Christmas

See that happy gleefull look? He's happy cause he managed to switch his orange chocolate for Grandma's mint chocolate before Grandma got to her stocking. What can I say? Yes I raised him but at least he's happy and Grandma doesn't know the difference! He of course, hates the picture and demanded that I delete it immediately. Not!

Christmas is over for another year! We enjoyed it immensely and all got lots of cool stuff. The kids were all home, the baby was here and my brother brought Mom out for us. Al took care of cooking the turkey and putting on dinner and it was truly delicious! I got a gift certificate to Coles Books as well as a massage from the European Health Spa. The guys and I got that for Jude as well so her and I will be going together and getting a full body massage. MMMMMmmm can't wait! I also got a really nice leather purse. Al and I bought ourselves a play station 2 that we have been wanting. So I got him the steering wheel that went with the game as most of the games he likes are racing games.

We got Christina a kitchen and left if for Dave to put together. We also got her a 100 piece kichen food and grocery kit as well. David looked at it all and said we'll put it together at home and took it all out to the car. Well he phoned me this morning to see if we had looked at the instructions? I said no that was the "Daddy job". He said they were huge and there were a million pieces and at 2 in the morning he had said "Screw this!!" and went to bed. He was back at it and trying to get it together. I could hear Christina in the background bouncing up and down and yelling "Is my kitchen done yet? Is it done yet!!?" I just laughed at him. Pay back's a bitch as they say! :)

After dinner Al and I took Mom home and came home and collapsed into bed. I was a week of running around and getting all the last minute stuff done and I am truly shocked we managed to get it all accomplished. Al has an appointment today to go in and get his stereo installed in his truck. I am spending some quiet time cleaning up all the stuff everywhere and all the various kids are back to work. I don't go back until the 3rd and then I'm off to the Dr. on the 4th to get the paperwork started for the pharmacare.

We have an ad in the paper for Wednesday to try and find a home for Kody. The kitties are gone. A friend of Ryan's was moving into a new apartment and was looking for a kitty. Ryan said she could have them both and all the kitty supplies that went with them and so they went for it and took both kitties. Sirus is just a year old and neutered. Molly is under 6 months old. All their food, litter box, kitty dishes and place mat, their bed and their toys all went with them. Keesha goes to the groomer on Thursday and she is going to be very unhappy with that. It's going to be hard enough finding a place that will let us have a dog of her size without her being a mess. I got her onto the flea treatment as well. She will be coming to work with me once we get moved. In the mean time she is needed to guard the house, a job she does very well.

I'm worried about Al. When we were driving mom home on Christmas night he mentioned that his legs were feeling weird. He has a bad back and he has arteriosclerosis of the lower spine. His legs go to sleep often and he gets really bad leg, ankle and foot cramps. Anway he mentioned it was feeling weird and then last night when he got home he said he noticed his ankle was swollen. I looked and both of his legs are swollen from the knee down. Today I'm going to make him a doctor's appointment so we can see what is happening. Maybe it's his back but if it is, the only solution is back surgery and that doesn't sound good at all. We'll see what the doc has to say.

We would like to get moved before we have to deal with anything like back surgery. We were actually hoping or I was hoping that we would get moved before I started treatment again, but it just didn't work out that way. Now we are ready to move and have to find a place. Josh's building is full, and the place going in across the street won't even get started before the first 2007 and we do not want to wait that long. We are considering moving to Langley but we'll see. Josh and Ryan wouldn't be very happy with that scenario but it's what we might have to do. We'll see what the real estate lady has to say and what's she's managed to find for us. We'll see, so much up in the air still. First things first though and we are steadily heading in the right direction.

A Plan in place

Just came from the doctor and he still wants to go with the plan we talked about in May. Start in January after we get the pharmacare applied for and set up. 3 months of ribavirin and interferon and then drop the riba and continue on with the interferon. Works for me. I have total trust in him and will do what he suggests. So back to him on the 4th and we'll get the paperwork in order and sent in. I guess his office does it for me or at least helps me with it. The paperwork goes back to his office and when they receive it they call and set up an appointment. I go and get the prescription and take it to the pharmacy. Leave it with them and go and get my bloodwork done and viral count. Go back and get the prescription (he is planning on same as before, prefilled glass syringe not the pen) take it back to his office and they go over it with me and then I'm on my way.

