Weight Loss! And a Stowaway!

Hi y’all!  Miss me?  I didn’t have time last night to write much after VBS and then Twitter just took a major puke on me Tuesday so I thought I would give it a day to get itself fixed.  And it did.  So yesterday I did 1.48 miles for 45 minutes.  It was very hot yesterday morning even though I was walking really early in the morning.  But I did it.  I did the driveway deal yesterday because I just didn’t feel like doing the hill in the heat.  The ones that are necessary between here and the driveway are bad enough in the heat.  And I took my weights.  I can still tell differences in my arms and my legs and in how I breathe and things when I walk.  And my clothes are still fitting looser so that is good.  Today I only did 1.35 but that was over the course of the day and since I had an appointment today I had to keep,  I will take this.  I am seeing the results though.  At my appointment I was weighed and I am down 4 more pounds which make this 28 pounds total weight loss.  Yay!  I can and I am doing this!  I am still not sure if it will give me the end result that I want as far as my health goes but at least I will look and feel better and will be able to walk with no issues.  I am just going to keep going and get myself healthy on many accounts regardless of how this affects the diabetes aspect.

So today I had an appointment and on the way into town we kept hearing something.  I stopped the car and sure enough, we had a stowaway!  A kitten had gotten into the engine part and it was just sitting in there mewing at us.  He wasn’t hurt or anything so he just got to ride in the car and hang out until we got home.  I am not sure why he got in there.  It sure hasn’t been cold, which is why they climb into engine compartments or at least the main reason why.  I guess maybe it was just done sitting outside or something and decided to get into it.  It is ok though, it was reunited with its mom.  Now it is just chasing us everywhere and seems to know us now unlike before its car ride!  Silly cats!

Tonight we had 10 at VBS.  I really enjoy doing the VBS.  I have a good time and the kids seem like they have a good time as well.  I hope we have as many tomorrow too.  Tomorrow we learn about Daniel and the Lion.  I have found some really good videos to show this time so that has worked out well.

I had been tweeting to Idiotest on Twitter and wasn’t sure they were getting any of my tweets but they responded today so that was cool.  I haven’t posted many tweets lately but I am going to post this one.  It was just cool.  🙂

@poothead Hi Stacey! IT IS!!! #Idiotest

— Idiotest (@IdiotestShow) July 29, 2015

I am also getting ready to link up with Iveth on fortheloveto.com  Please link up with her, she has an awesome site!

Also I have 1137 hits on this site now, 6 bloglovin followers and 55 subscribers on here.  Thank you all so much!  Keep following and telling everyone, would love to have more readers!

And a quick catch up on the 30 day challenge.

Day 20–Do you wear glasses?  And if you do, what are they for?  Well I wear them because I can’t see! Ha!  That is about half right.  I started in 3rd grade telling my Mom that I couldn’t see out of my left eye.  It was like there was a black thing in the middle of my eye and I couldn’t get the whole picture.  I have had to wear glasses since I was 9.  Dr then said it was lazy eye but several years ago I had heard tell of someone else having lazy eye and they had surgery to correct it.  Just the last time I was to the eye Dr two years ago they said I had farsightedness with an astigmatism.  What that translates into is slight Coke bottle lenses.  And as my sight gets worse with age, they will get thicker.  I used to have a huge one on the left but they cut some of it down since that eye will never get better which brings us to the next reason I wear them, and that is to protect my eyes.  But now at my ripe old age of 39,  I truly do need them as my vision is getting worse.

Day 21–Your favorite subject to study.  Well anything computers, the Bible, history specifically from the Pilgrims up until Anne Frank’s time, and ghost stories.  I love to read anything basically.  Been grooving on biography/autobiography stories in the last few years. And cooking.  I love to learn new things there.

This is all I have for tonight.  I have to go to work tomorrow.  I am still really struggling with the concept that I am supposed to be there and the fact that I can’t shake some of the feelings not necessarily of hatred but of dread that  I had the last time.  I pray to get this figured out but I am not having much luck.  I guess I will have to see if the reason I am there is revealed to me.  Also, please continue to pray for my niece.  She is still have issues.  And my brother got to come home Saturday and is doing great!  Please continue the prayers for him too.  Thank you all!

