Dr. Visit

We were coming upon two months of no appointments for Terry.  I guess they missed us too much and decided to invite us in on Monday.  We were looking forward to it and grateful to have it because Terry had a cold/cough/sinus issue he has been battling for about a week.  He now has an antibiotic to help him get over it (which he seems to need every time he gets a cold), so better days and nights are on the horizon.

Terry's blood work -
WBC - 3.3(L) - normal is 4.5 - 11.0
RBC - 4.41(L) - normal is 4.50 - 5.90
Platelets - 54(L) - normal is 150 - 400
Ab Neutrophils - 0.5(LL) - normal is 1.8 - 7.8 (no action taken / meaning no shot)

These next two tell us about the liver - these are good numbers for Terry
ALT - 46 - normal is 17 - 63
AST - 47(H) - normal is 15 - 41

Lymphocytes - 72(H) - normal is 21 - 49.    (This count was up from 45 in July.)

The plan at this point is that Terry will begin treatments again on the 13th of December.
He will take Revlimid (an oral med), mostly meant to target the MDS but it may help the CLL too.  He will also have an IV chemo treatment, Rituxan - this is the one we swore off of because of the reaction he had to it years ago, but has been given successfully since then, so we don't have any reservations about it for that reason anymore.  I don't remember how often he takes the pills, but the IV will be once a week for four weeks. 

This is the plan that Dr. Silva from SCCA spoke to Terry about earlier this fall.  Her thought or hope was that this would prepare him for a second transplant.  Dr. Smith seemed to think it might begin an on going, life-long treatment, but still wasn't sure about how often she was willing to give these treatments.  So, I am supposing that we will probably see how things look after the four weeks of treatments and determine what to do after that.

My concern is that these treatments often make Terry feel worse than the disease itself.  When I mentioned that to Dr. Smith she assured me that we must act now because of the Lymphocytes count (seen above).  That number tells us that the CLL is growing.

So, we add these treatments to our family life schedule with all the regular activities and Christmas shopping and decorating ...
It should feel quite normal since we have been doing this type of thing for so many years.
I suppose then, that it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

A Happy Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving day!
It always feels best when our harvest is complete by Thanksgiving, and our personal harvest is complete.  Great to celebrate!

We had plenty of food for the weekend.

 



 

The table was set with things that reminded me/us of our parents and extended family.  The gold butter plate (in the center of the upper photo) is one from Terry's parents, and the yams are similar to what she made after their mission to Tennessee.  My parents gave us the goblets many years ago for Christmas, and the little green filled cups are a jello salad recipe my mom makes and we all love - Lime Pear Delight.  We love family!

 

We had some great family time.

(I didn't get good enough photos of the family. They were waiting on me to take the photos and I was in too much of a hurry and the photos I did take didn't turn out very nicely.  Then my batteries died when I tried to take photos of them playing games. Oh Bother!  But the company was great!

 

Auger wanted a photo of his overalls - they are a pair of overalls that our boys used to wear.  The hooks were broken so I replaced them with different hooks, but they wouldn't fit down over the button enough to stay put, so they wrapped some rubber bands around them to help them stay connected.  It worked and he was so happy.

 

 

We missed half of our family (12 here and 12 unable to attend), and look forward to being with them all sometime in the future.

We are lovin' their blogs with the updates and photos.  :)

We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

We are now wishing you a Merry Christmas!

(don't those two holidays flow together nicely!)

Then on to Valentines Day - ahhh! lovely!

Then Easter!

(my four favorites!)

 

Okay, I'm not trying to rush things - just sayin' what a great stretch of holidays we have, that remind us of the important things in life ..., even of life itself ...,

 

I am truly grateful for my family and for our Savior!  

... yes! ... lovely!



Baby Girl is Here!

Michael and Tawnee had a baby girl -
Elsie Marie Hebdon
14 November 2012, at 6:00am.

7 lbs. 13 oz.,  20 inches.

Here's the family -





We all love that sweet little gal ...

Can you believe that I forgot my camera?  BrittanyJo saved the day by using her ipad, but that meant we didn't get any of her.  She, and Dana were there, but they escaped the photos.  I think Tawnee might have captured them on her camera though. :)

They are safely home now!



The Hand of the Lord

I feel a need or at least a very strong desire to post about something that happened on Friday, the 9th. 

 

Some may have seen this on facebook - some have told us they have seen it there, but we did not post it ourselves and don't know who did.  We don't know what kind of info was included on facebook - we have not personally seen it - there may not have been much info about it, or even the fact that we were involved. 

Those who saw this take place have a greater understanding of what did take place than those who saw the crumbled mess after the fact. So, I kinda want to set the story straight, and I want to share it, because it is sort of a success story.  It's a terrible situation that includes great blessings.

 

First let me tell you that no injuries occurred - all drivers are fine.  We are so happy about that.  This is one place where I believe that we had the hand of the Lord involved. The driver of our truck (Michael) could have hit head on and lost his life.  And, the drivers wife (Tawnee, 9 mo. pregnant) often rides in the truck too, but this day decided to spend the day at our house working on a scrapbooking project.  That is another place where I believe that the hand of the Lord was involved. There were so many little things that changed our plans that day.  I won't give all of those details because it could sound very confusing, but I am amazed at every little circumstance that seemed to play a large roll in our activities of that day, which led to not having a passenger in the truck at that time.

