Traveling

Well, we are off on another adventure! I finished my fifth term of school last week and Scott is on an elective rotation, so we decided to take a trip. We had been wanting to see our good friends, Adam and Jessica, for a few months now and decided to see if they were up for an adventure as well – turns out they were. We needed a place where Scott could work on his medical spanish, Adam could surf, and we girls could work on our tan.  El Salvador is what we decided on – close enough for a quick trip, but far enough to get away. So here were are in El Zonte, on the coast, renting a little house on an amazing piece of property. We can hear the sounds of the crashing waves all the time, and see them everytime we look outside. It is perfect!

This is the view from our balcony

Scott flew in last week ahead of us to have a little more time to work on his elective, and the three of us joined him on Saturday, once I had finished my finals and Adam's vacation time from work started. We have been exploring the little village down the beach, and checking out the neat little tidal pools outside the property walls. We've also been reaaally busy laying by our pool, reading books, developing all sorts of new drink concoctions, and eating delicious food.

We have an amazing view of the sunset from our yard and are thoroughly enjoying it

The weather has been fabulous – 80 & sunny, and the surf has been huge here! We rented a car yesterday to have for the rest of the week and today we are exploring more of the little villages around us. We're in El Tunco, which is an amazing little surf village, with smaller, gentler waves, and more options for Jess and I to shop

After my post last night, it only seems fitting that I should wake up to this:

Apparently 36 hours straight of pouring rain is STILL more than our yard can handle. 

And you're getting an "after" picture much sooner than you probably would have.

The sod is cut out and spaced like that because St. Augustine grows outwards so fast and we have been assured that it will take over the back yard.  Well, yeah, we'll see if flooding affects that I guess....

On a positive note: at least we don't have to water for a few days!

Weekend Projects

Spring is here!  It's been here about a month now and we are completely enjoying it!  Our winter garden finally started kicking out tomatoes in high-gear about three weeks ago.  We enjoyed a final harvest of cabbage and lettuce before Scott and Francois tilled everything up when I was in Minneapolis.

Also, our Lime tree flowered for the first time this spring and now little buds are growing! 

We're really excited, especially since our Mojito Mint (Yes, that is it's name - it's a little sweeter, developed just for mojitos) is growing like crazy.  Our neighbor's tree puts out TONS of limes each year so we're anticipating great mojitos on the porch with everyone soon!

As we prepare for summer, we decided it was high time to get a lawn in our back yard.  When we first bought the house, it was a dump back there!  There was a ratty fence, garbage, abandoned lattice and carpet buried in two feet of leaves (that were composting very nicely - but allowed for no grass to grow).  We cleaned all that up and trimmed as many branches up as we could, and then discovered that every time it rains hard, we get three inches of standing water in the back yard.  So then we got 4 sq yards of dirt delivered and Scott planted grass seed.  No luck.  Next he attempted to transplant plugs of St. Augustine grass from the next yard over.  Some took off, but it was too thin and frail and mostly the dogs just destroyed it running around the yard.  Also, we still flooded with rain.

Our last ditch effort entails ordering the dirt and sod and going big, doing the whole yard at once.  In preparation we had the broken cement next to the house pulled up, and yanked the chain-link fence out between us and a neighbor.

Saturday morning I freaked out a little when the giant semi truck first pulled up LOADED with pallets of sod and thought perhaps our neighbor and Scott got a little over-ambitious.  No fear though, the driver unloaded our two pallets and continued on his merry way.  Five minutes later the dump truck came and deposited 12 sq yards of dirt on our driveway.  We only ordered and paid for 8, but the truck driver accidentally loaded and brought too much, so just gave it to us.

Sunday I finished up a class for school and then headed out back to help Scott for the day.  We spread dirt for quite a while and then began the sod-laying.  Just when we were starting to get rather grumpy and tired our wonderful friends Hunter and Sashi showed up and helped us finish everything, which made the whole process so much more fun.  

Pre-dirt and sod (Saturday morning)

Almost finished 

(I am just now realizing I didn't take an "after" picture. Sorry. I will soon, as I am far too lazy to get up now and go out in the rain to get one for you).  All I can say is that it is going to be awesome and I am so excited for it all to take root and start spreading out!  We've been watering twice a day (except the last two days as it has poured and poured) and are really hoping this works!