Have a great night, y’all!

–S

Ahhh, walking! A featured blogger too???

Hi y’all!  It is been a bit since I have done a regular walking post but I have one today.  Don’t panic, I promise I am going to do The Fray post but I am just waiting on them to get our picture out there so I can download it.  After that,  I will post it and it will be a long one so be ready.  🙂  So today we walked, or I anyway, a total of 2.29 miles including all I walked earlier at the District Assembly for my church.  This evening we did 33 minutes, in 88 degree weather, which was a real feel of 91 degrees.  That is hot for a fat girl!  But I took the weights and got it done, but we avoided the big hill since it was so hot today. That is ok though.  Zippy, one of our outside cats, went with us.  She is a hoot.  She walked the whole thing.  That is good,  Jeffrey walked with me today.  Annie had her hours at work changed so she is trying to get in that groove before the change actually happens.  I have another day of the District Assembly tomorrow and then I go back to work Thursday.  I think I am going to be able to really groove on this schedule!

Remember a few weeks ago we changed our walking route due to that thing snorting at us in the woods?  This has caused me to have to walk up huge hills, which isn’t a bad thing, but it has.  So today, because it was so hot, we decided to walk the driveway so I could get my time in and not overheat myself on a hill.  As we start down the driveway, I tell Jeffrey that there is something down there off the left side of the road that snorts at you.  He of course said he would take care of it, started down the driveway kicking up gravel and hooping.  He takes a few more steps, stops, turns to me and tells me he can hear it.  He thinks it sounds like a duck quacking.  I don’t think so.  I think it may be a deer snorting at us but it seems odd that at all times of the day, many weeks apart, it would be in the SAME spot snorting up a storm.  He walked over to the edge of the woods and tried to see it.  I, I know go ahead and laugh, think we have a bigfoot.  Or something very strange that can’t seem to remove itself.  It hasn’t come after us yet but the next time I get down there I am going to record it snorting and see if someone can tell me what it is.  He decided he would take care of it if it bothered us.  I guess with Jeffrey with me I don’t have to worry about anything, snakes or serial snorters included.

Let me catch up on my 30 day challenge.  I forgot where I was.

Day 7–How you came across tumblr and how your life has changed.  I have to admit I don’t do anything with tumblr.  Maybe I should.  I don’t know.

Day 8–Are you a fitness guru or a couch potato?  Talk about your exercise habits.  Well I don’t think that needs much explanation.  I try to walk for at least 30 minutes every day.  This has made a huge impact on how I walk, when I walk, and all sorts of other things that I never thought possible.  So, I would say I am in the middle.  I am converting to a fitness nut but at a pace that won’t kill me.  I want to do more and will start to do so.

Now on to the most awesome part of the day—-I am a featured blogger on The Blog Centre!  I am so honored to have been chosen for this.  I have really enjoyed being a part of The Blog Centre and I thank them for allowing me to be!  Here is the link, pop over and check it out!  http://theblogcentre.co.za/  It should be there on the first page but if not click on Feature Me.  I want to thank you so much for featuring me!  I do appreciate it!

I also want to say that I wrote that before I had talked to Sandy Nene, so I also want to say that you and your page would be in the awesome people I have met while blogging question.  Thank you again as well!  And
Debbie from myrandommusings.blogspot.com and Iveth from fortheloveto.com and DomesticatedMomster.com—I have met several awesome people since I wrote that post, so thank you to all of you for talking and reading and linking up with me on posts, Twitter and Facebook!  I look forward to reading more from all of you and getting to know you all better!

I better stop for tonight.  I have an early morning in the morning and I hope  my picture will be posted so I can write about The Fray.  It will be awesome!  Have a great night, y’all!

–S

Castles and Cats

Hi y’all!  Today we did 43 minutes with a total of 2.32 miles for the whole day.  It was a very hard day for me to walk.  I have been sitting in training classes all day, which is killing my back and knees.  The drive there is about an hour to an hour and a half.  I am all locked up and feel like I have been beat. I have a problem with my sciatic most days and in that joint but I have a new backache from sitting so much.  I hope this all goes away with weight loss too. But I got out and walked anyway!  It was raining on us but that didn’t stop me.  There were birds tweeting and animals all around.  For whatever reason today, we had a whole lot of cats that followed us.  They say you can’t herd cats, but they can apparently herd themselves and I have a pic to prove it!