December morning

Now how gorgeous is that. It was taken at 7:30 am this morning. I was heading down the last stretch of road to work and looked in my rear view mirror and the sky was this beautiful shade of orange and red. I pulled into work and basically ran into the building pulling out my camera as I went. I shouted at the guys, the sky, the sky and headed out the back door just in time to see Jude come flying in with the truck and jumping out camera in hand as we all headed for a high spot to take a picture. What a way to start the day!

It's Snowing!

I feel like a little kid when it snows. I run back and forth to the window to see if it's sticking and how hard it's snowing. We hardly ever get snow that actually sticks on the ground here on the "Wet Coast" so it's a novelty. We used to get snow when I was a kid. I remember walking to school in knee deep snow (yes I know I was shorter then!). Back then girls had to wear skirts or dresses to school but on snow days we wore snow pants over our dresses. I was a tomboy so I loved being able to wear snow pants to school. Now we hardly ever get any kind of snow. I miss it.

I've been doing ok just finding myself very tired at the end of the day. Working 40 hours a week seems to be all I'm really able to accomplish these days and when I get home I just rest. Most days I'm in bed and asleep before 9 and last night it was 7:30. Yesterday though I had a wicked headache that just got worse as the day went on. By the time I got home it was making me feel ill. I laid down before dinner and then right after dinner I was in bed and asleep. I woke up off and on over the night and still had the damn headache. I was up at 5 this morning and was figuring out how I was going to get down 2 Acetaminophen when I suddenly realized what was going on.

When we went shopping last week I got a case of caffeine free diet pop to try and see if I like it in preparation of maybe not being able to have caffeine if I go back onto treatment. I have also stopped making coffee in the morning before I go to work and have hot chocolate when I get there. So yesterday I had no coffee and no caffeine in my pop and I was in caffeine withdrawal! I had made coffee and had two cups when Ryan wandered out on his way to work with me still holding the bottle of Acetaminophen and looking for something I could choke them down with. He looked at me for a sec and said, "I have candy coated tylenol" !! So he went and got them for me and I managed to get a couple of them down with some apple sauce. I am terrible taking pills and need to have food with them or as soon as they hit my mouth I start to gag and it's game over. By the time I got to work the headache was gone. I'm going to have to wean myself slowly.

Two weeks till the big doctor appointment and I'm getting nervous every time I think about it. Everything is sorta in limbo until I know what is going to happen. I'll be glad to go though and get it over and done with. Then at least I'll know what's happening.

The kids are all busy and doing well. Josh has gone into panic mode now that he and his girlfriend have broken up for the third or fourth time in four years. She wants a commitment and he wouldn't give one. Now she is heading off to India for the 3rd time for two months and will be travelling with a fellow she knows from Ireland. That was enough to really get Josh thinking and he is majorly stressed and ready to tell her he wants her to move in when she gets back. We'll see how this goes. Personally I really like her and would be very happy to see him settle down. As with all moms, all I really want or care about is that he is happy. He is 32 now and I would hate to see him old and lonely.

My chemo buddy seems to be doing well. I got my patient report and he is in week 32 of 39 weeks of treatment. I sure hope he continues to do well and beats this cancer he has. From all my caringbridge kids that I read about, rhabdomyosarcoma seems to be a particularly vicious form of cancer. It would sure be nice if they could find a better treatment for these cancers that kill so many. As in the case of Hep C, the treatment seems very harsh and for a young child it has to be so much worse.

Work is going well and I've been working on the format for our catalog and continuing work on the webpage. It is a never ending job so it's a good thing I enjoy it! It's one of those things that you sit intending to spend an hour or two and before you know it 6 or 8 hours have gone by unnoticed. With the site for work we have it spread over the site the website provider gives us, 3 of my personal webspaces and two of Khushwinders! Pictures take up a lot of space and we have a ton of pictures on the site. Some days I have open three different spaces and am trying to remember which I am trying to hyperlink to at any given time. Jude just put in a bid on a big new development in New Westminster that would be very nice to get. We're keeping our fingers crossed.