There was a Chirstmas After All

I had a week off before Christmas. I had made a bunch of plans in my head of things I wanted to do, to insure a Norman Rockwell painting like Christmas. Of course by now, everyone knows my luck so I am sure everyone knows it didn't go quite as planned. If you are one of the few lucky ones to be one of my Myfacebook friends you are probably aware of the unfortunate events.

It all started with the Christmas tree. In fact that could be a blog in itself. I will give the short version instead. The newer pre-lit tree wouldn't light in the middle. Took it down and put up the other tree. None of the lights worked. Had to go out and buy new lights. Not much of selection 3 days before Christmas. Found some I like. there was only 4 packages left. Grabbed them hung them on the tree to find the last string didn't work. Had to take them off and go out again. Couldn't find multi color lights so I ended up buying all green lights. Sally calls it the alien tree. The little kids decorated the tree all by themselves. We were just glad to have it up and done with by this point.

While the tree fiasco was going on, another pot was brewing. Monday evening Sally wasn't feeling well. She woke up in the middle of the night with a full blown stomach flu. Zachary woke up with it as well. Wednesday afternoon Michael and Kaity came down with it to. Wednesday night I went to bed figuring I dodged the bullet but I woke up yesterday to the mighty terror flu. I felt like I was close to death, my time was coming.

Last night Zachary was very excited about Santa. Kaity still didn't feel to well and she really doesn't understand the Santa thing. It was after midnight and Zachary was still awake, telling us to go to bed so Santa can come. Finally around 1AM the big guy arrived. I was told Michael was snooping around under the tree acting like he was 9 instead of 19. He had no will power and opened his gift and jumped around like a little kid. Zachary climbed into bed with us around 4:30. Sally got up with him and they looked at his stocking and both of them fell asleep on the couch. 8am on the button, Zachary was waking everyone up. At that point I realized I left the diaper bag that contained the camera at my mom's( although we did have the camcorder going). So I have no pictures to post. Kaity kept saying "Oooooo" to everything. She sat there with a pile of toys eyeing what she wanted first. She smiled big, made her selection and took her chocolate candy to me to open. She is truly my girl. Zachary said Santa did so well that he can't think of anything he wants for next Christmas.

After the presents were opened and I put batteries in everything I went back to bed. I am still not feel well but much better then yesterday. All of our Christmas plans went out the window because of us being sick. We stayed in our P.J.s all day. It was nice to relax. Kaity was watching Angelina Ballerina. She hurried up and put her Tinker Bell dress on and was trying to mimic Angelina. It was fun watching her. After that I went to clean up a bit. I had another battle but this time it was with a box. I almost lost my eye to the box. I can't say it was a bad Christmas. To see the joy in my kids faces is everything to me. No matter how old we are there is always magic in Christmas.

Merry Christmas everyone. Hope your day was truly a blessed one.

PS I love you

Hey everyone. I am doing well. I have been collecting lots of blog material in my little handy note book. I will be home from the next two weeks so hopefully I will be able to write more frequently. Not sure if it will be daily but I will try since I know how popular my blog has become (cough cough). I wanted to write sooner but between Monday and Wednesday I put in an extra 16 hours of over time. I figure I will catch up on my rest during my vacation.

Thursday I had chemo. The first of the year I will be going for a CT scan and a PET scan. After that I will meet with the doctor and discuss the next round of treatments. If everything goes well the plan will be for another 6 more treatments minus one drug. It's the one that causes the most side effects. He said here and there I will be getting the full treatment but it won't be every time. Which is good because the numbness sensation is becoming worse. Sometimes while I drive my leg goes numb. It takes awhile before it feels some what normal again. The cold is also bothering me and the effects are lasting longer. I use to be able to have a week where I can have cold food and drinks without it bothering me, now it might be a day or two before the next treatment. At least now I have about month break from chemo which I am happy about.