Oh, and last thing!  Here is our NEW garden that Scott has been working on for the last week!  If you look closely you can see our version of "Wilson" (Home Improvement - anyone? anyone?) over the fence behind :) 

The Arlich Hitch-Fest

This last weekend Hannah, who I have been friends with fooooooreverrr, finally ran off and got hitched. To a really fun, really tall & good looking, really all around great guy.  I couldn't be happier for her!

She looked absolutely stunning and I still just can't get over how perfectly the whole weekend went!

The weather was astounding for March in Minnesota.  I woke up on Thursday morning in a little bit of a panic to see that it had lightly snowed the night before.  All week long I just prayed no freak blizzard would come along, and we were so blessed!  Saturday, the day of the wedding, was bright and sunny with hardly a cloud in the sky and it was 60 degrees!!!  We took pictures outside and basked in the glory of it all.

(Their amazing photographer, Emily Steffen, took this picture and I nabbed it from her site)

The wedding was an absolute blast!  Hannah and Jerod did a fabulous job of planning every last little detail out.  Everything from their personally written vows and the readings they chose for the ceremony, to the decorations and place settings, was unique and very original to them.  It was so refreshing to be at a wedding that was different enough, but still just traditional enough as well that it didn't seem weird.  All around I just can't stop raving about it and how much fun it was!  

I was just bummed that Scott had to miss out due to his ICU rotation and needing to work the whole time.  However, it did give me tons of time to catch up with some of my bestest girlfriends that I've been missing so much. 

We had pretty much the best wedding party ever and danced the night away.  Today, four whole days later, I am finally not achey.  We were all so sore from dancing for so many hours, that on Sunday morning I really thought my knees and all the muscles in my legs would just give up and buckle right out from under me when I was walking around - especially climbing stairs.  I would say that's a sure sign of a great wedding though, so, once again...

CONGRATULATIONS Mr & Mrs. Jerod Arlich! 

 I love you two and wish you many, many, many, many years of wedded bliss together!

Three month labs

This happened like 2-3 weeks ago now and I completely forgot to update it on the blog here!  Sooorry!

Scott had his three month post-op labs done and his thyroid levels are finally good!!!!!  We have worked on getting to this point for over two years now, since they removed his thyroid, and never dreamed it would take so much work.  He's yo-yoed up and down and we've changed his Synthroid dosing several times.  But, he is feeling great now and we are thrilled he's leveled off and we're finally at a good dose!

His calcitonin levels (markers for MC) are still about the same.  We were hoping they would drop off, but no need to worry too much until after we hit the six month mark.  We're in the process of consulting with some other docs from MD Anderson again regarding the whole situation, just to get their opinion and see if they have any other ideas.  As of right now though we don't really foresee any big changes in the plan and are just hanging out.

Thanks for the continued thoughts and prayers!  Hopefully there won't be much to report for a few more weeks.

Neighborhood Watch

Our front porch is one of our favorite aspects of this house. And by 'our', I mean all four of us. Not only do Scott and I love to sit out there and drink our coffee in the morning, or eat lunch together in the sun, or enjoy wine with the neighbors in the evening, but Lucy and Ariyah love that thing just as much as we do, and possibly more.  It runs the length of the front of our house and was very poorly built.  All of the rails are unequally spaced and the nails are rusting out of it.  The dogs know where the wider-spaced rails are and their favorite thing is to stick their head right through those and watch the world go by

This allows them to get as close as possible to all dogs walking by on the sidewalk, which of course makes them believe their obnoxious greetings are even better.  Every now and then they forget about the particularly narrow spacings when they're really excited, which causes momentary panic as they twist and turn, trying to free their big heads.  No worries - they've never been permanently stuck and I've stopped being concerned about that.
We put up a baby gate to when we first moved in here so that we could leave them on the porch unattended if we're home.

This way they can bask in the sun for hours at a time, wrestle noisily, and chew their rawhides to their hearts content, without getting my floors any dirtier than they already are.

