A new super hero
When we spent the night with Denise and Shad in Utah a couple nights ago, we had so much fun playing with their beautiful little kittens. I had taken photos of one of them who had taken a liking to Jonathan’s hat. So darn cute.
When we got home and settled yesterday, the creatures walked with Danny, Mommy and I to Daddy’s grave so we could show them where he’s buried. They picked flowers along the way to place.
It was good to be there with them and it helped them find some closure. They love their Oupa so much and expressed how they felt him so close in the days they were on the boat while Danny and I were gone.
Our beautiful niece, Jessica, stopped by with her wonderful husband and little angel, Olivia. Mycah is the baby whisperer, and sat with Olivia asleep in her arms for some time. Periodically she’d look at me and say, ‘she so cute!’ (which of course was really cute for me to hear and see.) I find my creatures to be so freaking adorable even now when they are bigger than I am.
It was hilarious to watch them in the grocery store today. They are so used to tiny, dirty Panamanian grocery stores.
They walked around with huge eyes and couldn’t believe how huge the grocery store was. Jude walked up to the bread section and exclaimed, ‘Look at he huge selection of breads, why is it necessary to have such a huge selection?’ Mycah loves pickles and has missed them.
She stood in front of the pickle section after saying all the fruit looked like plastic, and was absolutely dumbfounded. After she’d been there a while I asked her what she’s thinking, and she just stared at the bottles in awe and said, ‘there are just so many mom. I don’t know which to pick.’ She came away with two jars with a huge smile on her face.
Jan had lots of time to think this weekend as he spent precious time with his children. After experiencing 3 days of rapidly declining in motor skills, dizziness and confusion, he has decided to try radiation. This morning first thing I called the Radiation Oncologists office and scheduled his appointment. They told us to be in at 10am to do the prep work for radiation. I stayed with him the entire time and was fascinated with the process.
First they lay him down on the scan table and brought out a hard plastic contraption. They took the plastic screen and placed it in a machine that heats it up and melts the plastic while he lay with super hero laser beams across his face.
After the cool plastic contraption had heated up they placed it over his face and pulled it down and bolted it onto the table he was laying on.
They formed it around his nose and face so it fit tightly and we waited a few minutes for it to harden. At that point they sent him in to the Avengers Super Hero making machine and laser beamed his fancy new powers into him.
After that they pulled his new sexy mask off his face and he sat up with big bulging muscles and a Russian accent….
Now we need to work on the rest of his outfit. He won’t have a cape though, because it’s too easy for them to get caught in jet engines when he’s flying.
As I was there with Jan, I felt grateful for this treatment that is available, but so sad that he has to go through this, especially at this time in our lives when we just lost our Dad. Then I had a wake up call. We started talking with the tech that was working with Jan in the photo above, and she told us that she understands what we are going through. She lost her father in October and her mother was diagnosed with cancer the following month. Her brother died of muscular dystrophy the following month, her mother died in February, her dog the next week, and her sister the next month. I asked if she had any family left and she said she has one sister, who has leukemia. All of a sudden, my trials seemed bearable, and I was once again filled with immense gratitude.
Life is so precious and we all have so much to be grateful for. I am a blessed woman.
Jan begins radiation at 3pm tomorrow. I pray he responds well to it.
Adventures of a Tribe 