Journal

Saturday, October 25, 2008

I'll update again soon. What a game today. I know they were worried for awhile. GO BLUE !!!

Friday, August 29, 2009

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KOKO !!! I really miss all of your Shenanigans! (Wow, he would be 14 years old today!)

Thursday, August 28, 2008

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KAYLA !!! (and Randy, did anyone know that their birthdays are on the same day?) You've had quite the year doing "adult things" (as she calls them). You are officially all grown up (yeah, right! Ha, Ha)

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 10:32 PM CDT

It’s hard to believe that it has been four months since I last wrote anything here. Those four months, just like the almost four years since Shane was here, have quickly flown by. I started the summer with a small make over for myself. My hair is cut off shorter than I can ever remember it, and it is now straight. Kayla doesn’t “ever” remember me with straight hair. I’m getting use to it finally. As usual the summer has flown by. I remember in June saying, ‘it’s still June, I have 2 more months off, I’ll get to my ‘to do’ list soon.’ What was I thinking? ……All the years that Shane and I went to Ann Arbor, I never went to the Art Fair there (probably because he wouldn’t let me – ha, ha). Well, I can say now that I’ve been there. It was, I think, the HOTTEST week of the summer (that reminds me of a Shane story I’ll tell down farther). Everyone should go to the Art Fair at least once. I parked at the high school by the Big House (our favorite parking place), and took a shuttle bus downtown. Once I got there I walked and looked, looked and walked (notice, I’m not saying I bought anything). Finally I decided that I brought money to spend, I was going to spend it. I ended up shopping at the stores behind the art booths. I did find a couple, small things at the fair though. The whole thing is HUGE. Just streets and streets of booths. You can get a map that shows the layout of it, otherwise I think you would either get lost, or miss a lot. There are so many amazing (really different in some areas), things to look at there. Some of the prices were amazing also ($$$$$). I’ll probably go again sometime. Other than that I spent my summer working at the apartments. I worked outside of the office though (they had to hire a full time secretary during the school year). Shane would have loved this, I got to do ‘guy’ things (as Kayla called it). She would call me in the mornings and ask what ‘guy’ things I was doing that day. I worked in apartments pulling out carpet, cleaning, painting, pulling carpet staples out of the floor…. The one day after cleaning out stuff that was left behind in an apartment, I started to take off the outlet and switch covers. One was stuck to the wall so I started tapping the screwdriver around the edge of it. Well it gave way and came flying off and my screwdriver went inside the outlet…. sparks everywhere. It ruined the end of the screwdriver (I thought the whole thing was pretty exciting - ha, ha). The day after that I got to use a chain saw outside clearing out brush and limbs from around the lot line fences. That was pretty fun too. I ended up painting fences the majority of the time after that (that was probably a wise decision)…… That’s pretty much my summer.

Adam is going to give football a try again this year. He finished baseball in May (FINALLY, after 3 weeks of make up games), came home and started to work right away. He went back to school on the 17th already to start practice. His one knee was bothering him a little through the summer so he had an MRI done on it. This time he went by himself. I just gave him the only advice that everyone should get when getting that scan…..”Lay still.” It came back showing that he has a little arthritis there (he’s getting old - ha, ha). Something he’ll have to get use to. His first football game is on the 6th, with a scrimmage this week. Hopefully this year he will stay healthy, and make it through the season. Hopefully he will also do a little better in school (right Kayla? ha, ha).

Kayla, well if someone would have told me when she was in 9th or 10th grade (we refer to those as her “dark years” (Shane loved that term)), that she would be doing this well, I would have called them a liar. She finished her first semester (Anatomy and all), at Eastern and did well enough to get on the Dean’s List (YAAAYYY Kayla, right Adam?). I’m sure Shane would be wondering how she managed to do that without his help (ha, ha). In June we moved her from Ypsylanti to Saline (not Ann Arbor – darn it). She’s a little farther away from school, but closer to where she works. It’s a nice, quiet little town. Her job has turned out so good for her, and me too really. The family that she is with is almost like a 2nd family to her, and I feel that if anything came up and she needed something right away, they would take care of her (which is a big relief to me). She just got back from spending almost two weeks with them in Utah. I took her to the airport and walked in with her as far as I could. What a hoot she was leading up to the day and time that she flew out by “herself”. The family she works for went out there the week before. The anticipation of her flight out was getting the best of her at times. She made it there and back without any trouble, and had a good time. The night before she came back we were on the phone and it dawned on us that she had gone to a state that Shane had never been to. Usually it was Shane that had those bragging rights. School for Kayla starts on the 2nd. She’s starting to be able to take classes for her actual program now. I’m not sure if I’ve said it before, but she’s working towards a job with Child Life. Wouldn’t that be something? All the things that Child Life did for Shane over the years, the smiles, the fun, the friendships, and giving him the feeling of security and peace of mind….. that would be great if Kayla could be a part of that for someone.

In the beginning of July, Shane’s good friend and locker partner, Stacey, had a little baby girl. What a cutie, and a tiny little thing right now. Stacey brought her over a couple of weeks ago and we had a nice visit. I wonder what Shane would have to say about all of this. I wonder even more if Stacey would have ever asked Shane to babysit for her – YIKES, that’s a scary thought (ha, ha).