This is their daily routine when we're around, and it hasn't changed much in the three months we've been living in this house.  Until this morning.  This morning Lucy decided that resting her chin on the lowest bar of the railing no longer provided a satisfying enough view of the neighborhood.  No, she needed to be even higher than an entire 8 feet off of the ground.  So, as I casually glanced out the window while walking by this morning, I had to do a rapid double-take, and then burst out laughing when I saw this:

Lucy sitting in our chair

No guilt. No shame.  Just enjoying the view like she's a human.

She is such a mess.

Three down, many more to go

Today's our Anniversary!!!!  Yep, 1,095 days have passed since we said, "I do" and there have been lots of exciting adventures along the way.

Scott had to work the afternoon/evening shift today so we decided to switch it up and work right along with that schedule.  I waited until up he got home from work last night (at midnight on the dot I might add) and we rang the new year in with champagne.  Today we got all gussied up for lunch out at Commander's Palace.  It was my first time there and we were treated like celebrities, as I think everyone is when they go there, which is always fun.  It was delicious and we had a great time!  We both decided we need to start doing lunches out a little more often.  It's a blast!

Family visits!

Warning: as per my usual, this is a picture-filled post...
The first week in February my parents, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew were all able to come visit!  It's the first time my mom and Tyler have been able to come down since we moved here, so we were happy it finally happened!  It was a little chaotic combining all the napping schedules (Roman would fall asleep, and then dad would figure he should nap as well, so then Scott or Tyler would too, but then Roman would wake up, and by the time we would all finally be ready to leave Roman would need a nap again...) but we made it happen!

We had all sorts of exciting adventures.  We spent one day wandering the French Quarter and showing them around our neighborhood.  The next day we spent an afternoon wandering uptown; riding the street car, eating at fun restaurants, and checking out all the beautiful houses on St. Charles St.

 Walking to Audubon park

We took a swamp tour the next day.  This time around we did the more "mild" version (we decided an air boat might be a little too intense for a 6mo old) and all of us piled on the pontoon boat together for a leisurely ride through some canals and bayous in the swamp.

On the boat for the swamp tour!

The younger alligators were brave and came swimming right up to our boat so we could get a good look at them.  We saw a few birds and one gross snake as well.

This big guy was bored with us...

Towards the end of the trip our guide pulled out his "pet" gator and wrapped a little hair binder around his (her?) nose so we could hold it.  I was slightly worried, but we all decided to brave it. I mean really, it was a little one and Scott's seen worse bites from them in the ER so what's the worst that could happen? Right?

Dad may have gotten slightly carried away...

Hopefully my mom doesn't have to worry too much, I doubt they would do well as pets in Wisconsin.

Scott had to work for a few hours on the Monday before everyone left, so I took my parents out to Oak Alley Plantation and we got the tour.  It was another great day of seeing more of Louisiana and getting to spend some very enjoyable time with them.

We all had a great time together and I'm so glad we were all finally able to get together here.

Housewarming

(I wrote this on 1/29 and somehow never got around to posting it...)

Last Saturday we had our official "Housewarming Party"

Not everything is done here.  And we haven't really even begun to decorate.  However, we decided we needed to do it sooner, rather than later - and all the etiquette websites I looked at gave us permission to go ahead now :)

Here are some pictures of our CLEAN house right before the party started.  

Oh, but first.  Just to remind you all - this is what the "kitchen" (and the entire rest of the house) looked like back in July....

And it now looks like THIS: 

[View when you stand in the front of the house, looking back] Living area, dining area, kitchen way in back

[View standing in the dining area facing the front of the house:]

[View of the kitchen facing the back of the house:]

Those cabinets and appliances we found on Craigslist turned out pretty well I do believe... It never ever would have looked this way without all of Vinnie's amazing inspirations and expertise and hard work.

[View of the kitchen facing the front of the house:]

Vinnie made those colander light fixtures over the bar

Our bedroom & closet:

We had an amazing turn out with so many friends and co-workers that were able to make it, which made us so happy!  Although the AC had trouble keeping up for a little while there (it was very warm that evening and quite humid), everyone seemed to have enough room to move around and socialize.

