Deck the Halls-Sorta

We live in a lovely small town. As a matter of fact, we live downtown in the Historic District. Folks here are rather proud of the neighborhood. Many of the homes are very old with huge moldings, multiple fireplaces, and wavy glass windows. I know you have a picture in your mind right? Our house is one of the newest in the area. It was built in 1972. It may be our favorite house ever. I like living around all the beauty and history, but I really like have walk-in closets, a 3 car garage, and all those sorts of "frivolous things".

One of the fun things that we do as a neighborhood is decorate the area for Christmas. This is the roundabout right beside our house. Isn't it lovely?

This year we decided to put a Christmas tree in each yard with white lights. We are on a circle, so it's very pretty to drive through and see all the trees and decorations. Lots of people drive through. We are one of those "must see" places for those in the city to visit during the holidays.

I'm telling you all of this because I want you to fully appreciate the work of my husband. He hung the wreaths on each window, the swags from fronts porch lanterns, the wreaths on our front door, and the tree in the yard. He went to the trouble to put "anchors"(I'm sure that's not the right name) on the tree base that went about 6 " into the ground so it wouldn't fall over. Nice. Well done. However, a tornado came through and knocked it over at 2am. Understandable. A couple of days later, it was on it's side again. Oh, brother. He set it up again. The next day it was down again. Do we have vandals? Well my husband, the engineer decided that he could and would fix this problem. OUR tree would no longer be on it's side during the holidays. Below you will see his handiwork. Think this will work? It's been effective since Wednesday. He thought this was a perfectly WONDERFUL solution to our situation. Can you imagine how much our neighbors like it? I laughed and shook my head most of the night. He wondered if maybe we should swath it in red bunting or something. What do think? (I personally think the guy is losing it!!) Quite the attention getter wouldn't you say?

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night! Ride around and enjoy the Christmas lights.

GOOD NEWS

Today I went to Dr. Forero at the Kirklin Clinic. He felt the tumor on my back and said it seemed smaller. I'm to continue my medicine and see him again at the end of March! That seems light years away. He reminded me that hormone therapy is much slower than chemotherapy, but it does seem to be working. So, that's the good news.

The above are the facts. Here's the way I feel-somewhat unsettled. How the heck does he know that the tumor has shrunk? He felt the tumor in my back for less than a minute. How does he remember how it felt on Oct 15th? How many people has he examined since then? Why didn't he order a scan to see what difference there really may be? I want something measurable, concrete. I don't want "It seems smaller", I want "It is _% smaller. At this rate there should be no evidence of disease by ____(this date)". Call me impatient, you'd be right.

We leave Jan 4th to go to Houston for an evaluation at MD Anderson. They will do scans there and will have all of my scans from Kirklin Clinic to be able to determine measurable differences. They told us to expect to be in Houston for at least a week. It could be an interesting week on several levels. We'll be in Houston when Alabama and Texas play each other for the National Championship. Totally different thought, does anyone know a great church to visit while in Houston? I have heard through the years of some good ones, but they don't come to mind now.

Thank you for your prayers, calls, care, and concern. It means more than I can tell you!

Tomorrow is the BIG DAY

Tomorrow (Tuesday) I go to UAB for my evaluation. They expect to be able to tell me how effective the Femara has been on reducing my tumor size and number. I'm a bit nervous about this. I'd love them to say there is no evidence of disease. There's no chance of that tomorrow however. We can still feel the tumor on my back. It gives me great comfort to know that I'm in the hands of a mighty God , and he knew all of this long, long ago.

House Ready for Christmas? Yikes!

It seems that everyone is ready for Christmas. I see postings of beautifully done rooms, impecably decorated trees and on and on. Well, that just hasn't been me-so far! Normally the weekend after Thanksgiving, I get out the Christmas china and we have at least got the lights on the tree by the Sunday after. Welcome to a new time in our life! My house is a mess! We did get the tree in a few days after we got back from San Francisco. Friday afternoon Dec. 11th!!!! I got lights on HALF our tree. I got up Saturday morning bound and determined to get the tree done.

Little by little it finally happened. Hooray! At long last...

San Francisco

We had a great week in San Francisco visiting Will, Jenny, and the kids. We did a little bit of sight seeing, but primarily focused on being with the family.

We got to San Francisco Sat night. Will and Jenny had gone to Louisiana to be in a dear friend's wedding. We took over for the babysitter. We were glad when the kids woke up the next morning glad to see us. We managed to get them fed and dressed and almost on time to church.

