Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Merry Christmas!!!!

Hello all I just wanted to give you all a quick update...our dog does have the fast moving cancer. She has 6-8 weeks they think. Some dogs never have their cancer spread but it's very rare. We will be taking her in every 2-3 weeks for check-ups and making the final decision of putting her down when she shows signs of the cancer returning.

Thank you all for your kind comments and prayers. I hit the wrong button tonight...I meant to hit publish and hit reject...UGH!!!! Soooo sorry I lost your comments!!!!!

I hope you all have a blessed and very Merry Christmas!!!! I will post again in January when we return from Disney World.

Love and hugs!
Kim

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Poor Doggy

Hello...Thanks to all of you who have been praying for my dad and family and for all the wonderful comments. This all means the world to me. I am so very tired and trying to help my mom via the phone manage my dad's care. He is having good days and bad days which is to be expected with this type of surgery. The surgeon said it's the worst surgery anyone could ever have.

Yesterday we were back to the emergency room but this time for our dog. She fell a few times yesterday and became short of breath easily. When the mail lady came she barked at her per usual but then got so short of breath that she fainted. (I didn't know dogs could faint). Later we noticed her tummy becoming distended so off to the vet for emergency care. They took her right back and did a quick ultra sound on her tummy and found blood. Then they took an x-ray and a more thorough ultra sound. They found a tumor on her spleen and her spleen was bleeding. She had surgery at midnight and we will know between Saturday and Wednesday if it is cancer. (There is an 80% chance it is). Not good odds but none of her other organs are showing cancer. So we will see what the vet says and what type of cancer it is (if it is cancer) and if it's the worst possible type of cancer we will put her down. (She would only have a short time left and we don't want her to suffer with this recovery only to suffer more and die any way). We did the surgery in hopes that is benign and not an aggressive tumor. The surgeon said he found several on the spleen so I don't know what to think. As for now she is awake and alert at the pet hospital.

I am so sorry for being such a downer but we are having one thing after another. But praise God my dad is still recovering nicely.

I will be around to all of you soon. I have so many thank you's to post and I promise I will!

Hugs!
Kim

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Miracle Man

Morning!

The doctor's at Tallahassee Memorial Medical Center have said we have witnessed a miracle. On December 5th my dad went to the Emergency Room with an Abodominal Aortic Aneurysm the size of a soft ball and it had already ruptured. We were told it was very iffy he'd make it and if he did he may not have kidney function and he may be partially paralyzed. The ER consulted with the vascular surgeons and it was decided that the top dogs (AKA the steak and potatoes of the vascular surgeons, as the nurse told my dad) would do the surgery. The surgery was suppose to last 3 1/2-4 hours and they were done in 2 1/2 hours. During the surgery they clamped of all the blood supply to his lower body to be able to make the repair. Once we knew he was out of surgery and still alive we made our flights to Florida. When we got to the ICU the next morning (Saturday) they had already removed his respirator and he was breathing on his own, moving his legs, producing urine and talking! We were shocked! We were told the respirator would be in place for about 3-4 days but he only had it less than 12 hours. On Sunday, he had a setback. During the surgery his lung was punctured because they moved his organs around and because of the length of the incision everything was pulled about. They placed a chest tube and he did well with that. By Tuesday night he was up and walking, by Wednesday he was eating, Thursday the chest tube came out and he was off all monitors and sent to a regular room. Friday morning he came home, one full week ahead of schedule. All the doctor's who came in told us we witnessed a miracle and if his belly flap hadn't been covering the rupture and putting pressure on it, he would have died. He did lose 2 liters of blood and was given 4 pints of blood. He went home with no medications but very strict restrictions for his activity level. He can only walk, sit and sleep. He cannot lift anything heavier than a remote control for 4-6 weeks. So, it will be a slow recovery but he is recovering! PRAISE GOD!!!

Yesterday, after dropping my dad off at home, I flew home to Michigan. We will be stopping back to visit when we go down for our scheduled vacation on the 26th. It was one whirlwind and exhausting trip!

I will be trying to catch up at home now and getting ready for Christmas. I will be trying to catch up with all of you soon!

Hugs to all!!!!

Kim

Monday, December 1, 2008

Ornaments

Morning!!! Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!!! We enjoyed our time together and mostly relaxed. It's so nice to have long weekends with the hubby!

Now there is a lot to do to get ready for DD's 21st birthday, my birthday, Christmas parties/auctions, Christmas Eve/Day and our trip to Disney World on the 26th! Whew!!! On Saturday I went through and confirmed our flight information which is still subject to time changes and our condo reservation. I checked the American Express to be sure CondoExpress.com charged our account for the remainder of our trip like they were suppose to. Well, they did not. So, I tried calling them and I got the message "This call cannot be connected as dialed". Try again, same thing. Hmmm...go to website...got the message "This website no longer exists". BIG HMMMM!!!! Try the resort...on hold for 10 minutes...and the representative tells me that CondoExpress went out of business and we probably have NO reservation!!! They didn't have any of our home info except for my name and they never received our deposit from CondoExpress which I paid back in APRIL!!! BUT...she said give me your name and she said our reservation WAS still there with a note to cancel if I hadn't called them by December 1. OMG!!! HURRAY!!! The good news is that the resort lowered their price since we made our original reservation and although we lost our $200 deposit we are still saving $68 from our original quoted price. (When we booked through CondoExpress their price had been cheaper than the resort price so that's why we booked with them. Now our new price is $268 lower than what CondoExpress quoted us.) We are going to try and find which bankruptcy court we need to go through to try and get our deposit back but I am sooo relieved to even have reservations. I called with 2 days to spare! That was enough excitement for me on Saturday!

Hubby assembled our tree on Friday. Now today I will put on the lights and decorate it. Here are a couple of the ornaments I have been making that are my reproduction of ones I have seen at Crate and Barrel. They are pretty easy but I wouldn't say quick. LOL!

This one is for my daughter's boyfriend. He picked out the colors of felt that he liked. There is an opening at the top and it's the perfect size for a gift card. I used a large cookie cutter to trace the mitten onto felt. To attach the ovals I used Felt Glue, I made an identical one for my son and I sewed the ovals on. Either way works just fine.
(*Click to enlarge*)

This one is for my DD, she is into these colors for ornaments this year. She and her bf picked up a bunch of ornaments at Bronner's in these colors in October. On the ornament above I sewed beads on the oval and on this one I sewed on sequins.
(*Click to enlarge*)
Ok, I am off to get everything going here. I do have a plan to keep myself from getting overwhelmed~thank goodness!!! Have a wonderful day!!! Hugs!!!
Kim