I almost forgot we had a Blog!

It's been so long!

Quick update...Chandy's doing great!

I think she's a little worn out on the whole blog thing. It's nice sometimes for her just to allow time to pass and not be so concerned about every little step. I think it's just become such a part of our lives that we just seem to deal with what's ahead of us and then we move on. We seem to be less inclined to write about every little detail like we did in the beginning.

Since her last post she has had her reconstructive surgery. It all went well and the anesthesiologist changed some of the medication that was used on her for her mastectomy and she had a much easier time coming to after the surgery. No panic attacks at all. It was an outpatient surgery situation and after a week or so she seemed good to go.

A couple of weeks after her reconstructive surgery she woke up in the morning and realized that her nightshirt was wet under her right breast. This was the cancerous side and the radiated side. She realized when she lifted up her shirt that the incision had opened! Not a good sign. It had been leaking some sort of clearish liquid most of the night.

We called the doctor and he asked her to come right in. We thought he might re-stitch her or throw a butterfly bandage on it and we'd be on our way. After he looked at it his first question was, "When was the last time you ate or drank anything?" We knew this meant that she was going in for surgery.

They are so concerned with infection that it was necessary for her to go into surgery later that afternoon. The radiated skin is so beaten up that it has a tough time healing. That's what caused the incision not to heal properly. In surgery, later that afternoon, they removed the implant on her right side, flushed the insides and scrubbed the implant and re-inserted it. Dr. Ferguson also pulled up some tissue from the underside of her skin below the incision and kind of created a "backstop", for lack of a better term, for the incision. He hoped that this would help regenerate the skin around the incision and stitched her again and we were on our way.

That was a couple weeks ago now and everything is healing nicely.

As I'm sure all of you know, Chandy has been a trooper throughout this past year and that continues.

We recently passed the anniversary of her diagnosis! We didn't do it with a lot of fanfare because, quite frankly, I wasn't sure how to think about celebrating anything having to do with her diagnosis. We went out to dinner and she reminded me how much she loves me and that she can't live without me and how lucky she is to have me and that she still thinks I'm a real stud. Other than that it was a normal date with the wife. Oh yeah, I may have reciprocated her sentiments.

She seems to be responding well to her medication. The whole menopause issues caused by the tamoxifin seems to have passed. She had a lot of hot flashes and such for the first little while but like most things she's experienced this past year, she just weathers the storm and continues on.

Our boys are doing great. Cody just completed fall lacrosse and had a great time with it. He continues to get better.

Dustin's pee wee football team has only lost one game all season and is playing for the championship in his division tomorrow against arch rival Bingham. He plays cornerback and Z receiver. He's had some great receptions this year including about a 30 yard TD.

Brett's team, which I coach, has gone undefeated. We won our first playoff game last week and will play Jordan tomorrow for the championship in our division. They're a good team who we've beaten before but we expect a tough game. Brett's team, to this point, has outscored their opponents 318 to 19.

Matthew is still the biggest momma's boy I've ever seen. We've signed him up for Jr. Jazz and are excited to watch that fun little kid ramble around the court.

We also have a new addition to the family despite my objections. Chandy finally has another female in the house. A little shitzu (sp?) puppy named Paisley. I guess if we have to have a mut, this one isn't too bad.

We'll post again soon.

G