After church we ate at Crepes and Coffee then back home for naps. After naps we took the kids to a great park We had a view of the skyline of the city from the park. So fun! Will and Jen got in later that night.

We were thrilled to get to go to Annie's Thanksgiving program at school. It's the first time we've ever had the chance to go to any of their programs, games, etc. We were quite impressed. The five year old classes had memorized several songs and a poem. it went off without a hitch. Annie had a speaking part and of course we thought she was the best.

After the program we went to William's flag football game. Envision this-flag football at age three. It was fun to watch as all the little kids scrambled. William made 4 touchdowns! Will told Mr. Rudy (the coach) after the game to keep an eye out for William. Both of his grandfathers had played in the SEC at Auburn. Mr. Rudy was dutifully impressed. Jenny's dad, Jim, was actually Mr. Football in Georgia his senior year in high school. Jim told us he had already done a play-by-play of William's running-haha.

That evening we went to an early Thanksgiving (covered dish) dinner at a ministry called New Door Venture. Will is on the board there and seems to think they do a very good job. The group strives to find young people who have had major problems in their lives and train them in job skills, place them in a job, and teach them about the Lord. I'm not giving a great description, but that is the gist of it.

The next day I crashed. I think I slept 14 hours that night/day!

Alcatraz

Alcatraz is definitely not a place where anyone would ever want to spend time in prison. Talk about isolated! The cells are TINY-9'x7'. There was a bed, a toilet, a "table", a seat, and a shelf.

I didn't know, until I went that many of the guards and their families actually lived on the island. There were apartments for them. There were bowling alleys, garden clubs, and generally an "ideal life". The children of the guards would ride the ferry

over to San Francisco every day for school. It was a 12 minute ferry ride. It seems to me that one of the hardest things for a prisoner would be to look across the bay and see the city. They could see what was happening, but might as well have been a world away.

King Tut

On Wednesday afternoon Bill and I took Annie to the King tut exhibit at the DeYoung Museum. I have wanted to do that for years, but never seemed to be able to get there. It was amazing to see the abilities that the artist had 1,500 years before Christ! The jewelry was magnificent. The decorative vases, carved model boats, masks, and many, many other things were absolutely stunning. I wish we had been able to make pictures, but no photography was allowed.

Thanksgiving Feast

I'm not kidding about the feast part. Jenny, the trained chef, really outdid herself. My only contributions were apple cranberry bake, gravy, and pecan pies. She did everything else. Here's the menu.

Oven Roasted Turkey

Cornbread Dressing

Brussel Sprouts

Green Beans

Sweet Potatoes Au Gratin (to die for)

Winter Green Salad (with spring greens, feta cheese, pear, dried cranberries, pecans)

Apple Cranberry Bake

Pumpkin Pie

Pecan Pie

Annie worked most of the morning making complicated turkey name cards for each place setting. There was also a wreath made of assorted paper cut out (die cut) fall leaves. Bill and Will took the kids to the park while we (Jenny really) got it all together. That was a life saver.

What a wonderful day!

We were able to make some family pictures that day too. Thought you might enjoy seeing some of them.

Williams Sonoma

Would you believe the only store I entered the whole time I was in SF was the flagship store of Williams Sonoma? So unlike me. They had lots of great stuff-as always. However the thing that really caught my eye was a mold of small gingerbread houses. There are six different small houses in 1 mold. I thought-"Oh! these would be so fun to make with the grandchildren every Christmas."

Then I thought-I probably won't be here for more Christmases. I'm not going to spend $36. on a cake pan I may use once! However, Jenny's insisted, and I bought it. Morbid thoughts. Gotta get over that.

Crissy Field

Saturday morning we took the kids to Crissy Field while Will and Jenny did a bit of Christmas shopping nearby. The kids had a ball. This used to be a military air field and it's right on the ocean. To our left was the Golden Gate Bridge. In front of us was the Pacific Ocean with ships, sailboats, kite flyers, dogs chasing frisbees, and all manner of people. To our right was the city.

What a place!

MD Anderson and ME

Big News. I talked to a nurse at MD Anderson yesterday for a long time. It cleared up several things for me. First of all, she raved on and on about what a great facility UAB is. I agreed. Next, she told me that Femara, the drug that I take daily is the most common drug for metastatic breast cancer. She went on to explain that I should take Femara for 8-12 weeks before evaluating how well it's working. She explained that in the same way you take an antibiotic for an infection, no doctor would stop the treatment half way through to see if it was working. You take the full course of medicine. For a clearer picture of how my tumors are responding we need to evaluate after I've taken a "full course. " I'm penciled in for evaluation at MD Anderson Jan 4th. The scheduler there is checking her team's load to make sure that date will work for everyone involved. She also told me (as had my team of doctors at UAB) that surgery would not be an option because of the number and locations of my tumors. That was a HUGE relief. I can't even explain how much I hate surgery. "NEVER AGAIN" has been my motto about surgery. (Of course, I have been known to have to eat my words before.)