Yesterday, my company had their Christmas party. There was a lucheon at work followed by bowling at Star Dust. I am relectly telling you something that I know I will catch some heat. What is told in this blog must stay in the blog. I write about everyone elses mishaps so it's only fair to share mine as well. Sally and I were on the way to Star Dust. Almost everyone else left directly after the luncheon but I stayed to wait for Sally. On the way there Dan called me asking me where I was at. I was talking to him, trying to listen to Sally as she was telling me which way to go and at the end of conversation to Dan I said "Bye I love you". I always tell Sally (even though she never hears me) "I love you" when I hang up with her. I couldn't believe I told Dan I love him. Even though we are suppose to love everyone, I don't go around tell people especially men that I love them. I was hoping Dan had hung up before he heard it. I know if had heard they will never stop the tourmenting during bowling. So Sally and I walked in and I held my head up high hoping Dan didn't hear. Sally on the other hand kept giggling. I saw Dan and he didn't say a word. I felt very relieved. He didn't hear but he will know now once he reads this blog. Hopefully, by the time I go back to work this will have been forgotten.

After bowling pizza was served and score were calculated to see who had the top scores. Every year I think Sally and I will get the booby prize but we always manage to stay away from it. This year I knew we were going to get it. I am an olympic bowler but my wife on the other hand is not. She usually drops the ball at least once during a game. The game at Avery isn't a typical bowling game. It's 40 frames and each frame has a special. For example there is a Migiligian which when that happens if you don't like your first throw you can reset it. There is also a thing called "sour grapes", which if you don't get a strike then you loose 2-5 points for every pin that is left. Sally kept getting the sour grapes. Every time she got she would get a gutter. The next frame though she always managed a strike. I think she really wanted a prize and knew the only chance was to blow the game and get a booby prize. She managed to cost us 130 points. I decided to wait until the end to recieve the booby prize, since Sally worked very hard to get it. While we were waiting Sally and I were talking with another guy at work. Sally was talking to Tony D. so I thought it would be fine if I left her alone for a couple of minutes. While I was gone a lady took a picture of Sally and Tony. The lady thought they were a couple. I can't leave Sally alone any more. By the way we were not awarded the booby prize. Someone else was actually worse then us. I am still puzzled how anyone could be worse then us. I think a blind couple could have had a higher score then we did.

Tonight we took the kids to a house by Sally's mom. The house is a corner house and they go all out every Christmas decorating. I am not exaturating when I say all out. Some nights Santa is even outside waving. This year we have been driving pass the house looking for Santa and finally we found him tonight. The pictures posted are from the house tonight.

I am sitting here taking a break in fustertarion from trying to put the Christmas tree up. A couple of years ago we purchased a pre lit tree. We thought it would be much easier then trying to mess with the lights. Plus, we needed a smaller one because the other one took up to much room. Last year after we had decorated we noticed a small section was not lit up. This year the entire middle section is not lit. I drove all over looking for fuses thinking it's the fuse but I can not find the fuse any where. Not sure what we are going to do. I thought about putting up a string of lights but the tree lights are green, red, and white and I don't think they sell strings of lights that way. All I know, Zachary is going to be disappointed because he really wanted the tree up and the house decorated.

I am going to take a hot shower (finally after not be able to take once since Thursday) and maybe I will just sleep on it about the tree. Sally mentioned I can take the tree down and put up the other one that is to large for the living room. I am tempted to buy a Charlie Brown tree and be done.

God Bless,
Bill

Zachary and his wisdom part 2

The past week has been pretty good , just the same old tiredness. I feel that most of that is because I am putting in some overtime the last few weeks. Other than that I feel really good. I still have the numbness in my hands and feet, that makes it hard to do a few things at work , but I manage. I try not to make any indication that I my be having some issues. I have one more week of work than two weeks off , I am looking forward too that. I have a lot of things that I want to be able to do with the kids.