This is my story that I was reminded of earlier. The high temps every summer always remind me of the fun that I had with Shane when he was here. He truly was our conscience at times. I don’t think I have a real foul mouth, but once in awhile a ‘not nice’ word or two may slip out. Well if it happened and Shane was in hearing distance he would be all over it and come up to me and give me a swat. I bargained with him one time and talked him into giving me 1 freebie everyday (which I didn’t always need). During the summer months though, when it gets really hot, I have been known to get a little testy (I’m much better now). So during those times I talked Shane into giving me 2 freebies on days when the temperature, or heat index (I was thinking wasn’t I) got to 85 or above. I even tried for 3 freebies if it got into the 90’s, but he wouldn’t budge on that one. I could be in another room and a word would slip out, and I would hear him yell, “That’s 1.” Too funny!! He had a ball with it.

This is my last week of summer vacation before school starts and I wanted to end it right, so I went down to Ann Arbor on Monday for a visit. I ended up getting there later than I wanted so I missed some people, but clinic was pretty empty so I was able to visit with Shane’s nurses, Suzie and Mary Jo for awhile. Sheila from Child Life wasn’t there, but I found out later that she was with a group of families in Colorado at the Dude Ranch that we went to in 2000 (that was so much fun for all of us). I went up to 7 West next and got to see one of Shane’s night time nurses, Janelle (I hope I’m spelling these right). There are only 3 nurses left on the 7th floor that were there when we were going. All of the others have either moved to different departments, or left the hospital completely. On my way back down I stopped at Nuclear Medicine and Out Patient Surgery. I knew that Lhatti from Nuclear Med would be gone, but I left her a note with the tech that was there. Walking through that waiting room I remembered sitting with Shane and waiting for his MIBG scan. He had over 40 of them, and each time we went we took a movie for him to watch during the scan. Lhatti would come in and get him, and as we were walking out she would ask, “So what are we watching today.” In Out Patient Surgery I was hoping that nurse Cathie was pulling a late one like she sometimes did. She would always call us the night before Shane would get a bone marrow done with our times, and our do’s and don’ts to follow. The last couple of years that we were going down she started adding ‘requests’ of what she wanted Shane to wear (his Hawaiian shirt, certain sandals….. Shane had fun with that). She had left for the night already on Monday, so I left a note on her desk. When I went to put it down, there in front of me was Shane’s senior picture pinned to her wall. How special is that? Four years, and he’s still there. The rest of my time down there I just walked all around the hospital remembering different things. 99.9 percent of them good. As I left I drove by the new Mott Children’s Hospital that they are building. That place is going to be huge. It’s not scheduled to open until 2011 though. When I got home from my school meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday there were two messages on the answering machine from Lhatti and Cathie. It was nice to hear their voices again.

One last story before I go. Our family reunion that Shane loved to golf at was at the beginning of August. We were sitting there, eating and looking at everyone, trying to figure out who went with who, and Kayla pointed out one of my cousins. She said that he looked like what she thinks Shane would have looked like when he would have been older (40-50ish). I looked at him, and watched him for a little bit. She was soooo right. He is short, bald, walks a little hunched over (like Shane did from his cancer and treatments), walks sort of slow and cautiously, AND (what she didn’t know) he has cancer, and the outlook is very bad. In January no one thought that he would be able to make it to our reunion. It was a blessing.

Speaking of blessings, and cancer, if any of you reading this has not had the opportunity to see “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch, (you can google it), or read his book, I HIGHLY recommend it. What an up-lifting, inspirational story, and pep talk. All coming from a man who knew he had less than a year to live after being diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer. He died at the end of July. Another opportunity lost for someone to make a difference in the world………Please REMEMBER, September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and the 13th is Childhood Cancer Awareness Day. How many of you knew that before you read the previous sentence? How many of you will see many advertisements, or stories, pertaining to Childhood Cancer during the month of September (not many)? Ahhhhhhh, but come October, how many pink ribbons and advertisements will you see or hear ALL over the place (groceries, billboards, T.V., radio), pertaining to breast cancer? Am I bitter? Yes, just a little. All I want is equal quantity, and equal funding. That’s not much to ask, is it? So for the month of September could everyone just find 1 person at least to spread some of the statistics about Childhood Cancer (see below), and/or maybe make a donation to one of the childhood cancer organizations (Alex’s Lemonade Stand, Band of Parents, CureSearch, Children’s Neuroblastoma Cancer Foundation (CNCF)). You can google any of them for an address.

Thank you everyone for still coming here and reading. I really think this is more therapeutic for me sometimes than anything. Enjoy the rest of our warm weather! Oh, tomorrow is Kayla’s birthday, the big 2 – 1! She’s coming home and seems to think that we’re going to take her out to eat, and then buy her a drink. She’s too funny sometimes. On Friday is KoKo’s birthday. I’ll be putting pictures up for both. I hope Kayla has more or I’m sure I’ll hear about it (ha, ha).

Take care everyone!!