Another thing I excited about is that I get to wait until after the holidays to go to Houston. All the girls will be here on Christmas. I'm so glad we'll have that time together. We get to go to San Francisco to see Will, Jenny, and the kids for Thanksgiving. We can hardly wait! It's so fun to have these things to look forward to.

I feel back to my peaceful self. No more fear of surgery. I really am not feeling bad. What a blessing! If you're going to have cancer, it is definitely a benefit to have a kind that doesn't hurt.

I still get slammed by fatigue sometimes-but not always. It's very inconsistent. I think that I'm doing a great job of listening to my body. A few days ago, the end of 4th period came and I suddenly felt wiped out. I thought, I'll just go into my Home Ec living room (that adjoins my classroom) and lie down for ten minutes or so and that will revive me. Perfect time for my planning period. Well, 46 minutes later I woke up for a dead, drooling sleep! I had exactly 6 minutes until my next class came in. I was "fresh as a daisy" for the rest of the day. Think I needed that?

Sorry this has been so long. I wanted to catch you up on all the happenings.

Like A fish On A Hot Rock

Can't you just picture it? A fisherman out by a stream snags a fish, removes the hook and tosses the prize onto a rock at the waters edge. The fish are biting. He's got to keep casting to get more. The fish on the rock baking in the sun flips back and forth, back and forth desperately needing to flip back into that cool, life-giving water. Occasionally, one will manage to flip back in undetected when the fisherman's back is turned.

That fish has been like me the last couple of days. I flip from peace to fear, peace to fear. I had been very contentedly swimming in God's mercy, grace, and peace. Then I got snagged by fear and have become tossed about. I long to be back in the refreshing, life giving waters.

I have decided to go to MD Anderson Hospital in Houston for a second opinion. My cancer is very rare in it's manifestation. I'm hoping that perhaps they have dealt with cases like mine and will be able to advise me as to the best course of action. My great hope is that they will say "Take the Femara that UAB gave you and in some period of time you will be in remission."

My fear is that I'll go to Houston and they may say, "Ok, let's cut out those 3 operable tumors. We'll leave that inoperable one and give you some strong chemo then radiation to hopefully get rid of it." That's where the fear starts. I DON'T want surgery, chemo, and radiation again. I've been there and done that and it was a nightmare for me. Side effect lasted 2.5 years. On the other hand, I want to be around a lot longer. (I want my grandchildren's wedding programs to list seating of the grandmothers and that be ME! I don't want "the flowers are given in loving memory of Mimi...")

If you are the praying kind would you pray that I won't be tricked by the fancy bait that is thrown my way? I long to stay back in the life -giving waters of peace. I want to stay the course faithfully.

The Best Weekend Get Away Ever

Bill and I really needed a break. It seemed that our lives had been turned upside down in the last week. We decided to run away. We even missed the Squires annual Halloween Party (the only disappointment of the weekend). Bill and I had THE best weekend away we've ever had. It was lazy and fun. It was romantic and refreshing. It was-well you get the idea. It was great. If you ever feel the need for a real retreat and indulgence I've got just the place for you, Gorham's Bluff in Pisgah AL. Never heard of it? It's in the middle of nowhere on a bluff overlooking the Tennessee River. It's been rated as one of the most romantic places to go by Travel and Leisure magazine. It's been in Southern Living several times and in Southern Lady. Check it out. http://www.gorhamsbluff.com/ It seemed to be at the peak of fall color this weekend. An added bonus for us is that it's only a little over an hour from Gadsden. We would have rated the meals there as four star. Even the grits at breakfast were exceptional!

I Win- I've Got The Best Excuse Ever

School is actually fun these days. Almost all of the students are loving learning to sew. I try to brag about something that each student does every day. "Look how much you've improved over last time. Wow! I couldn't have done that any better myself! Maybe you should be the teacher now. I can just sit back and sip my diet coke. Surely you've done this before! How can you do this so perfectly?" And sew on (Pun intended.) :-)

However, I occasionally have a student come in and say some thing to this effect, "Mrs. Stegall, I'll just take a bad grade today. I don't feel good."or "I have a headache." My response, you may ask? "Too bad. I have cancer, so I win. If I can teach, you can work!" Am I oozing with compassion or what?