Zach the other day told Sally that he felt lonely. I felt really bad that he felt this way. I am back to work and trying to put in some overtime to help catch up on bills and buy Christmas presents. Sally is keeping up the house and Kaity being only two will sometimes demand Sally's time. Zach was always playing with his legoes without a worry in the world. So I always thought he was content. So I will now make sure I am up with him in the morning and call him from work before he goes to bed to let him know that his Daddy is thinking about him and loves him. I will have conversations with him about whatever he wants to talk about. Sometimes that could be a mistake. We were driving in the car going to pick Michael up from Cabela's and he started asking me questions about Mountain Goats. I don't know a lot about Mountain Goats, so I was trying to get off the subject. When Zach would ask me a question, I want to be able to answer it correctly if I can. Mountain Goats is not my expertise. "Hey, Zach lets talk about Three toed Sloths". That is a subject I could talk about and actually answer more of his questions correctly. He asked me "What is a Sloth, Daddy". Now I have him, I thought to myself. "There animals that live in trees and move very slowly". "Daddy will Mountain Goats eat me". Back to those damn Mountain Goats. Yes, they are very mean and like to eat little kids and you should never talk about them again. This is what I wanted to say. I actually said no, they are timid animals and would probably run away from you if they saw you coming. Now we finally made it to Cabela's to pick up Michael. We were a little early, so we decided to go in and look around. We made it in and in front of us was a mountain scenery of all kinds of stuffed animals and on the top of this mountain landscape was none other then a Mountain Goat. Come over here Zach and lets look at the really big Elephant. Then he asked me if Cabela's had all the animals in the world. Another time we walked around Cabela's waiting for Michael again. This time he was interested in the fish. Most kids will run by and glance but not Zachary. We had to tell him the name of each fish. Luckily the names were written underneath each fish. Sally told him to that if he didn't behave there, he would be left to spend the night. She went on to tell him all the animals come to life when the stores closes. So Zachary tried to spend his time at Cabela's trying to prove Sally wrong. He pointed to the birds that were hanging from the ceiling and said they can't come to life because they can't come unattached. He then started to point to some animals asking Sally if they came to life and roamed around how would they be able to leave their spot and get back.

Zach mentioned to Sally earlier this week that he has a friend that doesn't believe in God and that he didn't want to be his friend anymore. Sally told him just because he doesn't believe in God doesn't make him a bad person. It's what you believe that matters. Zachary after a long pause asked Sally if he could invite his friend over to watch a video he has about The Stories of the Bible. I guess he wants to try and convert his friend. Zach is such a good boy and he always asking questions about the Bible, Jesus and Mountain Goats. Sally really did a great job leading him on the right path. Except now he is asking all sorts of questions about religion. Luckily he ask Sally the questions because for most of them I would have no clue how to answer. Sally is calling her mom asking the questions. I would love to see Zachary with a priest asking him the questions. For example last Sunday at Faith Formation, they had a party for baby Jesus. Zachary asked Sally if there are 2 Jesuses. Jesus the baby and Jesus the Savior. Sally had to explain there is only one. When Advent began Sally took him to the religious store to buy Advent candles and an Advent calender. There was a display of holy cards and Sally told him he could get one. Instead of picking the card out by the picture (which is what I would have done) he kept asking the owner of the shop who each Saint was. While they were in the car Zachary came up with a zillion questions to ask. He asked if St. Michael the Arch angel has a sword in Heaven. Then he asked if there is only one devil or many. He then got really sad and Sally asked him what was wrong. He said he is about to cry thinking that the devil doesn't love God. He then started talking about David and Goliath and asked since Goliath was bad did he go to hell when he died. I am sure glad he saves those questions for his mother.

I am trying to make the blogs a little shorter ,because I don't want anyone to get bored. I hope you enjoy what content I do put into them. Thank you and God Bless!

The words of wisdom by Zach.

This has been a long week for me. I had chemo on Wednesday. I am also working 6 days this week plus I had two 12 hour shifts. I am attempting to write this before I go to work. This way tomorrow I can relax and spend the day with my family.

I am doing well. I wasn't able to get the patch for nausea filled because the insurance only will pay for a refill every 23 days and my chemo sessions are every 14 days( duh). I am a little nauseated, just enough to feel uncomfortable. Obviously, I am tired as well. I can't wait until I don't have to wear the pump at home. That is what bothers me the most. The 2 nights I have it on I don't sleep very well. Hopefully in 2 weeks that will be the last of the pump wearing days. During this last treatment I sat next to a gentlemen who has colon cancer to. It had spread to his liver and lymphnodes as well. He had surgery to remove the tumors on his liver. Sally was asking him questions and I just kept watching her. I knew what she was doing by drilling him. We found out he has been in treatment for 2 and half years. He said that just when you think you are almost done with treatment, you find out there is more. I am an optimistic, I believe I am going to beat this. Sally on the other hand is a pessimist and continues to research and ask questions. If you ask her though she would say that I am in denial and that she is trying to be realistic. That could be the reason she has to take "happy" pills now. So as of now I have one more full treatment of chemo. After that I will have another CT scan done. If everything looks good (which I am sure it will) I will start 6 more partial treatments ( a treatment every 2 weeks) which does not require me to wear a pump( just the the one that is already in my chest).

