Working through the pains in my back, I think I have not been walking enough. Gotta get those muscles up to speed. I only feel them when I am up and about or sitting in a chair that does not give adequate lumbar support. I also think I need to improve my posture...I slump forward too much when my stomaphagus and innards hurt.

I just liked the bum on the top right...J-Lo got nothing on this guy!

(I do wonder about my strange and convoluted thought patterns ... but only sometimes...)

Still having trouble swallowing, but I have found that if I clench my teeth, I can get down stuff a bit easier, but I am not going to push it. 

Oh my gosh, I just have to blog about the boys skit today. Nothing to do with cancer, it just totally cracked me up.

Since we couldn't go to church today, (my fault) I taught them about David and Goliath, then they took turns filling in the roles of the various characters, King Saul, a soldier, David and of course, Goliath.

The costumes were pulled from the toy room's dress up box, so Goliath resembled more of a pirate, the soldiers armor looked suspiciously like ninja pants and a Nerf dart vest, David looked great in a red bathrobe and a towel fastened around his waist with a church belt, and King Saul's robe looked a bit like Daniels Ringwraith costume from last year.

Ben REALLY wanted to be Goliath first and it was SUCH a crack up! He said his lines standing up on a small chair and saw absolutely nothing funny about it. He ended up still being shorter than "David "(aka Nathan). Don't tell him that though, He delivered his lines with great gusto.

I love being a mom.

OK I am a bit daft sometimes, but ya really can't blame me.... ok maybe you can. I mentioned I have been having trouble swallowing. I felt that maybe I was just being a woose, (huh, wonder the real spelling on that one, spell check will NOT accept it...) SO like the brilliant person I am, I decided I would just push through it. I tried to eat a tiny piece of really soft flaky fish (yummy on the tongue BTW, Cary is a great cook).

It got hopelessly stuck.

It was a full day before I could even get water down, and took 2 days to completely go down. Bah...  I just want to get better. I spoke with the nurse who said it was possible my new "stomaphagus" (wish I could claim credit for that wonderful word, but found it on a EC chat site)  is having a spasm (hold the spaz jokes please).

We are giving it a week to see what happens.

Oh, and Cary fixed my chair :)

can I just say this feeding tube thing is getting old, and I broke the big recliner I have been sleeping in since I got home. grrr....

I shouldn't complain, I am doing better and better every day, even though swallowing is anything semi solid is still a challenge.

But all in all, 

I will survive  :)

added a couple more favorite links on the side bar...

Dr appointment went well, Met my PCP for the first time. Way back when, when I was arguing with the insurance, trying to get the care I needed, he was kind enough to just sign referrals with only reading my medical reports, not seeing me. (time constraints) . He seems very thorough and likable enough. He just kept saying "wow" when we were telling him a bit about the treatments I had gone through. He also made the comment, " I am glad I am seeing you after all this is over!".

I am just glad all this is over... well mostly...

I was so excited!  I actually ran some errands this weekend ( ok walked really slow, but whose counting...). Cary drove of course, but just getting out of the house was wonderful. I was a bit done in though afterward but hey, I will take what I can get.

I REALLY tried to make it to church Sunday, but my body just plain vetoed that one. I am going to try again next week.This time I am really going to take it easy on the weekend so I can have all that energy on the Sabbath.

I am getting better and better every day now and seriously, the thing that hurts the worst  is the wound in my neck, so that is a HUGE improvement over chest tube and drain holes.

Both drains came out yesterday!!! Only the feeding tube left now. I am in the home stretch of healing...although it still is hard to swallow anything but liquids or semi liquids. I am sure that will come as well.

still boring.... HOORAAYYY!!!!  I have an appointment on Thursday and understand that at least one of my drains will be removed. Jo Marie (remember, she's the surgeon's nurse practitioner) said they might wait a week before they take the other one out. Woo hoo!! then there will be only the feeding tube.

 

Ok so maybe my drains aren't THIS big...

Last couple of days have been extremely boring, (thank you for all those wishes of boring-ness) with the exception of one little earthquake... It was only a 5.4 and the epicenter was a good 30 or 40 miles away, but it was enough to spark bedtime discussion with small boys. It was also pretty funny that little Ben could not WAIT until dad got home from work to tell him all about it and how " shaky shaky" it was. We are all  fine and dandy, but it did make me think that as soon as I get feeling a bit better, I need to get my emergency preparedness kit up to speed. Right now with all the craziness, I have no idea even where our poor ravaged, picked through kits even are! (looks like I still need those boring days to continue into the long distant future...)

 Here at the new house I kept smelling something really bad up in our bedroom. Well, I finally tracked it down...  Remember what a wonderful Easter my boys had? well, as you may remember the move happened right after that and the Easter stuff got all packed up and shipped off to the new house. Except that some of the Easter baskets still had boiled eggs in them. Yum....