NO CANCER!!!

Sorry it has taken me so long to update everyone. My head is still kinda spinning. We had Randy's appointment with his surgeon yesterday. We waited 45 minutes. Turns out she was on the phone getting the pathology results. The first thing she said as she walked into the room was "Well, you must have been a very good boy to get this for Christmas..." Randy got it right away. Me, not until she actually said the words, "NO CANCER" did I finally understand.
NO CANCER
NO CANCER
NO CANCER
Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and prayers. You have no idea how much it meant to us.
Happy Holidays to everyone...

You never stop wondering - why...

Sarah is working on a project where she needs to write about her family and provide pictures. This project was due last week, but I asked her teacher for an extension, because of all that was going on preparing for Randy's surgery. Or so I thought. Turns out that it wasn't because of the upcoming surgery at all. I've been putting off helping her because it meant that I would have to go digging through old photographs. Particularly photos of my mom. I have boxes and boxes of them. I haven't looked at any of these photos in years. Sure I have a few photos of my mom around. Hell, there is a 3.5 ft x 4.5 ft portrait of her as soon as you come into the house. I see these photos everyday, I walk by the portrait a least a dozen times a day. But somehow going through all the photographs looking for one of my mom with Sarah was excruciatingly difficult. Mom and Sarah at Disney when Sarah was 5 months old. Mom feeding Sarah her first solid food. Sarah and Mom at Christmas in Ottawa. Sarah and my mom at Cindy's wedding. I know there is happiness and love in those pictures, but I can't seem to see any of that in her eyes in those moments. Sure she is smiling and looks great, but I just can't get past knowing what was to come. The knowing now taints every photo of her that I look at, every memory that I hold. I want to know why, why weren't we enough to keep her here. How could Max and Sarah not be enough to keep her here. I know how much she loved them. Why, why wasn't that enough...
This time of year is always a challenge, I really thought that I was going to be able to sail through this one this year. Last year was tough, first year without Grand Father Jack. This is our fourth year without my mom and it doesn't get any easier. The pain is always there, you just get used to it, and you are left forever wounded.

The Weather Outside is Frightful

Day 3 home from the hospital and Randy is puttering around, frustrated that he can't do stuff, but behaving. Yesterday dumped about 1 foot of snow on us. At some points it looked like a white out outside the kitchen window. When most of the storm seemed to have passed, I looked out to see our neighbours, the Carroll's, the Maher's, Elizabeth and Elliot, snow blowing, shoveling, and digging us out. How blessed are we...There is no way that I would have been able to manage even getting out the door on Sunday.
A little later the doorbell rings and there is our friend Christina, food, flowers and chocolate in hand. Tom, her husband never does make it in. He immediately starts shoveling out the cars in the driveway.
Without everyones help we wouldn't have been able to get out this morning at all. As it was in my first minute outside today I slipped out on the ice and landed smack my knee on the concrete - so graceful.
Everyone has been so supportive, and Randy and I are very grateful. Thank you to all for the numerous e-mail and phone messages wishing him well.
Randy has a follow up appointment late Friday afternoon, where we hope we will get the pathology results and that Randy won't be going in for round 2. Keep your fingers crossed.

Randy is doing GREAT

Surgery went as planned and Randy is doing very well.
The morning started off a little hectic. With the huge storm that hit the north east, both kids schools were open BUT Max's bus company wasn't providing transportation. Pam's husband Dan works in the same town and drove Max. After packing up the kids with their overnight bags, sleeping bags, backpacks and lunches, we dropped Max off with the Bybells and then dropped Sarah off at school (and ran into Pam walking Oreo). Then it was off to the hospital. Randy was checked in and then I went off to have some breakfast (in a show of solidarity - I skipped breakfast and coffee - that is how much I LOVE my husband - I skipped COFFEE. Well at least until he was checked in - then it was hello Eggnog Latte...) The wait was excruciating and long. Of course the only 5 minutes that I left the surgical waiting room was when the surgeon came out to talk to me. Randy was in recovery for a few hours before he was transferred up to the hospital.
In the end we ended up with a private room with a GREAT view of Boston. Randy looked very good coming out of surgery. Nothing like he looked after the surgery back in 2003. He was allowed to have dinner and had "Grilled swordfish with Mango chutney, salad with mesculin greens, goat cheese, dried cranberries, and raspberry vinaigrette and Carrot Cake for desert" this was off of the hospital menu!
A few hours later Randy was still hungry, so I scored him a roast turkey sandwich, which he promptly inhaled. Safe to say I think our boy is feeling OK. He did have a little discomfort and headache but was in great spirits.
Thank you to all of you who were thinking of us. Thanks to our good friends the Bybells, the Michas', the Krug-Brandeis', the Carrolls, and Leslie.
Randy is scheduled to be released this morning. Stay tuned

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow...