Enough about the cancer stuff. I really need to write more often but because of time I can't. Lately Zachary has been giving me loads of blog material. In fact I will have to have a part 2 of this blog to continue about Zachary. I am not sure what goes through that little brain of his. Quite a bit , I am sure I often wonder what he is going to become when he gets older and I would love to be able to see what he dreams about. The thing that he asked and comes up with is just mind boggling to me. Sally and I are often lost for words during conversations with him. Thanksgiving we had dinner at my mother in law's. She wasn't feeling well because of back pain. The kids were getting rowdy and Sally told Zachary to clean up after his little sis. Well, of course Zachary wasn't to eager to do so. So he stood there for a few seconds goofing around and looked at his grandma (who was watching him) he then turned back around and said "Uh Oh! The camera is watching me" and went and put the toys away. He was so clever that he left Michael pondering what he meant. Sally and Michael proceeded to argue what Zachary meant by that. Michael thought he was talking about a doll and said it was her mom. When Zachary came back we asked him what he meant by camera and he said "Grandma". It was his way of saying his grandma has a watchful eye and that he better be good.

Our kids will put their shoes out the night before St. Nicholas day which is Sunday this year. During the night St. Nick will fill their shoes with some treats. I have never heard of it until I met Sally. It's a Catholic tradition. I have been deprived during my youth so every year I leave my shoe out next to the kids. Hoping St. Nick will make up for all those precious years that was taken from me.(Can't blame this one on Dawn) Every year I try and in the past 11 years the only thing that managed to appear in my shoe was a deodorizer. I will be leaving my shoe out again this year. A dying man can dream right? Anyway, one day Zachary asked me if St. Nicholas is dead or a live. I replied "St. Nick has been dead for many many years.", Zachary quickly replied "If he is dead, how can he leave treats in my shoe?" "Ummm" I thought. Sally was next to me giggling and said "He got you again" which he did. Last night the kids were not going to bed very good. Sally told them if they don't get to bed St. Nick is going to leave rocks in their shoes. Zachary came running from his bedroom excited. He said "Good, I like rocks. I can add them to my rock collection"( I was the one this time that was left giggling thinking to myself she is such a fool.) At least it's nice to know I am not the only one Zachary stumps.

High Ho High Ho off to work I go. I will continue with Zachary and his wisdom soon. Take care and enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Where's the stuffing!!

To my relief and a miracle I am able to write this blog. While all of you were out Christmas shopping I decided I needed to work off the turkey dinner, by tackling Zachary's room. I thought about taking a before picture to post but to be frank I was embarrassed on how bad it had gotten. I have seen messy rooms in my days ( I thought I saw the worst when I saw Sally's bedroom before we got married) then Michael's room gets bad too, and I have seen other messy rooms but nothing I swear nothing compares to Zachary's. Last year when it was messy (nothing like this) we went out and bought containers and storage bins. We organized everything thinking it would be easier for him to keep his room clean. Nope. Instead there were lots of empty totes and cracked bins blocking the door way ( Kaity and Zach thought more useful using them for stepping stools and hiding places). I know you are sitting hear reading this and thinking I should have made him clean it. My wife and I have had on several occasions. It seemed like every time we sent him to clean his room it got messier. On one occasion he discovered his art easel while trying to clean. He dragged it out and of course it was lying on the floor on top of the clutter. One time the police came to our house and asked us if we knew where Jimmy Hoffa was. We had no choice but to lead them to Zach's room to begin there search, luckily they didn't find anything. It was so bad that all Kaity's and Zachary's clothes vanished in the room. Of course, it wasn't Zachary's fault for his room getting that way. Kaity did it. I think his room has a magnetic field that pulls everything in the house to his room. I found all my black dress socks which have been missing. There seemed to be a treasure in his room for everyone in the house. Yesterday, I spent 5 hours in the room and by the time I quit there was still no floor to be found. I am not finished but there is a floor now. Sally has a billion loads of laundry to wash. I might even get saucy and finish putting the final touches on his room that was suppose to be done almost 3 years ago, ahhh maybe not. I promised him if his room started to get messy Sally and I are going to start locking him out of his room. Our neighbor gave us that idea when she locked her 8 year old out of her room because of the mess.

