Wig looks

These are my various looks these days:

Be sure to vote for your favorite on the poll.

Rodeo Break visit to Grandpa in California

To "celebrate" the end of my chemo treatments we took a road trip to CA during Rodeo Break (end of Feb) to visit Ammon's grandpa. We love going there. As soon as we arrived, Connor got out of the car and said "it smells like California!...it smells like grandpa's house!...it smells like grandpa's grass!" I think he's right- California has a distinct smell. It smells like the ocean and palm trees and grass (which we lack in AZ) and we love it!

We headed down to the beach early one morning. Ammon ran along the boardwalk, Connor went in the ocean and Amelia and I just watched from a blanket.

Connor was irritated that I didn't bring his swim trunks (I didn't think he'd want to get in the freezing water in February) so I suggested he go in his jammies and we'd wash them after. He definitely took me up on that suggestion and was soaked from head to toe! I'm sure he was quite cold. The water was frigid evidenced by the die-hard surfers all wearing their wet suits (all the black dots in the water are surfers in the picture above this one).

After we returned from the beach, we were told by Ron, grandpa's helper, that one of us had left the back door open and while we were gone, a squirrel had run into the house! Ron spent about an hour trying to chase the thing back out! He didn't appreciate that very much. It wasn't all bad, we all had a good laugh talking about it and I'm sure it also got his heart pumping. Besides, it's fun to have a little adventure in your life. ;)

Connor enjoyed making Angry Birds out of great-grandpa's legos.

Great-grandpa Maughan wanted to get a picture with each kid to put in their copy of his life history "A Glorious Struggle".

I love this picture

Kissing through the glass. Grandpa has an enormous front window that begs to be...kissed.

Connor's turn

Oh no, mommy caught me kissing boys!

A favorite father-child interaction is to play "tick-tock". Each kid loves to take their turn. Check out their videos below.

I love grandpa. I think of him like my own.

Grandpa likes to spoil us by taking us out to eat when we visit.

We love you grandpa!! We're so glad we were able to come see you!

Left up to me...

The dilemma: So, I've been done with chemo for over a month now. I had my follow-up visit a couple weeks ago with my doctor (who had been on maternity leave) where I was hoping to get more answers and direction on my continued care. When she told me my CA-125 had gone down to 28.5 (last time it was 47) I shouted "hurray". My number had dropped 20 points in a month! That seemed pretty good to me considering my numbers had been flirting back and forth in the 40s the last few times. She burst my bubble when she responded that it still isn't good enough. Unfortunately, the fact that it has not gone down to normal is still baffling. She indicated it should be in the 10s or lower following chemo. 

Knowing this, she presented me with a couple options- either we keep me under observation checking my blood monthly or we go in for a "second look" laproscopic surgery. In bringing up the surgery, she said that statistically, a second look doesn't improve prognosis. This used to be the standard practice following chemo but since it didn't improve outcomes, it was discontinued. I asked her if she would recommend it for me. She said it was up to me. I asked her if she believed the elevated level could be due to endometriosis as her colleagues had suggested. She said it's hard to know but it's possible. My doctor also mentioned that we never had a baseline for me before the surgeries and chemo so perhaps this is or approaching normal for me. 

Back to the surgery option I asked what she would advise me to do. Again she said it was up to me but, she said, with me being so young, she would do everything she possibly could to make sure the cancer was gone. So I thought that was my answer. She asked which option I was leaning toward. I said the surgery. Then she said she had to warn me that, with the previous surgeries I had had and having just finished chemo, my body might have more scar tissue around my abdomen. This becomes a problem if there is too much and she can't get the scope in turning my simple laproscopic surgery into a full vertical incision major abdominal surgery. That would bring the unwelcome consequences of a 6 week recovery, not being able to lift my daughter again for that time, increased risk for infection, etc. That threw me for a loop. I asked if she thought I really would have a lot of scarring and again she couldn't say until she was in there.  We left it for me to decide and let her know if I want to do the surgery. 

The thought process: So I left and called Ammon to discuss. We came to the decision to proceed with the laproscopic surgery but if it would need to switch to the full incision then to stop. That seemed ok. 

Then in speaking with my parents, my dad asked a good question of what the harm would be in waiting another month. Could a new tumor really grow that fast. I remembered back to that same issue when I was to have my surgery after my tumor was removed. It was very difficult to get on my doctors surgery schedule and she told me if we needed to wait 3-4 weeks to get me in, that my cancer was not going to grow in that time. She said it was fast growing cancer but not that fast growing. 

 

Another thing to consider is if I have surgery and residual cancer is found, I'd need to wait 3 weeks to recover before starting chemo or whatever treatment that would follow, plus however much time it would take to get in to even have the surgery. But if I waited and my counts go up then I'd be out 4 weeks from my last doctor's visit before starting treatment, if it was needed. For either choice, the time frame would be about the same.