Scott smoked brisket for people to make sandwiches with. We also served all sorts of sides with a veggie platter, humus and pita chips, along with various cheeses and meats.

We gave little tours throughout the night.  Scott got his projector all set up in the media room, and we had a slide show going with all of the pictures of this project since we bought the house back in March.

Overall it was a huge success, and I'm glad those of you who made it were able to come!

There have been many laughs, owies, aches, tears, furious rants, and moments of sheer terror as we have brought our house through such a huge transition and it has become what it is today.  We never could have done it without the help of our amazing families and many of our wonderful friends and awesome neighbors.  We are so blessed to live in this house and never imagined in a million years that this would be part of our journey living here.  Although there are several perks we enjoy in this house, we are mostly grateful for the space to more easily spend time with our friends and family and show hospitality to others.  SO, once again, as we always say - if you're ever thinking of coming down to New Orleans, please call us up.  We've love to have you come visit :)

Radiation?

I guess it's about time to give you all the latest with the whole cancer dealio!  The last time I blogged about this back in December our next step was looking into radiation.  We spoke with other doctors here in town and the following week we spoke with Dr. Moley, the medullary specialist who is a surgeon, in St. Louis.  As per his usual attitude, he was rather unimpressed with the all of the pathology reports (if he ever seems to sound worried someday, that's when I will really freak) and said he has definitely seen this before with this type of cancer.

He told us he hasn't seen much of a positive outcome with radiation killing this type of cancer - it sometimes stops large tumor growth, but doesn't seem to reduce the amount overall.  Dr. M didn't really think that the research was good enough to indicate that we go through radiation at this time, and thought the best plan would be to take the 'wait and see' approach.  However, he left us with the kind advice that he is a surgeon, and so of course he thinks surgery is usually the best approach with this kind of cancer and he gave us the name of a specialist in Canada.

With a little work, we finally got in contact with Dr. Brierley, a radiation oncologist in Canada, who has headed up a large amount of the research in the world on radiation as treatment for Medullary Carcinoma.  Scott gave him his history and they discussed all the latest scans and lab values and various interventions we have tried.

After much discussion, his opinion is also that radiation would not be the best at this time.  Research has showed that this type of cancer just does not respond well to radiation and really shows no long term effects on your chances of dying and would greatly impact Scott's quality of life over the next few months.  Also, if it doesn't kill off all those little specs that are there sitting in his fat, it will most likely make it impossible to do surgery in that area again if that was ever needed.  He recommended that we follow everything closely and if it ever comes to the point where the growth occurs in an area where we simply cannot do surgery because of the risks, then we revisit the radiation possibility.  But for now, surgery and no growth are our best bets.

SO!  The plan of action for now is to wait patiently and live in harmony with cancer.  Sounds so weird to say when you're supposed to be fighting cancer.
We will be checking lab values again in a few weeks and will continue to closely follow them.  Scott will probably be having CT scans every few months for a while.  We are eating our fruits and vegetables and exercising and drinking lots of water and juicing some and doing all the things we "should" be doing as much
as possible - mainly though we are just living.
We are enjoying the small things and carrying on with life and we are grateful for that.  Our hope and prayer that we have gotten the most of this cancer out of his body that we can and that it will not grow anymore.  That those little bits we know about will decide to make peace and his body will stay stronger than them.  

Thank you all for all your prayers and kind cards and words as we continue this journey.  We are truly blessed to have the friends and family and love and support that we do.

Postdates

There are so many things that have happened in my month-long hiatus from blogging.  I've had a serious writer's block and although I have so much to type about, I just couldn't get myself to sit and focus.  When we got home last night I finally felt like I had a post again.  And now I'm going to try and fill in a few of the last month's details.

1. Scott and I went to Jamaica.  It was beautiful.  The weather was perfect.  The water was crystal clear and the ideal temperature.  The sunsets were breathtaking.

