Friday, February 3, 2017

Wow, time flies

Yes, it's been a long time since I posted.  So much has been happening.  My mom passed away from a stroke shortly after I did my last post in July.   The good thing is she didn't suffer very long, the sad thing is that I didn't make it back to Belgium in time to say goodbye.  She passed away a couple hours before my plane landed.   On the other hand I'm okay with the fact she didn't hang on and I got to see her and say goodbye to her earlier in the year after she had her first stroke.  I kinda had a feeling back then I wasn't going to see her again.  My brother, who lives in Belgium with his family was amazing in regards to taking care of all the stuff that needed to get done.   I can't believe we were able to put mom's house up for sale and basically sold it in a matter of a couple weeks!  Anyways, my mom was 80.   She had a good life I think and she really wanted to be with dad who passed away 6 years ago. It's not easy having to say goodbye to your parents that's for sure.

As far as my husband is concerned, he's one strong man!  I've lost track of the amount of radiations he's now had done for the spread of the RCC (renal cell carcinoma).  We also discovered (while I was in Belgium and he stayed here in Virginia) he has a big tumor in his humerus (also a met from the RCC).   He had surgery where they inserted a rod through the humerus and through the darn tumor so his upper arm will stop falling apart since the tumor has eaten away a lot of the bone.  I hate cancer!  Did I tell you yet how much I hate cancer!  Anyways, besides that he's had more radiation for two mets in his brain and also on the arm before they did the arm surgery.  Another radiation for a met on his T11 and we just found out he has more mets on his T8 and his femur!  But the good news today was that all the tumors he's had radiation for are either stable or getting smaller.   We know it's not going to go away but his life is being extended which we are thankful for.   Can you believe he's still going to work!  The cancer meds he's taking causing issues with a bad cough which is also enhanced by having pneumonitis which is an inflammation inside his lung around the tumor due to the radiation. He's been on prednisone for that for weeks now and we're hoping him coming off the prednisone might make a few other side effects go away.  I took him to the hospital a couple weekends ago when he was having severe stomach pains and a blood pressure of 237/135!!!  I don't know how his body and heart can withstand all of this but he's a trooper and presses on that's for sure.  Watching a loved one having to go through this sucks but together we try to make the best of what we got and we'll fight till we have nothing left to fight for.

Enough about sad stuff!  I finished a couple of sock dolls these past couple of weeks.   These are so much fun to make.   Both of them are listed in my BitsOfFiber shop on Etsy so if you like what you see don't wait to get them since I usually make things without a pattern they are all unique and OOAK.

Here are the links and some pictures of them.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/496377908/sleepy-bunny-doll-soft-sock-doll-plushie?ref=shop_home_active_1