The Latest Happenings...

We had a storm and just like that our TV, Internet, and phones were gone for 3+ days.

I've been watching Breaking Bad on DVD's, so I still had something to watch.  I never watched when it originally aired, but I kept hearing people talk about it, so I bought the first season.  I was hooked.  Normally I stay away from shows with violence, but I've made an exception with this one.  I'm up to season four now.

I also got quite a bit of cleaning done.  Then the family all came over for crabs.  (Keith came all the way from Austin.)  We hadn't done that in ages.  I've had the crab pot since the 1970's when we lived in Virginia Beach.  We used to buy crabs and sometimes crab there too.

Crabs are a lot of work.  It takes a considerable amount of time to get a little bit of meat out of each crab, but that's part of the fun.  You end up sitting at the table forever.

We had potatoes, corn, salad, and garlic bread with the crabs.

I can afford a tablecloth, but we always put newspaper on the table.   That way I can just throw out all the mess when we're done.

Somehow I missed getting Wyatt's picture, but I did get a shot of his hotdog.  (Not everyone likes crab.)

Yesterday I got up at 4:00 AM.  Reid had his six month scan, bone density test, pulmonary function test, and blood work at MD Anderson starting at 7:20 AM.  We left home at 6:00 AM because we expected a lot of traffic.  We were pleasantly surprised.  It only took us an hour to get down there.

The news was good!!  NO CANCER!!  His vitamin D was low and that might explain the fatigue, so he's started taking vitamin D.  His bone scan indicated that he needed it too and he is supposed to start exercising for bone strength.  The chemo has affected his bones and the radiation his lungs, but those are all things he can deal with as long as the cancer is gone.  He did get a call today and they want him back in six weeks instead of three months because one of the numbers that can indicate graft vs host disease was elevated and they want to watch it.  That's OK...it's better to play it safe.

It was a long day and Reid had gone without eating, so we went to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner.

I believe Reid is a miracle and I thank God every day.  Back in 2009 he was in Intensive Care with his chest cavity full of mass.  His one lung was actually pushed a little to the one side and the mass was pressing on his spinal cord.  Doctors were trying to decide what to do.  They were afraid to give him anesthesia because of the mass in his chest, but they had to do something because of his spinal cord.  Finally they operated and we learned that he had Hodgkin's Lymphoma.  Later, one of the radiologists at MD Anderson told me that the head of radiation there had never seen a case of Hodgkin's like Reid's in 25 years.  It is now 2014 and he's been cancer free for 18 months.  Yes, it has taken chemo and two stem cell transplants, but the cancer is gone!  One of the drugs he was given hadn't even been approved by the FDA when he was first diagnosed, but that drug put him into remission before the last stem cell transplant.

Do you believe in miracles?  I do.