It was very hot and muggy and I am sure you can see the wet road there in that picture.  And I can’t stress enough how miserable I was walking tonight but I did it anyway.  I am committed!  The music I had on was helping though.  I was listening to Pitbull’s “Fireball”and I don’t know about you but when I hear that word I think of the red fireball candy they make.  I am not sure if they still make it or not.  I couldn’t figure out how I made that connection fit in there.  I guess I did, but envisioning a fireball every time he said fireball was a bit disturbing.  Then I congoed it up the hill with Gloria Estefen if I spelled that right.  I am too tired to Google it up right now.  I huffed and puffed up that one.  My hip hurt, my knees were killing me, my back was hurting.  Meh.  If Rob Thomas would have been at the top of that hill he would have had to have waited.  I just could not get it going.  Heading back home though I got some oompf up and didn’t have to take a break so that was good.  Point is, I kept it going.  I didn’t take my weights because of the umbrella butt Jeffrey was so quick to point that out to me.  Ha!

I have been complaining all week of all the carbs I have had to deal with.  The positive thing there is that I am not gaining anything as my clothes are still fitting good.  I am glad!

The town I live in has a three-day celebration or so for the 4th of July.  We have a flea market, fishing contest, food, sports contests, things like that.   As I was coming home today I saw a castle in the street.  Yes folks, a castle.  There is something you don’t see every day.  I had to get a pic.

I was also invited to link my blog up with Iveth’s page over at http://fortheloveto.com/?p=627.  Please go check her site out and link up–it is awesome!  She is also on Twitter and tweeted about my link up.

@Fortheloveto I linked up https://t.co/DBUMrOyuE2!! #4Dlove2Linky Thank you for the invite!!

— Stacey Crowder (@poothead) July 3, 2015

It is awesome to link up and find other cool blogs to read. Thank you Iveth!

I am so tired that I think I am going to hush for now. Have a great night y’all!

–S

Skunks, Snakes, Lakes and a Wedding

Hi y’all!  What a day we had today!  I got up extra early to do our walking, which was 1 hour 4 minutes and 1.99 miles.  Later on in the day I added an additional 1 mile or so to it.  More on that later.  Our cat Zippy did come with us and walked the whole thing, extra lap and all.  I have pictures. 🙂  She is so pretty.  Meet Zippy.  🙂  When we get too far ahead of her she will start howling at us and we tend to wait or slow down for her.  She is something.

On our walk today we covered many topics, including the plans for the day, which included a wedding, and some other stuff.  When we lapped the second or third time, we caught a whiff of a skunk.  Not sure where it was exactly but it was there.  We moved along, and on the next few laps we kept catching a whiff of it.  My daughter and I, and she may never admit it, we are truly geared the same.  I was thinking on the way down on our walk that in a few weeks, I may be able to jog this.  She mentioned out loud that one day soon I will be able to jog this!  Ha!  I proceeded to tell her that if the skunk appears, I may be jogging it long before I am ready.  She agreed.  I never did show itself.  That was fine by me.  I didn’t want to injure myself getting away from it nor have to bathe in tomato juice, which won’t really work anyway.  I’m a big girl–I would need to go to a tomato juice factory and dunk in their vats to get good coverage.  Ha!

I did notice one thing today.  My gut has less dunlop to it.  We all it dunlop because I am sure y’all have heard that silly joke, you know the one about do you have dunlop’s disease, where you gut has dunlopped over your pants?  Well mine wasn’t quite that bad but it has some dunlop to it.  And my daughter asked me about my lower gut.  We got into an interesting conversation about how women wear pants.  She said she could not wear hers like mine.  She wears hers on her hips. which people of my age refer to them as “hipsters.”  I told her that I hope someday to be able to fit in a pair of pants like that, with a trimmer gut.  I could now but man I would have serious dunlop problems.  Real ones at that point.  The good news is, in the clothes I wear around the house, I can feel differences in how they are fitting.  My tank tops that were a little tight are fitting better, my shorts that were a little tight are fitting better, I can feel my hips and butt area and it is going down, and all this is adding up to where I know I am doing good. In fact I need about two more holes in my belt now because it is getting to where it hangs on me as it is.  I just wish this infernal double chin would disappear!  I do exercises there too but it is SLOW, slower than the dunlop, to leave.  I think I may have mentioned yesterday that my thighs are going down too.  I love how this is all coming together.  I just have to keep at it.  But you know, feeling how I feel when I walk and not huff and puff and stuff (ha!) and seeing results, no matter how slow, is really motivating me.  I’m not about to stop now.

