Family BBQ

This was actually on Mother's Day... see how behind I am in blogging? Oh well... anyway, we had a BBQ at my aunt's house and Ian and I made all the food for it :) Got a couple nice pics...

My grandma with her big bouquet of flowers. She was given these at church for Mother's Day because she's the oldest mom in the congregation at 93 years old :)

Ian took that one and I think it's a nice family photo!

Blown out background but I like it anyway :)

Grilled chicken with a salsa made from grilled onions and pineapples (among other things), a delicious salad and some bread.

Good food, good times! :)

Update

Well I wrote a long blog post last night, and made sure it was saved... but today, it's not here! :( So I will save most of the weight-related stuff for my weekly update post tomorrow.

For now I'd just like to say THANK YOU for all the wonderful comments and for keeping my family in your thoughts and prayers.

Here's an update for you. Neil started his treatments yesterday. He had radiation at 8 am, then had to go to a different hospital for chemotherapy. He ended up having to be there from 10 am to 4 pm. They didn't tell him it would be such a long day... they had to put in a pic line and do a bunch of other things, and the chemo itself was 3 or 4 hours. My mother in law Shirley went out to get lunch and her car broke down! So my hubby went to go help her out. It was just a long exhausting day for all.

Overall though it went well. Neil called us last night and said he was feeling pretty well. He went home with a continuing chemo treatment, some kind of bag thing, that will keep treating him until Saturday. He didn't feel sick yet, but he didn't have much appetite. He has radition every weekday for 5 weeks, and he will have chemo again in a few weeks.

I put together something for him - a Recipe Book. They said the radiation will make his throat really sore and he won't really feel like eating solid foods. Well, having been through weight loss surgery and going through all the post-op phases of eating, I knew some great resources for liquid and soft food recipes. I got many things from Eggface's Blog, and from a few diabetic and weight loss surgery cookbooks. Since he is also diabetic, all the sugar free gastric-bypass recipes are perfect for him. I have a great book put together of Protein Shakes, Protein Ice Cream, Pureed Foods and Soft Foods. I'm going out today to pick up some protein powders, sugar free syrups and an ice cream maker so they will have everything they need to be able to use the recipe book. I really hope it will be helpful for him to keep getting proper nutrition when he isn't feeling well through his treatments.

That's all for now, back with more soon!

Finally Sharing the News

Friends and Family,

I have some news I would like to share with you. We had been waiting to get more specifics before we could share with everyone.

A few weeks ago, we found out that my father-in-law, Neil, has Esophageal Cancer. He had been having trouble swallowing food ever since his hospital stay in 2007 with Pneumonia. It was expected that there was scar tissue from the tube he had in his throat while in an induced coma for 18 days. In the past months this problem had been getting worse. He went in for a procedure to have his esophagus stretched, and they ended up finding the cancer.

At first we were told they caught it early, and so we had a very positive outlook.

Unfortunately, as they performed further scans, tests and evaluations, we received the news that he is actually in Stage 4.

Esophageal Cancer is very slow-growing, no one knows how long he may have been developing it. Because of the slow speed of growth he has not experienced any symptoms other than what he thought was caused by his previous hospital stay. We are lucky that he even went in to have this procedure, or we still wouldn't know.

The cancer has gone through all the layers of his esophagus and is affecting at least 12 lymph nodes. There are no surgical options at this point.

We have known about Stage 4 for a couple of weeks but we waited to share the news until we heard what his treatment plan would be. They were still unsure of his severity and if it has reached Stage 4B they would not have even treated him, just made him comfortable.

Thank God we have found out he is Stage 4A and they WILL be treating him. This coming Tuesday he will be beginning Radiation and Chemotherapy treatments.

His first round of treatments will last for 5 weeks. He will have Chemo and Radiation this Tuesday. He will have Radiation every weekday at the same time for 5 weeks straight. There will be a 2nd round of Chemotherapy during the 5th week.

After this initial 5 week course of treatment they will reevaluate and decide what to do next.

With this type of cancer, they haven given him a 15-20% chance of survival. If the treatments do not get the cancer under control, they are saying he would have around 9-14 months to live. Even if he beats this with treatment, they say to expect about a 5 year life span. We are hoping for better of course and we want him to beat the odds, but the family is preparing ourselves in case the worst does happen.

We are grateful we at least have time to prepare, spend time together, and possibly say goodbye. When he had his Pneumonia 3 years ago, it was a sudden shock and there would have been no time for any of this. We are choosing to be grateful for the time we will have in this case. We are preparing for the worst, but hoping for the very best.

Thank you in advance for your sweet comments, your thoughts and your prayers. Right now nothing needs to be done. Within the family we are taking care of anything that is needed such as transportation to treatments, food, and anything else that is needed. We know you are all out there and we will definitely ask if we need any help. The best thing you can do is pray that everything goes as well as it possibly can. Thanks everybody.

July 3rd Family BBQ

Super late in writing about this, oops! Our 4th of July celebration this year was a family barbeque and my aunt Carla's house. We love hanging out on her nice deck with its fabulous mountain view. As soon as we got there we had my dad take these photos of us which you might recognize from the weight loss surgery blog post.

I thought these pictures came out really cute and that's when I realized how much weight we had been losing, thus the comparison pictures I created out of them.

How about that mountain view!!! Pretty nice huh?

There was plenty of delicious food to enjoy including some fresh corn on the cob. Oh yum, had to have some of that! Well... one bite... but it was delicious. It was nice spending time with family and also getting a chance to meet my aunt's good friend Carol.

After dinner we got to enjoy an amazing sunset over the mountains AND saw a double rainbow in the pink clouds!

We hung around until late in the evening to watch fireworks from her deck. We thought it had turned out to be a poor view as all the ones we saw were small, far away, or blocked by houses. After an hour, we all decided to go home. As Ian and I were leaving my aunt's neighborhood, Ian noticed fireworks. We pulled over and had a fantastic view of the fireworks... our own private viewing!! It was lovely.

Here is a video of part of the finale...loved it!!

We did find out later that my aunt and grandma saw the whole thing from the deck and had a great view... so at least next year we know to stick it out! They started them a whole hour later than the announced time so we just assumed the ones we were (barely) seeing were them. It's so nice to have a good spot to see fireworks without being in a crowd of people.

We enjoyed our 4th of July. We had planned to also see fireworks on the 4th itself, but the weather was so bad here... and we ended up hiking instead, which you will hear about in the next post! Tata for now.