Here are the photos from Michael's phone

Okay, I'll try to tell what I know about what happened on this intersection on highway 26, in Othello by Burger King and Evergreen Implement.  I want to get it right, but I was not there, so I've asked for details...,   here goes -

Michael was heading east and the other truck was heading west.  Driver of the other truck, confused about where to go, and while on the phone, decided to turn left in front of our truck, right as Michael was entering the intersection.  What's a driver of a full, heavy loaded semi truck to do in that instance?  Well, if not watching carefully enough, he could hit straight into that turning semi and possibly loose his life.  If watching, he could turn his truck left and try to avoid the other truck, which is what Michael did. 

With very little time to think and space to work with Michael swerved left into the turning lane to try to avoid a head on collision with the other truck, but unable to take up all the road space because of an oncoming pickup in the outside lane, he had no choice but to brace for impact as he collided with the trailor of the other semi truck.
The impact of that hit crushed the front right portion of the truck and made steering and braking impossible for Michael after that. The truck continued it's course through the intersection while smashing a transformer box, snapping a guide wire to a power pole and then smashing into that pole, which then broke everything on the left side of our truck. Michael's truck ended up sliding another 75 feet or so in muddy ground until the truck portion of our rig jumped the curb to the Burger King drive thru and continued sliding sideways. Luckily, the weight of the loaded trailor kept it on the ground where it finally came to an abrupt stop.

 I'm not sure what the final decision on the damage is, but we can see that it does not look pretty.  We are glad that the corn in the trailer was not dumped all over the highway and lost.  We are especially glad that all are safe and still living, with no crippling physical injuries. 

FYI -
Other truck drivers that saw the accident happen came over to Michael and congratulated him on a job well done. They didn't think it would turn out so well when it all began.  A few men gave him their cards and contact info and told Michael that if he needed any help in explaining the reasons for the wreck that they would put in a good word for him, because they saw it, and knew it was not his fault, and told him that he handled things in an impressive way.

When Terry arrived on the scene he was also approached by several who said they had seen it and were impressed with the decisions of the driver of our truck.  It seemed that no one expected it to turn out so well, and so much in our favor. 
I know! Look at that truck, but then know too, that Michael is still up and going and he's still trucking, with only some soreness and a small scratch on his hand.  He got thrown around in his seat, but he could have looked a lot worse than that truck now looks.  I know that the Lord had a hand in guiding our truck and helping Michael guide the truck to the best place possible for all involved.

Now, Tawnee might wish that she has already delivered this baby she is carrying, but she would not have wished to deliver it under such circumstances as being in this accident might have caused.  So, yes, I do believe that the Lord had a hand in helping us make the decision that kept her out of the truck that day so that she and her child would be safe and healthy and happy on this day, even though she is still pregnant. :)

More FYI -
This is the stuff that kinda hurts the heart a bit.  Apparently there were so many "gawkers" that came to see the accident (it was there for many hours) that didn't understand what happened.  Our guys did hear a couple comments like, "crazy driver must have fallen asleep"  or other such accusing and belittling comments, that occasionally included some obscene language.  After learning the true story they seemed to be more sympathetic, but it just makes me realize that I too sometimes jump to conclusions and don't get the facts right and I don't like that feeling.  I wanna try to be better that way.

One more FYI -
I guess this whole post is FYI ... anyway,
Terry mentioned that in his prayer and blessing on the food that afternoon he remembers praying for safety with the harvest.  He did not pray that there would be no accidents, but he did pray for safety, and safety is what we got.  All involved in our harvest are safe and sound and healthy and happy and still with family and friends this day. 
We are grateful for the safety given us that day - for the Lord's hand in our lives! 




Once There Was A Snowman

Say hello to our snowman friend ... and to Auger who eagerly invited this friend.

Connor and Thomas helped our friend get here. 

I think the story was that Auger wanted him to have a hat - well, no hat, but how about a mohawk ... or is that one of those Roman style helmet hat things?





 

The snow is melting fast so I'm not sure how long our friend will be visiting, but he is welcome for as long as he can stay.

 



Snow is Here!

We went to sleep with a little over an inch of snow and woke up to more.  Happy Snow Day! 

Halloween 2012

It's been a long time since I've posted anything -  Finally a Halloween post ...

 

Halloween did happen here, but we only had a couple little trick-or-treaters.  Once we started participating in the trunk-or-treat we stopped getting trick-or-treaters. 

Now we don't really have any children to take, which leaves us home alone, unless we decide to party it up.  Ya, that hasn't happened in several years either.

Here are our sweet visitors -

The glasses are not part of the Owl costume, she just loves glasses and didn't want to give them up. And Bob the Builder was so anxious to go trick-or-treating this year.  So much fun!

 



 

We know of some other sweet trick-or-treaters too, though they didn't get to stop at our house - check out their great costumes here.