Hope everyone had an enjoyable Thanksgiving and full bellies. We had a quiet dinner. Sally made dinner at her mom's. It was just us and Mary (her mom). We had the tradition Thanksgiving dinner : turkey breast, gravy, mashed potatoes, green jello mold, sweet and sour green beans, sweet potatoes casserole, cauliflower cheese gratin, roles, cranberry sauce and stuffing. Yes , that's all we had. Oops did I say stuffing. I forgot we didn't have stuffing. Someone not mentioning names (cough cough Sally) forgot to make the stuffing.( I love stuffing) I am sitting there looking around for the bowl of stuffing but there was none to be found. I was disappointed but decided to keep my mouth shut but after dinner was done I asked where the stuffing was. No one missed it except for me. Sally offered to make it and I could have it for desert but I had already eyed the apple pie, pumpkin pie, and apple Bavarian torte.

On Friday since it was a nice day, I let Zach go out and play for awhile. He started out playing with his legoes in the driveway and then was on to kicking his ball all around. He came in the house at one point and asked if he could go across the street and get his ball that he kicked across. I said yes, but to be careful crossing. I was watching him from inside the house to make sure he would be OK. He got his ball and decided to try and kick it back across the street(bad idea). First time he kicked it, it hit one of the neighbors cars. Didn't faze him, he tries again and hits the other neighbors car. He tries again, this time it bounces into a neighbors pick-up and luckily bounces out, but he is still on the other side of the street. I was thinking ,I hope he gets it over soon cause I don't want all the neighbors coming over to yell at me. now for the last time he kicked it , it hit a tree branch and came scorching down and hit him in the melon. That is when he knew he was beat and picked up the ball and came home. Just to kick it again to have it get stuck in a tree. I think I may need to teach him some kicking techniques. Not saying I am the best kicker around but, I don't think I would have vandalized the neighborhood in doing so

I am on afternoons at work this week. Wednesday morning I go in for chemo. I am going to try to post another blog during the week. There is more to tell about the weekend but I know sometimes it gets to long for some people to read. Plus, my buns of steels are sore from sitting on the floor for hours sorting out toys. Thank you and God Bless.

A Thanksgiving reflection.

First of all I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. This is a time I like to reflect on the past year. This has definitely been a year of trials and tribulations. I was diagnosed with stage 4 Colon Cancer on January 28th. At first it was very hard to take. I have a very fun loving and unique family. We all like to make each other laugh. Now I was thinking the worst, that all of that was going to end. I was always thinking how my kids would grow up and what they would turn out to be. Thinking how this will affect Sally, with all the things that need to be done to the house and all the bills. I actually thought that maybe Sally should divorce me. so she wouldn't have that burden.( This is something I never told her, until she reads this blog) I feel that Sally deserves a good life without all the problems of having a husband with Cancer, a house that needs repairs and the bills that come with it. I never did say anything to her obviously. I guess that is the selfish part of me. She has always been there for me and everyone else that needed a helping hand or some words of thoughtful encouragement or giving an opinion whether it was asked for or not without any biased. It wasn't always what you wanted to hear but, it was said with love. It really breaks my heart knowing the heartache I am putting her through. She has always been a great Mother and wife, even though she has doubts. I really don't know why she thinks that. She does everything she can for us. Although Zachary the other day got in trouble because he was having a listening problem and Sally made him write sentences. He told Sally that he thinks that she is going to the" Dark Side".( A reference to Star Wars) Now thinking that my kids will be cheated out of a father that can't do much any more and is always too tired. Before my diagnoses I was always trying to work as much as I can to help get the bills paid and be able to get the things we needed. So I wasn't home as much as I should have been. Then I got sick and I was bless with 6 months of play time with my kids. I had two major surgeries one in Feb. and the other in June. So during those times I couldn't do much, but when my recoup time was over I took advantage of that time. So to get back to the beginning I was thinking that I was feeling sorry for myself and that is the worst thing you can do. I am not buried yet. I was getting allot of support from everyone. I was always somewhat of a quiet person with not a lot of friends. Unless you knew me personally you never saw me for who I was. I was told on many occasions that I looked mad. I just don't walk around with a smile on my face allot. I do like to have fun and make people laugh. Sense of Humor is one of my top personalities a person can have. I am just a quiet person by nature unless you awaken the sleeping giant. It took me a while before Sally saw my humor. Thanks to her and Michael I get a lot of material. I know too I can depend on Zachary and Kaitlyn. Being in the family I have you have to have a good sense of humor. Take my mom for instance, never mind I don't have that much time right now. Now to get back to perspective, I do believe now that my Cancer is a blessing. I learned to appreciate things more and not to let as much bother me anymore. I still have a ways to go but, I will have to try harder making changes in my life, like my eating habits and need to exercise more. So to say what I am most thankful for this year is all of you and my family who I cherish and love with all my heart. I never would have made it this far without all of you. I thank you and appreciate all that all of you have done to get me through this illness. If not for that I wouldn't be in the positive frame of mind that I am in now.

I hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving with your loved ones. I will try and do another blog this weekend, so check back probably Sunday. So again thanks to all of you to help me through this with prayers, thoughts and just an ear to hear me babble. God Bless you all.

I quick note to let everyone know to pray for my friend Patty from Minnesota. She had surgery on Tuesday. Not Cancer related, but prayers for a speedy recovery. Patty I hope all went well with your surgery, God Bless.

Almost a 2fer

This past week was a good week except all I did was work and want to sleep. I was on midnights and I know that makes a difference in how I feel. I did have a major headache all day that I couldn't shake. It felt like someone put a knife in my head. Not that I know how that feels to have a knife shoved into my head, but if I did, I am sure this would be close.I was supposed to have chemo this week, but because of the hustle and the bustle of the holiday week I asked if I could have it the following week. So it will be a week from Wednesday at 9:30am. Two more full chemo's left and than 6 more of the partial treatments. I can't wait until it is all over and I feel more like a normal person. A week after my pump was removed and I still have problems drinking cold things. It seems the effects are lasting longer.

Now for the events of the week. Today I put up the Christmas decorations for the yard. I was cruising along putting up the decorations when the neighborhood kids decided to attack me as I am doing this. Leave me alone can't you see that I am a busy guy.(obviously not) Than one of the gang members asked what I was doing. "I'm picking apples what do you think I am doing".Putting up Christmas decorations.Very good little girl anything else I can do for you. "Why are you doing that now, Thanksgiving isn't even here yet." "I am doing it now because, I don't want to do it when the ground is frozen and also little girl I am the boss and this is the day the voices in my head told me to do it"" Now go away you bother me".
The other day before I came home from work Sally asked me if I would get Kaity a Sausage McMuffin and her a Hash brown.When I left, I came down Broad St. They are doing road work and you have to be careful of the pot holes forming. When I was going down the street and listening to the radio, there was a guy walking on the sidewalk. I wasn't really paying to much attention to the water filled pot holes until it was to late. I went right into one and splash. The water sailed and hit this guy good. I couldn't have done any better If I tried. I felt really bad so I did the mature thing and sped up so he couldn't get a glimpse of my license plate and find out where I lived. I got home and delivered the requested breakfast to find out , Kaity wanted a sausage biscuit.Kaity refused to eat it. I made a mistake, so I said I would go and correct my mistake. When I was coming home the same way,I noticed the same guy coming down the sidewalk but, this time facing me.I was thinking what do I do,What do I do. I decided to speed up a little to make it past this guy.All of a sudden a squirrel darts out in front of me and I had to slow down( I didn't want to hit the furry little critter) After I past the squirrel I looked up and the guy was right there and splash. Thankfully it just missed this guy. I looked in my rear view mirror and he was looking in my direction. He was probably thinking naw it couldn't have been but,what little did he know ,yes it was me again.
I am planning to do another blog at mid week. I hope you liked this one. I left my note book with my notes at work. So I will have some more to talk about. God Bless you all and thanks for visiting.
I wanted to mention that Hope the little girl that was hit by a car a few months ago went to Franklin to visit her classmates. She is doing great but, still won't be back to school for awhile. She is still going through physical therapy.