Well, Mother Nature decided to dump about 1 foot of snow on us today and here it is midnite and Randy has just come in from shoveling. Our awesome neighbour Tom helped out by snowblowing a good deal of it. I, in typical Rhonda fashion (I tend to clean obsessively and rearrange furniture when stressed) threw out my back at about 6 o'clock when I decided to relocate the treadmill to the other room, which is why poor Randy has been shoveling for hours. The pharmeceuticals, however seem to be kicking in and I am at least mobile.
No eating or drinking after midnite for Randy - so he is having some toast and some ice cream and bananas before we head upstairs to flip the mattress and put fresh sheets on the bed.
Kids are both having sleep over with their respective best friends (a million thank yous to parents Sara and Cindy). Kinda sad that both kids will be away overnight for the first time ever and Randy and I aren't even together...
We are both going into this optimistic and hopeful. Keep us in your thoughts. I will try to update the blog tomorrow nite, but Saturday at latest. Thanks everyone - goodnite

Surgery is Approaching and Becoming Real

Randy's surgery is coming up faster than we realized, and although I thought that I would be ready, I don't think I will ever be. Yes the presents are all bought and most the of them are wrapped, although I seriously doubt that I will be getting anything shipped to the great white north before then. The laundry is all caught up and the house is relatively tidy (still have to vacuum and change the sheets) and the grocery list is being compiled for the last minute run on Thursday.

I thought that having all of those things taken care off and done would make me feel ready.

Well it didn't work. So today I decided that I would decorate the house - knowing full well that, although this activity will keep me busy and possibly occupy my mind, it will do nothing to make me feel more "READY".

The thought of my husband, my best friend, father of my children, confidant, caretaker and soul mate going in for yet another surgery, with again the shadow of Cancer hovering above it almost unbearable. He is my rock, the strong one and to see him a a hospital bed has always pushes me over the edge (even back before we were married back in Canada - he was in the ER after a cycling accident with his brother Jody, and I swear I felt my knees buckle under when I saw him lying there), I can be very strong for just about anything else, my Mom's death, bathing and shaving my Grand Father after he died while my Dad was going to pick up my Grandmother. I'm good and I can keep it pretty much together.

But with Randy it cuts to the bones.

It is all becoming very real very quickly. The sleepless nights started last week, the bitchiest is full blown and usually ends up being directed at the one I am so worried about(yes I can hear Leslie "Be nice to him he has Cancer...").The nausea appeared over the weekend (I am trying to see the nausea as a positive - maybe just maybe I can loose some of this 60+ pounds I have gained). Whoops, hold please, BRB

- Ok the nausea just turned into full blown throwing up - looks like soda water for me from now on...

We still haven't told the kids (supposed to have last night but didn't) so hopefully will tonight.

Our wedding vows over 17 years ago came from the Velveteen Rabbit-it was all about "becoming real" -


"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.
"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."

How I amuse myself when my brain needs a break...

Just about everyone uses those little emoticons aka smilies.

I really never paid much attention to them until I saw him...

and I fell in love.

How could such a little collection of lines and circles capture so much heart felt joy and emotion. I mean, just look at him, he is so happy, exstatic even. Oh and joy isn't the only emotion he is capable of.

He can be impatient

He can be sweet

He can get frustrated

He knows how to have a good laugh

He can be comforting

and at times he can be a little shy

Somedays he's judgmental

Other days quite mischievous

Sometimes he feels a little off

And there are days when he is just down right annoyingblah, blah, blah

All in all for some strange reason he just makes me smile

And so I thought I would share him with you...

New update on Surgery

Got a call last week that they were re-scheduling Randy's surgery from the 7th to the 14th. Of course this happens *AFTER* we cancelled the Disney Trip - but that's ok. Now at least we have a little more time to get every ready (the Gazebo is still up, with the patio furniture and frozen house plants - thank god I finally got all of the flower bulbs in).