After our walk, I didn’t get to eat my regular breakfast because we had to leave to my brother-in-law’s wedding.  I had a yogurt but was still starving!  We missed the actual wedding part, because one there was limited room there and two Derek couldn’t get off work last night so we could go.  We got there right at about the time for the reception, but we were lost.  Yes folks, I got lost in my home state of Indiana.  Let me explain.

Patoka Lake is an area I have been familiar with all my life.  We used to go up there and fish when I was a kid.  I hadn’t been up there for years now, and never in a driving capacity.  I had directions, which were correct, after you got to the place to turn in to Patoka, which we like to never found.  We did get to drive by the lake on the way to the gate and boy I forgot how big it was!  I don’t think I had ever been to that side of it but it is huge!  The map they gave me showed it having many fingers and it goes on and on. So on the way there we took a few side roads in following the set of directions I had and we ran into two dead snakes and two live ones.  I determined that area up in there was just snakey.  Anyway, we called and got back on the right track and got there, which put us there a little later than everyone else.  Others drove forever trying to find it too, and even my brother-in-law had some troubles at some point finding it.  Derek thought he was late today but I am not sure about that one.  Once we got there, we spoke to some other family members and stuff and someone had brought dumplings!  Oh dumplings, how I love thee!  I am not supposed to have them but I did.  Like my sister-in-law Rhonda told me, you have to have some things you like or you will never stick with it.  Yes indeed, but I need to stick with it more than not!  But If I understood they were made by Derek’s Aunt Norma or Wanda (not sure) and they always bring them to a reunion.  MMMMMM…..

So after I ate I had to go to the bathroom, which was all the way across a huge parking lot.  No issues there.  I didn’t mind huffing it across the lot, and I did it with no huffing!  I also noticed getting in and out of the picnic tables I was able to get up and down with no leg issues, bending issues, huffing or puffing!  I am making progress! Then on the other side of the place where we were at the road ended in a boat dock so we walked down there and took some pics.  Beautiful place up there, and I had forgotten how beautiful it was.

The next one is my son, who wasn’t too happy I took his picture and me.  I am looking better in pics but I have another one or two to post of me and I can’t stand my infernal chin.  It is leaving but slowly.

Once we got back to the shelter house, most everyone had left so I was able to get some pics with Dee and Tasha, and Derek’s cousin Steve, and us.  Here they are.  The first one is Tasha and Dee, Derek’s brother, and Tasha and Dee and Derek next.  Then Tasha, Dee and Steve, and the last ones are Tasha, Dee, Derek and me.

 

Funny story about taking these pics.  I had leaned on Derek where I was standing and he was like whoa and laughing.  I asked him if I had almost knocked him over and he was like no, he was thinking of something else!  Ha!  It is just nice to know after 18 1/2 years of being together he still looks at me like that, dunlopped gut and all.  I guess in the grand scheme of things my looks aren’t that important except for my health.  But it will be nice to look and feel better.

We came home and watched the Reds game.  Not sure what happened there but they lost by 2.  That wasn’t right.  I put a pot roast on for tomorrow.  It has a roast (obviously), potatoes and green beans.  I have blown the carb eating out of the water this week but I hope to slow down and get back to normal.  It is hard to find low carb when you ain’t at home.  The one positive thing I can say is that the carbs I am eating are natural, they aren’t in added sugar or anything like that.  The yogurt I ate this morning had like 16 carbs in it but it was made with sweetener I think.  I do think that this is a good thing and if I can limit the carbs I do eat to natural ones then that is a good step.  I am adding extra exercise in and have eliminated the sugar but I don’t want to go overboard regardless.  I have worked too hard to screw it up now. The only problem with pot roast is I will be up all night now smelling it.  🙂

I believe this is all I have for today.  Have a great night y’all!  Will blog more tomorrow, of course, and I may even go into things that make me who I am such as things that happened as a kid and stuff.  I am sure it will be interesting to someone.