Happy Halloween

Yesterday, I had chemo for the 16Th time. I still have two full sessions of about 4 hrs for each session. Than 6 more partials of maybe only a couple hrs and no more pump. Sally had start to use a patch to help me with the nausea that I have been having during the last few chemo's. The patch is very expensive (thank goodness for insurance).For one single patch it's well over 300 dollars and cost us a bargain price of only 40 dollars per 1 patch. It's very hard to get because of the price, insurance companies don't like to cover it.Since I tried other Nausea medication, I was able to get the patch and it seems to work fine.Now my main issue I have is just fatigue. I still get the pain in my jaw when I eat,but it only last a few seconds but, very painful.I still have the numbness in my hands and feet. Other than that I feel fine. Work is going good and still glad to be back.Work does tire me out to were I just want to rest but its a good think. I have been sleeping better, but I still have a hard time during during the time I have the pump like right now. It's almost over and should all be over around the end of March.

Now I want to talk about taking the kids trick or treating.Zachary was a Star Wars Storm Trooper and Kaity was a witch.I started out taking them on our street. Zachary was all excited because he knew alot of the neighbors. He told me later that he felt like he was famous cause all the people were saying hi Zachary to him. Kaity was a little poky because she just wanted to stare at everyone. I finally had to inform her that Zach was way ahead of her getting all the candy. So she started out with a brisk walk that soon turned into a fast full pace run.She was like a cheetah zeroing in on her target. Which was all those houses that was giving out all that free candy. I had to tell her to slow down that the houses weren't going anywhere. She was trying to catch up to Zach, I had to tell her to slow down a few times. I was telling her" Kaity slow down, come on Kaity OOOOHHHHHH Kaity you OK"! "YESSSSSSS".I will help you pick up your candy. Hey, look there's Elmo! One for you and one for me, one for you and one for me............... After we were done on our block we went to his Grandma's to go trick or treating there for a while. Again most of the neighbors knew Zach because of the times his grandma watches him. He likes the attention and smiled at everyone. It seemed at Kaity was always told how cute she was in her princess costume. Princess costume,she has a pointy hat on,come on. She looks nothing like a princess. I actually corrected one guy and he said she still looks like a princess. She has a pointy hat on. I took her by the hand and said lets leave the bad man alone. Later that night I went back and threw an egg at his house. Teach him to call my daughter a princess,nobody calls my daughter a princess. Wait a minute, oh you know what I me. I finally took the kids home with all there bounty. I look through all there candy before they can eat any. I first went through Zach's. I dumped it all out, Hey ,Zach there's Darth Vader, one for you one for me one for you one for me........... After all that I had to go to work. I was able to go in late so I could take my kids out. That is something that I like to do every year.

I had a small notebook that I used to jot down things that happen and that I would like to share with everyone. Well I lost it a few weeks ago and found it in the car today. I grabbed it and saw that most of the pages were tore out and the stuff I jotted down was missing.I told Sally about this and she I know Kaity was throwing the pages at me. NOOOOOOOOOO, Why did you let her do that. They were little pages from a little notebook and you didn't notice that perhaps it was my most important notebook. I looked all over the car and saw little pieces of my notebook all over the place. I looked at all the pages and not one had any of my writing on them. I remember some of what was written but not all. I hope to find the pieces some day soon.

This is one of the shorter blogs. I am tired and going to watch a scary movie with Sally now called Trick or Treat. Most of the blogs are long because I only write a blog about once a week. I hope you enjoyed what I have written and until next time God Bless.

Happy Birthday Michael!

Tonight's blog will be a little different. Instead of writing my weekly report I am changing the subject matter. I will try to write in the next couple of days my normal weekly report.

