Packing

We leave for the airport at 5am tomorrow.  So, right now I am stressing while I try to figure out how to pack for almost three weeks of vacation with a wedding, hiking, nice dinners, possible camping, extreme heat, and cold without just bringing my whole dresser along.  And I mean literally bringing the dresser.  To top it all off Scott just requested that I only bring a carry on.  Yeeeeah right.  

So hot right now...

We were going to get Lucy spayed last week but she went into heat (or is "in season" if you will).  It is so gross.  She hates it and so do we.  We locked her in the kitchen and laundry room for the first few days and then Scott's parents came into town and I felt so bad leaving her locked in the back of the house while we all socialized in the living room without her. We had tried the doggie diapers, but she has such a silly butt nothing stayed on. The first night they were here I ran a bath for her and she was completely thrilled to lay in the tub, chew on ice, and soak for almost two hours.  The second day I decided I had to do something about it, as we were all sick of continuously climbing over the baby gate that was keeping her in the kitchen.  So, I've invented my own diaper for her.  It's pink, and custom made, so she's quite trendy.

She's just such a sexy bitch now that I'm really going to have a time keeping the neighborhood boys away

P.S.  It is completely appropriate for me to call her a bitch.  I do it on a daily basis now.  

Wisconsin Wedding

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while.  I've either been too busy when I feel like it, or too lazy when I have time.  I'm playing catch-up now though, so this is a reaaaaally long post.

August 14th, 2010 - Aaron (my cousin) and Andrea finally (after 14 freaking years of dating - they've been together since middle school.) got married :)
The wedding was in Madison, WI and Scott and I were both able to go.  It was like a family reunion with relatives from my dad's side of the family coming in from Las Vegas, Hawaii, Kentucky and other long distances for the excuse to see each other, talk their faces off, and celebrate.
We flew into Chicago and had lunch with Scott's bother, Kurt, and his family.  Then we proceeded to get lost for over an hour (due to our ridiculous Garmin and completely closed roads with summer construction) on our drive north.  We also lost Scott's wallet somewhere along the way and dealt with torrential rain storms, causing us to become pretty crabby as we were both quite tired.  Scott had worked the last 16 days straight and had ended a 24hr shift when he left the hospital at 5am to fly out with me.  I had worked the last three days and stayed up too late doing laundry and packing.  Needless to say, when we finally got to our hotel we were so happy to plop in our room, only to discover we had to change rooms due to the shrieking sound the TV made, even when off.
Finally we got settled and my parents and Grandma showed up and we all went to dinner Friday night, with Erica and Tyler showing up in time for Gelato.
Saturday got better - after Scott and I arrived at the wedding late due to driving 20 minutes in the completely wrong direction trying to find the place.  It was not a good trip for finding places I guess.  We survived and made it just in time for the vows and the kiss.

The ceremony at Olbrich Botanical Gardens

Erica & Tyler

with a successful Photo Bomb by Scott

At the reception with my 96yr old (and still quite independant) Grandma Koehler

Best one out of the many attempts at a family picture

Most of the Koehler family that was at the wedding

A quick picture with the bride and groom

Once we were partied out at the cousin's wedding we headed over to crash another wedding.  Our good friend's Ben and Abby happened to also be in Madison, WI with their family for one of Abby's cousin's weddings!  It was fate that we should get to see each other :)  It was short and sweet, but made us all so, so happy.

The boys - Ben, Scott & Tyler

Erica, Abby & I

Sweet little Easton in his pj's, all tuckered out and ready to crash after dancing all night at the wedding

Sunday morning Scott and I left the hotel by 8am and drove back to Chicago to come home.  It was a packed weekend but absolutely wonderful to see so many of the people that we love and adore.

Rollercoaster

So if you have been following the blog you know it has been an interesting month to say the least. I will recap what has happened for those of you who have not kept up.

About 1 month ago we went in for my six month followup and got bad news.... I had a large lymph node in my mediastinum(front of chest) and my calcitonin levels were on the rise. Needless to say we were less than thrilled with this news as apparently we aren't a fan of reoccurring metastatic cancer. So we talked with Dr. Moley(he makes medullary carcinoma shudder in its thyroid) and he was very adamant about having the lymph node out. Picture sawzall cutting through my sternum. Again, not so much a fan of that idea. So we went ahead and scheduled surgery, but being that Dr. Moleys surgery schedule is booked months in advance we had time to get a PET scan.

Well I went for the PET scan and walked up to radiology right afterwards to get it read, I mean there has to be some benefit to being a resident in all this right? Well they were looking at the two images side by side and the radiologist said "this doesn't make any sense". On this scan the lymph node was not enlarged and was not taking up radiation like they expected. Furthermore he read the scan as completely negative with no visible cancer anywhere. He tried to explain away with the size of the cuts with the CT and more but really it was inexplicable and one of the closest things to a miracle I have seen.

Well this was good news but now the issue is I still have a high calcitonin. It is 790 so stable as to where it was. But still too high. At this point there is no surgery to be had as they don't know what to cut out so it is just a waiting game to see which direction the calcitonin goes. I have looked into a few clinical trials for some drugs coming out for Medullary carcinoma, so we will see where those get us. They seem to be promising drugs and a reasonable option, however the only way to get one is be accepted to a study.

But for now we are going on about a 3 week trip in september around the US.

Lab Levels

The lab levels from Monday came back:
Scott's CEA (the tumor marker blood test) was within normal limits!  We are happy for that :)
Scott's Calcitonin (the hormone this specific cancer makes in Scott's body) is still elevated.  791.  Down 19 points from three weeks ago, but that's within the margin of error.  We are unsure what to make of this and hoping to talk to Dr. Moley (our Medullary Carcinoma specialist in St. Louis) on Monday so we can figure out the next step.  We are in a difficult place right now because the increased levels indicate something is growing in there, but we don't have anything to take out due to the negative PET Scan.  What to do, what to do...?

Dog Days

Pretty much how today has gone:
"Lucy no, noooo.  Lucy! NO! Get outta there. ....Ariyah, stop it.  Get. Back.   ....Hush!  STOP BARKING!  LU-CY!  YougimmethatRIGHTnowbeforeI - oh, good girrrrrl......  Off. Off now. Ariyah, you get OFF that bed. ....NO!  What are you doing?!  GO. TO. YOUR KENNEL!   ....alright, if you promise not to chew on the rug again you can come out....  Lucy!  Get out of the mud!  QuaaaWIT eating that. Gah, you are disgusting! Off.  GET OFF.....  Hussssssshhh! Beee.Quiet!"
Baaaah, some days I wonder what I got myself into....I couldn't even have peace in the shower.  Lucy high-centered herself attempting to get in after me and face planted into the tub (nearly doing a back flip) while Ariyah smashed her nose against the glass door, ears perked, eyes wild with excitement, wanting to know what was so exciting.  They followed me everywhere and sat panting in my face every time I had to pee.  The most relaxing part of my day was when I locked Lucy in her kennel for a time out (the second one within two hours) after she snuck food, and accidentally forgot about her in there for at least 30 minutes.  I found Ariyah and her asleep, side by side with the metal gate between them and left her there a little longer.  Tomorrow I am hoping it's cooler, and we will be doggy parking it to get some of this ridiculous energy out of their systems when I get off work.

Labs

Scott will be getting his Calcitonin and CEA levels drawn tomorrow.  We should hopefully have results by the end of the week and are praying for good results!