–S

Today Was AWESOME!

Hi y’all!  Today we did 56 minutes and 1.82 miles.  It feels so good every day to walk!  When I said yesterday that I really need to do this every day and not miss it because it bothers me if I do, I was serious.  It also has a lot to do with the company that I have on the walk too.  Yes, with my daughter, and I love our little talks and things.  We were talking about a variety of things today but I still think I am going to add an additional PM exercise to my routine, and we had thought about commandeering Jeffrey to walk with me in the PM for a while.  I haven’t added anything to the PM yet because I tend to get busy in the evenings.  I will have to do like I have the morning walks and just make time.

I truly notice that I have more energy and I don’t get as tired as I used to.  It is easier to walk and do things now than it has ever been and I really look forward to see how much better I will feel when I get another 20 pounds off!  One way I notice that I have more energy is that when we come in from our walk, unless it was absolutely roasting outside, I come in and don’t even have to sit down and rest.  I just keep moving on into whatever it is that I need to do.  That is pretty impressive considering that a few weeks ago I was huffing and puffing.  Also, Monday will start week 7 of diet and week 6 of exercise!  I can do this and get it together!

I also changed my eating times and that has helped too.  I have been successful with dropping the toast in the mornings and also when I eat at a function or something I can eat a reasonable amount and stop.  I have also noticed that my appetite is regulating too.  That is a blessing for sure!  I have this thing whipped!  I know I will succeed this time with getting healthy, without a doubt!

I am sure my post yesterday made a few of you wonder about my sanity.  Let me assure you, boredom leads to many things and so does creativity. Sometimes I think that boredom and creativity both border on craziness.  I come up with all sorts of stuff that I really ought to write in books.  And for those who were wondering, we did name a new Leaf today, Leaf 3.0.  Anyway, one of our conversations today was about arguments, and specifically what a mini argument entailed.  I was not aware that the term for a mock argument was a mini argument.  It is apparently when you and your friends argue back and forth, but it is only acting silly and like you are arguing but not really arguing.  Ok. I have done that forever with my friends being silly but I guess it is called something else by everyone these days.  Just goes to show I am not the only one reinventing and renaming things that people have done for decades.  🙂

Speaking of my daughter, I hope she gets her picks done for the Liebster award.  I loved having to look over all the new blogs and stuff that are out there.  I spend so much time trying to find places to list my own and I keep forgetting to find new ones to follow and read.  I need to do that more.  I just love the idea that the people who are reading my blog are growing.  I gain a few more followers every day!  Thank you to all who follow and read my blog!

Our cats have almost stopped walking with us.  Zippy was coming with us today but got scared home from traffic.  Jetty doesn’t go much anymore but when we get back, he does run out from the driveway to meet us.  He is so cute–he looks like a big lion running down the road!  He has a different colored mane under his chin, if you will, and he is just cute!  And speaking of cats, Annie’s new cat, Dallas, had made itself at home and climbed up and on my shoulder, and now it is hanging out on my lap . Yes we are critter lovers!  Here is Dallas.  Dallas is just a little bitty baby, but is weaned.

One exciting thing that happened today was I have my first Bloglovin follower! Thank you for that!

Now for another exciting part of the day!  Anyone other than me watch Idiotest?  I absolutely love that show!  Some episodes I’m an idiot, others not so much.  I decided this morning that I would tweet to Ben Gleib and tell him how much I loved the show.  And guess what?  He responded and favored my tweet!  Absolutely made my day!  Then just a bit ago Idiotest tweeted to me too and favored my tweet!  Holy smokes! My day really was made!  I was out there retweeting these things and was so wound up I spelled his name wrong and had to retweet it later.  I thought, man, I am truly spelling like an idiot. But I did get to correct it!  Anyway, here is a screenshot of all of it.

Just how awesome is that!!!  Really made my day.  Thank you Ben Gleib and Idiotest!

I better hush for the night.  I have my end of the year paperwork for church to send in.  Y’all have a great night!