Sounds perfect, right?  Many aspects were, however it got rather miserable.  The prostitutes (male and female) were relentless, the people would not accept "no" when presenting us with their objects that they were selling, eveeeeerybody needed us to buy their drugs, and food and hostels/hotels were not really cheap enough to make it worthwhile. The only time we enjoyed the beautiful beach without being pestered every five minutes was the day we payed to use a private beach.  We now see why the all-inclusive resorts in Jamaica are SO popular - they are beautiful without the annoyance.  The final straw was the fifth night we were there and Scott had to physically throw a prostitute out of our cabana who tried to break in after him.  We were frustrated and irritated and did a first - we left the country early.  

2.  We flew home to Wisconsin and surprised my whole family and spent Christmas there.  On the way, we got to spend a night in Chicago and see our nieces and nephew there before flying into MN.  It was all just so wonderful and the weather wasn't even that bad!  (Although we did have to go buy some warm clothes as all we had with us were outfits for the beach)

With my sister and nephew                                                                                     Grandma Knapp with us

Almost all of the grandkids on my mom's side were there and we were able to see both of my Grandmas!

3. We flew home to New Orleans and had two days to unpack and get some things organized before Scott's parents, his younger sister, Elena, and his Grandmother drove into town!  I'm glad his Grandma was able to visit (her first time to make it down here) and it was so great to have them all here.

4. Our good friends, Chris and Anne, got married on December 31st.  Anne and Scott went to the same high school and were close friends throughout medical school.  We were so excited when both of them matched here in New Orleans and living here wouldn't be half as great without having Anne here.  We're so happy she found Bruisie (they are in the same residency class - we knew this would either end horribly or perfectly when they started dating) and we are so thrilled for them!  It was a very large, absolutely beautiful wedding and it was like a giant reunion with many friends present that we haven't seen in years.

So, those are the big events from the last month.  We've had several other fun things happen as well but this post is already getting lengthy and my textbooks are calling, so I think I'll be done for now.  

Cochon de Lait

We had faaaabulous weekend!  Scott and I were invited to Lafayette to celebrate the annual Cochon de Lait Party at the Ancelet's home. Lafayette is in the heart of Acadiana (south central Louisiana) where Cajun culture reigns and many families still speak French.  It is quite possibly our second favorite place in Louisiana - full of culture, plenty of character and amazing food.  The Ancelet's home is a beautiful old farm house which they have added onto as their family has grown over the years.  They have made it a very warm and inviting place - somewhere you instantly feel welcome and comfortable.
Yesterday afternoon was spent preparing for the party with the family, while the pigs were smoking away in the giant smoker.

Two pigs were purchased from the slaughter house and nearly every part of them was used - Francios even made hogs head cheese (minus the brains) yesterday.  Delicious!

Shucking Oysters while waiting for the pig

Some were eaten raw, on the half shell, and others were charbroiled on the grill with lots of butter and Parmesan cheese - MMMM!

In the kitchen preparing food.

As the evening went on, more and more people came until the house was SO packed you could barely get anywhere.  There were more food dishes than could be tried and we ate for 12 hours straight as people brought their dishes and took away the empty ones.    

We were amazed at how many people spoke French!  I knew Francios grew up with his parents and the rest of his family speaking it in the home, but we didn't realize how many other people in the area were so comfortable mixing it into their everyday conversations.  I was completely lost, but loved hearing it all around me.  We cheered on the Saints, and momentarily mourned their loss as the musicians took over the living room following the game.  For the rest of the night there was Cajun music and singing that could be heard throughout the house.

There was a base and many fiddle players, accordions, numerous guitars, and of course the triangle.

     Apparently it was the who's-who of Cajun music, and there were several musicians and singers there who have won Grammy's for their amazing talents.  I especially loved seeing that the art of it all is being passed along to the next generation as there were younger musicians there, playing along with the older, accomplished musicians.  When we left at 12:30am the music was still going strong.

     This morning we came back for the Sunday morning, milder continuation of the party.  Folk music was being played/sung in the kitchen (in English this time, with mostly 'spirituals' being sung) and there was even more food being prepared.  We sat in the sunshine and enjoyed Gumbo and Pork Back stew and I can't even believe I am hungry again still tonight.  I feel like we feasted on enough food for a week!  We had a blast though and are so glad we were able to go.  

Francios, Katy, us, & Etienne