Monday, November 2nd was Michael's 19th Birthday. By they way Michael, Happy Birthday. As most everyone knows, I didn't meet Michael until he was 5. I knew of him for a long time though. I can't tell you his birthday story from my point of view. However, there is a unique story. Sally's dad was ill with pancreatic cancer when Sally was pregnant. Her pregnancy was high risk and complicated from the very start. At 6 months along Sally had to have a surgery trying to prolong the pregnancy. In the mean time Sally's dad was getting sicker. Right after her dad ended up in a hospital bed and was in and out of a comma, Sally ended up in the hospital. 4 days later she had Michael by an emergency C-section. Michael was born 6 weeks early weighing 3lbs 11 ounces. Except for his size, he was healthy. A few hours after Michael's birth, Sally's dad passed away.

Like I said earlier I didn't know Michael until he was a little older but I heard stories about him. My little sister Lisa would baby sit him. She would tell me about him. I remember her telling me when ever she would eat he would run up to her with his mouth open like a little bird waiting to be fed. He still does that with Sally sometimes.

After a couple of dates with Sally, I decided it was time to meet Michael. I took Michael and Sally to Celebration Station. We had a lot of fun playing games. Michael wasn't shy, very out going and was always smiling and on the move to play each and every game he could. When I brought them back home it was time for Michael to go to bed. When he got ready for bed he gave Sally a big hug and a kiss good night. I was just standing there thinking how sweet he was. Then he ran up to me and gave me a hug and said "I love you Bill". He caught me off guard and I didn't know what to say. I was impressed how lovable this little boy was.

It didn't take me very long to grow to love Michael. I considered him my son even before Sally and I were married. Michael always called me Bill until the day I married his mother. Then from that day on he called me "dad". Michael has always been compassionate and always worried about others. When he was little I use to smoke a cigar before I went to bed. It was my way of relaxing after a hard day of work. Michael went up to me with tears in his eyes telling me not to smoke because he didn't want me to die. Another time Sally, Michael and Sally's mom went to Tiebels for lunch. All of a sudden Michael started to cry. Sally asked Micheal why he was crying and he said that the waitress looked really sad.I think Sally and her mom left her a fairly hefty tip. One time Michael came home one day all upset. Sally asked him what was the matter and he said in one of our neighbors refrigerator that it was almost empty.Sally told Michael not to worry I will make sure they get food. Sally and her Mother filled up her trunk with groceries before she had to pick up Michael. After Sally picked up Michael, they both delivered the groceries to them. Sally and I try to instill acts of kindness for others in our kids. I use to watch Michael on Sunday's when Sally worked before we were married. It was nice because I got to know him and it was just the 2 of us. I would take him bumming around with me and I bought the play station so he would have something to do. He use to like Sunday's with me to because it always seemed like he ended up with a new toy. I was still a little boys in a man's body and liked toys just as much if not more then he did. I was never a cook but I kept my freezer stocked. Michael loved frozen pepperoni pizza. I would make sure I always had the individual ones for him. I will always remember on a particular Sunday I was watching him, he wanted a pizza. He said he wanted to make it all by himself. He put it in the microwave for an entire 30 seconds and took it out. He sat next to me on the couch and went to eat the pizza. Before I was even able to say anything to him, he had sauce all over his face and frozen cheese all over his shirt. I asked him if he wanted me to cook his frozen pizza for him and he said "No, it's cooked", yummy I thought.

Everyone who knows Michael know that he is always good for a laugh. Sometimes it's because he tries but often he doesn't even have to try to make us laugh. Michael being my oldest I have learned a lot from him. I have not always been the best father, and did things I have regretted, but at the end Michael has always forgiven me. Another thing about Michael he is very determined. Sometimes it's not good but in life determination is good. Michael I just wanted to let you know that I love you very much. I never consider you anything other then my son. I am proud of you. I know you are on the right path to have a great life. I hope I live long enough to see you full fill your dreams. Congratulations on your first job. Hope you enjoy your first day of work tomorrow.

Prayers for a family needed

I want to ask for prayers for a man, that was a good friend of my friend Dan and his wife Tina. His name is George and was the soccer coach for Dan's daughter Kesli's soccer team. He was playing soccer on a adult soccer team at the Dyer soccer arena yesterday. He collapsed and died of a heart attack while playing the game he loved and coached, he was only in his fifties. Prayers are needed for his wife Cathy, his son, daughter and for numerous family and friends of this obviously loved man. It was a sudden shock to all and it is a very hard time for family and friends. Thank you and God Bless

The following is an interview with George done 6 years ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcW-edgjWzY