The decision: Considering that I had a negative CT scan, a significant decrease in my CA-125, the other factors spelled out above and after praying about it, I feel the risk is too great to do the surgery now. I made that choice and then had a conversation with someone else whose husband has cancer that helped confirm it. She communicated to me that it took awhile for his number to come down too. Granted he had a different type of cancer but it seems right to think it might take awhile for all of that chemo to work through the cells of the body until they show in the blood work that they're healthy again. So, I've decided to wait on surgery...at least until the next time my blood is drawn. If it's still not low enough, then I'll probably go through this same thought process again...

Winter Happenings

Fall Leftovers

The Frankenstein crowd at the ward Halloween party.

Ammon and I sang with other ward members at the Stake BBQ in November. We sang John Denver's "Grandma's Feather Bed". It was so much fun!

Look at those hill-billies! Several of us blacked-out a front tooth. "Do I have something right here?

 

 Christmas

Angry bird snowman...

Coo-coo for legos

What is it?

So happy with her new stroller to push her baby.

A pogo stick

Goofball...for Romney!

The aftermath...

Peek-a-boo

New Year's Eve

We headed to Tohono Chul Park as a family. What a beautiful botanical garden. We enjoyed it!

Visitors 

Ammon's family came just after Christmas but how it is possible that I don't have any pictures but one that I can't even get to transfer from my phone is beyond me...Thanks for visiting us Larsens!

My sister Laura came to visit in January with her daughter Olivia. One day we went to Sabino Canyon. Here are Olivia and Amelia climbing onto the tram.

Close up of cousin Olivia and Amelia

Walking down from the top

Cute girlies together

Cousins snuggling and reading.

My mom came for my last chemo in February.

Thanks Mom, Laura and Olivia for coming to see us!

  

The Tree House

Starting the tree house project by digging post holes.

Lots of hard work but Connor is the one looking tired.

"Hooray! Good job dad getting those huge rocks and dirt out to build my tree house."

The framework is up.

Shaping the rungs of the ladder.

Twisting in the anchor for the monkey swing.

Testing said swing. Amelia loves to be sung the "coo-coo clock" song as she swings.

Platform installed. Connor tests it out with his friend Hayden.

Amelia enjoying the new access to the otherwise too-tall tree the tree house allows her.

A little assistance still required.

Even mom takes a few moments to enjoy the tree house.

The tree house is not yet complete because of what happened next...

Winter Storm!

In January, we had a leak in our ceiling that gushed down the walls and ceilings nearly flooding our entire first floor!!

The gold is where the plumber repaired the destructive leak.

Here is the ceiling all swollen and puckering.

Ammon helping to clean up the water on the floor. It was actively leaking where the pots are located. I had already moved the furniture outside before Ammon arrived home from work. I had also already removed several gallons of water in that little 1-gallon wet-dry vac you see there. Not fun!

We realized the job was too big for us so the "professionals" came in and did this...

 

 

It was shocking to see our walls and ceilings ripped out to the studs! (When Connor saw our house like this, he said it looked like a haunted ghost house ! He was afraid to sleep in it the first night.)... Thankfully, our insurance paid for everything to be repaired.

The first thing we did with the insurance money was replace the offending polybutylene pipes. The red and blue tubes are the new pipes.

We had the contractors make a few changes to the space while the walls were open. We added recessed lights, more A/C lines, thicker insulation in the walls and ceilings, and removed the wall between the kitchen and dining room adding an arch instead.

Once the contractors came in and re-drywall and textured everything, we decided to do the painting ourselves. That turned out to be the biggest job! Besides doing most of it, I was sick from my last chemo. 

I actually did smile a few times during the process...it was caught on camera!

Ammon finishing up the ceiling.

Little helper.

 After we finished painting, we enjoyed it for maybe a week when we decided to redo the flooring...

Mostly intact kitchen floor with the broken up floor in the distance. The life-saving removal tool we rented. Worth..every..cent!

I love how you can see a huge cloud of dust even in the picture from the tile demolition. Maybe I shouldn't have painted first...it looks good though, huh?

Utter...destruction

Same room as above cleared out, crack filled (red), and first line of tile laid in the distance.

My man working the wet saw.

We did hire some help to give him guidance and because I feared it would never get done if not! Thankfully, was all done in a week. Good job Ammon!

My Ammon's pretty handy. I love that he did much of the tiling himself.

Connor so cracks me up sometimes!! Trying out the new floor...uh...face down with his bears.

Moved the furniture back in and it's messy already again! But Amelia looks happy with her bear that's nearly as big as she is!

Kids enjoying the new tile in the kitchen...

Connor loves to play Angry Birds with his magnets on the dishwasher. Amelia has found the magnet bowl is a great seat. Both kids are pretty creative. 

(As a side note, can you see Connor's knee? For one of my mending projects I made some of Connor's holey jeans' knees into monster knees. Now his multiple pairs of ripped jeans can be worn to school again!)

Ammon put the baseboards in last week (mid-April) and we painted them Saturday and touched up the walls. We plan to have the house finally all straightened up this week. Can't wait!

Birthdays

Melanie is...flaming old!

Amelia turned 2...

...and enjoys her brother.

 

What a goofball!