has the right number of hours to both work and keep her disability payments. March 17 is the next set of scan results so we are patiently waiting to find out the results there.

For Hanukkah Laura's brother Richard gave her a trip to Europe both her parents and my parents also chipped in so as long as the scans are clean Laura will be booking a airplane tickets to England and France for the summer. It's been so fun thinking about where we want to go and planning out a vacation.

As usual I am doing just fine. The weather has been mild enough to do some gardening and I've just come back from a ski weekend in Sun Valley with my cousin Tim and my friend Pete from the East Coast. Well there wasn't any new snow there was enough snow and we had a blast. Here are a couple photos of life in the Northwest.

Kale that has over wintered that we are eating and is so good!

Laura's eyes

Poor Laura!  Just as she is feeling pretty good and even brushing off her resume to try to get a job she gets these terrible rashes around her eyes.  They have been showing up a day or two after each infusion and lasting 10 to 14 days.  She gets infusions every three weeks so she gets a week without it.  This has been going on since September it seems.

Happy new year

Laura is having an infusion on New Year's Eve.  I brought pancakes and tea for her!  We are having a fun long vacation. The kids and I are not driving Laura or eachother too crazy!  Hope you all are well. 

Happy thanksgiving!!

It's been forever since I posted.  We are doing well. Here is asynopses:

Laura:  it's been over four weeks since Laura's last and final taxotere chemo.  Just last weekend she said she actually felt ok at night!  She had her two biologicals a week ago today which made her sleepy but not too bad.  She has open cuts on four out of five finger tips from the chemo.  Her eyes are watering so much that there is some ick under her right eye.  Little mouse fuzz hair is starting to grow back more and it's so soft!  In general her spirits and how she is feeling is on the rise.

Tim:  thriving.  Just put new speakers in his/Ani's car which he loves.  Cross country went well and he is loving his welding class at Clatsop community college. 

Ani is home right now.  She just loves occidental college!   It's wonderful having her home

Jon:  I am lucky to love my job.  I am excited about how well Laura responded to the chemo but it is hard to get excited because I don't want to get my hopes up  too much.   Don't get me wrong it is amazing the rumors have shrunk so much.  I just sure hope they continue to stay small!!!

Laura's brother Richard, his man Fajar, daughter Rose and random friend are coming for thanksgivings!  

My cousins Tim and Kathryn visited from hailey Idaho last weekend which was great!  Here are some pics:

Chemo in Astoria.

Laura has just started her herceptin infusion in Astoria.  It took over 3 weeks but she finally is able to do infusions here in Astoria which is great!  She swam this morning and I worked until 1230 and. Will go back to the office later too!

Lauras scans

Good news!  Lauras scans today continue to be good news!  They cannot see any cancer in her ct scans.  While there is something in the left side of her liver, they think it is a cyst and not cancer.  Dr Raish, her medical oncologist, said she is very far to the good side of possible outcomes of her treatment.  He expected some results but he did not expect not to see any cancer so that is great!

Dr Raish would not say NED (no evidence of desiease) but he did say he is very happy with the results. So happy he has decided to do two more sessions of taxotere which is the chemo drug that Laura is taking along with the two other biological drugs that go after her exact type of cancer.  So Laura was just given 20 mg of steroids since she did not pre load her body with steroids yesterday and today to accept the taxotere.  Her nurse said she would not be sleeping tonight but at least they are being as aggressive as possible!

We are having our traditional Thai food lunch we have been having for chemo!