I wrote this message yesterday and I forgot to press send it!! I think is understandable with all this things going on around me and the shooting at Ft. Hood. As I write this I turned on the TV on CNN and they are talking about a shooting at an office in Orlando !! 8 people shot and the shooter is on the loose. When all this madness will stop? Thanks everyone for encouragement. I really need it. I am so stressed out about my sister situation, my surgery and when I came home tonight I heard about Ft Hood shooting, Lucy's scare and all those poor soldiers who's life was cut short. I do not want any more stress and worries for a while !!! Lucy, my sister is 6 years younger than me and she is the youngest of the 4 of us (3 sisters and one brother). I'll let you know how things are progressing. Pat

Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers. Well it is Sunday and we got through the reunion all right. Actually it went great. We had 12 classmates out of 42 show up and 25 little kids. My folks rushed home and were there late Friday night and the girls stayed at my sisters that night. My folks put up 2 pools and also got one of those giant little tykes water slides that inflate. People showed up around 1:30 and stayed until after 8. We all had so much fun, 2 of my sisters came over and helped out with the kids, they had fun on the water slide and pools, my dad got one of the horses out and they had pony rides, he also had his full sized popcorn maker going and they ate tons of popcorn and we also had popsicles and watermelon to cool off. I made too much food as usual and my mil made several salads, we just grilled out hotdogs and had a lot of fun. Those that wanted to had brought beer so we just sat around talking about the high school days and comaparing current notes. I can tell you it was a blast and took my mind off dh. He did come down and had fun too. We go see the surgeon on Tuesday and see what he has to say. I think he is planning on doing more tests and another CT scan. They got his pain under control. They think that it was a combo of the gall stones and they discovered an infection in his intestinal area so put him on iv antibiotics. His blood sugar has really dropped since Friday and we are working on getting it under control. The Dr. thinks that the gall stones and infection brought out the diabetes. She is positive about it and that with diet, exercise, cutting out sugar and oral meds that we can get things under control. They won't do anything about the gallsones and hernia until the diabetes is under control. All in all it really has been a long week but in a way I am glad that it happened. DH hasn't had a physical in 11 years and is overweight. While there I asked Dr. to do a full work up on him and am curious to see what his cholestoral is. The hardest thing is that he really isn't a fruit or veggie person. I am sure you know that between the kids and I most of our diet is veggies and fruits and meat is a side dish. Right now his blood sugar has been staying around 180 which is in the high range of what the diabetes consultant wants but is way better than what it was before. Now to try and catch up on my sleep, we are also in the processes of moving the girls and Hayden down stairs and had carpet put down on Friday so the house has stuff every where. My mom is going to come up on Tuesday and stay a couple of days to help me catch up. With me being pregnant and Dan's hernia the furniture moving will have to wait until we get some family to come up and help move things around our 2 story house. Again thanks for the support and love, Stacie girlsingardens

Jannie, you and DH both have my prayers being sent up for you. One of my bestest buddies' hubby had MS, I know only too well the pain and anguish that both you and your darling man are going thru. I so loved Ron, MS is a horribly debilitating disease, I'm keeping you both close to my heart.

Want to give an long over do update.. Hubby's last treatment (chemo & radiation) were 12/23. He was supposed to finish radiation 2 days sooner but had complications with neck burns; they had to get his pain under control. I asked the radiation oncologist for the morphine pops again; this time he gave it to us but it was a 3 day wait for it to get ordered. I'd called pharmacies in both NJ & Philly; no one stocked it, not even hospitals. He ended up using a Fentynol patch for a few days; he was only able to wear it for a few hours as the Fentynol made him sick. They are supposed to be a 24 hour patch. The pain problem was a dry neck - he couldn't have the antibiotic cream on his neck for radiation because he'd fry; which meant he had to go from the shower, we'd wrap his neck in wet gauze & baby wash cloths plus an ace bandage then he'd unwrap when we crossed the bridge. He lost over 20 pounds, which he couldn't afford to lose anything. Healing was very hard on him. He did so well at 1st but his autoimmune kicked in about 2 weeks out to where his blood counts were really low. I ended up taking him to a natural Dr where he had supplements & a vitamin C drip which seemed to work; unfortunately, he needed 2 drips per week but we couldn't fit 2 into our life (it was an all day thing with ride plus waiting for the bag to drip) plus he did not like the way the girls stuck him or pulled the IV out. His body was still sore from all the needles in Philly, he didn't need more pain. Yes, we complained... He got very depressed because he wasn't healing quick enough. I could not get his mood changed. Different antidepressants were tried but nothing worked. What ended up working was our old neighbors came up from Tennessee on Valentines day (he didn't know); so that cheered him. Then we made the decision to have the feeding tube removed. The feeding tube was a huge source of pain; his intestines always hurt; he was usually found doubled up in pain. It was thought he had gas but from what I researched it could have been spasms. Any puree's that I made, he basically shut down & wouldn't eat them, nor would he eat by mouth because he had no taste buds and no saliva. To someone that likes to eat, this is very depressing. He'd tell me that the puree would sit in his stomach & not digest. We saw the radiation nurse practitioner and I was able to speak to her alone.. she backed me up that the tube needed to come out & that he needed to be able to sink or swim. Had he not started eating, they would either feed him via nose or another feeding tube. On 2/22 we saw the ENT surgeon & lied about how much he was eating by mouth; they pulled the feeding tube out.. yes, held a towel over it and yanked & out it came. 5 months after it was put in, it was taken out & he's been doing well eating. His taste buds are better; he's not complaining about the saliva as he knows he's going to have to drink water with almost every bite just to swallow it. Most food will suck up his saliva like a sponge. We knew our health insurance was going to get canceled & it did. He was going to start physical therapy 2 weeks ago when they called to say it was denied for lack of coverage. We've been on this since December, asking for Cobra forms but they never came. Thankfully I know the rep; he told me when it was sent out & when it did not arrive the following Monday & Tuesday (last week) hubby & I made the 2 hour drive to Port Newark to do it in person. We split the driving because neither of us drive that far. The insurance cost us a pretty penny until we are approved; then they will either refund the money, if hubby gets back to work before we use up our large payment or they will deduct the lower amount from my large payment until he does work. He had a PET scan on 2/4 - we were not supposed to get the results until the following week but the nurse practitioner called us the same day because she knew how depressed he was. He told me a week or 2 before the scan that he was not fighting any more nor was he doing this again if treatment did not work; so I was a basket case as well; especially since it was right before my dad's 4 year anniversary of being gone because of cancer. Had we not had my inheritance from my dad I don't know what we would have done to survive. We were very fortunate that we did move to where we are so he had better treatment options. After making the drive to North Jersey the other day, there was no way he could get treated at my original choice, where my dad had treatment; but he was able to get treated at a very large place; which I'm not sure he would have chosen had we still lived in the old house. So, everything has worked out. The next scan will be in 5 months; so we'll see. I'm not sure when he'll be able to get back into his truck to deliver cars; but hopefully he'll be able to do the yard van to drive drivers to their cars. Hopefully physical therapy will help.