We Resume Our Normal Broadcast...

I'm so sorry to be away from my blog for such a long time but life has handed as a real doozy the past three weeks! Besides getting the yard and house spiffed up (had all of the carpets cleaned, what a job that was!) for the bridal shower of the century, we were handed some very bad news. The Papa (The Comedian's father) was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia and was given a very bad prognosis. Without treatment he was given 3 - 10 weeks to live. We all went through a huge grieving process but rallied the troops to get him to Stanford to see if he could be a part of a drug trial. The Comedian accompanied The Papa and The Nana up to Palo Alto for four days so he could see his cardiologist (he was going to have a heart procedure done at the end of October). The cardiologist gave the ok for him to be part of the drug trial but the heart procedure wasn't going to happen (heart ablation). The doctors accepted him into the trial and made an appointment for him to return the following week for new blood draws, bone marrow biopsy and xrays. It would take 2 weeks to get the results back from the Netherlands to determine the course of treatment.

The Papa got a call on Thursday that the results came back and it isn't AML but rather MDS (Myelodysplastic Syndrome) which a preleukemia blood cancer. We don't know yet which of the 5 types it is. He is to return to Stanford after the first of the year and they will determine whether they will put him on an intravenous chemotherapy that can be done in our local area. It is kind of a good news, bad news type of thing. He isn't as sick as was originally thought, but he is still sick. This has the potential of turning into AML. We have been through the lowest of lows and the highest of highs these past 3 weeks. We have many people praying for The Papa and we are sure God must have been hearing these prayers. The Papa will be 78 this month which just seems too young to leave us. The Nana is totally unprepared to be by herself (The Papa has always done EVERYTHING for her). The poor Comedian has really had a heavy load to bear this past month.

I hope to get some pictures loaded in the next few days of the tablescape for the shower brunch and the rest of my fall decorations. I want to get them up because this coming weekend the Christmas decorations will begin to appear around the cottage. I have a four day weekend coming up and hope to get most of the decorating done. It's a big cottage and I like to decorate every nook and cranny. The problem is, by the time Christmas Day is over I'm ready to take it all down and that always seems to take longer than the decorating. This year it will be especially important to get on the stick and get it put away as I am having surgery on December 30th. Another story for another day. Stay tuned.