–S

Snakes, Cats and Snake Whisperers

Hi y’all!  It has been raining here like crazy.  We did get our walk in, 1 hour 7 minutes and 2.12 miles.  It was an eventful walk today.  Jeffrey decided he was going to go with us.He also said he wanted to walk with us over the summer.  So we gathered up umbrellas and took off.  Today we had two cats walking with us, Zippy and Jetty.  They actually went all the way out and back with us and we didn’t have to carry them.  So on the first part of the walk we stumbled over a dead snake.  Not sure what type it was but it was dead.  Jeffrey even said the head had been ripped off.  We walked on and took off on the second part of the walk.  The cats of course took off with us and there happened to be a car coming.  Jetty disappears when he hears a car but Zippy was impossible to be herded.  The car had to slow down because she was daring around like a pinball machine ball.  They eventually drove on by but the look they gave really said that they didn’t believe that cats will walk with us like dogs!  Well, only me.  Anyway we started back on the last part of the walk and there was a huge worm in the middle of the road.  I stepped over it and Jeffrey came up to it and said it was a snake because it was standing up.  It didn’t stand up when I almost stepped on it.  Annie looked at it and decided it was a snake too.  We attempted to get it to move and it wouldn’t.  Snakewhisperer Jeffrey got a stick and shooed it off the road.  It was pink on top and really rose-pink underneath.  It tried to get away from him but he told it “no, get over there” because you know all, all snakes speak English.  Then Jetty and Zippy came back and attempted to take care of it and he shooed them away and told them no.  The snake tried to slither on up the way but he ended up safe in the weeds.  I had no idea Jeffrey had that in him. He loves all animals (we all do) and that is due to our love for them at our house. (You ever seen the thing on Facebook that says the only regret that I have is not having enough room to save all the homeless cats in the world?  Yeah that is us.) So we continued on our way back over the dead snake and then I almost stepped on an orange lizard.  It was the cutest thing ever!  It ended up trying to play dead because we were freaking it out, stomping all around it and taking pictures of it.  

Annie napped a while and we took off to the thrift stores. We hadn’t been in a while and every now and again you can really find something good.  St. Vincent’s was getting ready to close but I found a few low sugar, low carb cookbooks and a shake weight.  Yes folks, a shake weight.  Not sure why but I have always wanted one of those.  As ignorant as it looks, it may really help me tone my arms.  Or make me look more ignorant than I can even possibly accomplish on my own.  Either way, I hope it helps.  We went to Goodwill too but there was nothing there at all that appealed to us.  I am also looking for a sugar-free buttermilk pie recipe and so far what I have seen is use the same amount of Splenda as sugar.  If anyone has any suggestions, please comment!  We ate supper at Denny’s and yes I had my favorite.  I went way over my carbs but I don’t plan on doing this much.  I did drink tea with sweetener and that was good.  And of course we wrapped up the day with Wal-Mart.  I have also been grooving on the Hawaiian Punch Sugar Free mix for water bottles so I bought more of that and more water.  It truly is as sweet as sugar.  We had a good day.

Let me tell you the story of Annie.  She got pulled over the other night on her way to work.  Apparently they were looking for specific colored pick-up trucks that had been involved in smashing mailboxes.  She said the cop was very cheery and when she couldn’t find her license, he just wrote her plate number down and let her go.  Obviously she was not the person.  She knows better than that.  She said she almost told the cop to call her mom.  🙂  No explanation is needed there.

Our morning schedule has changed quite a bit since we have added the walking.  I get Jeffrey on the bus and try to take my meds and eat before she gets home from work.  Then we take off and walk our hour or whatever.  She eats her breakfast when we get back and we play Random Impractical Jokers.  I select them on the DVR, and since there will be no new ones until July (gasp–cry–sniff sniff), I run the selector bar and up and down and look away and we shout out to stop and randomly start one.  It is a good game with excellent results.  You may try it sometime with any show.  Then she goes to bed and I fix lunch for Derek and start our lunch later which we don’t need ready until mid-afternoon.  Boring it may seem but it is what we do.  I am just glad I have figured out a way to work exercise in.

As promised, here are more entries from Caringbridge.  There are so many other things I would like to say about all this but I will blog another post on it specifically after I finish all the Carinbridge entries.  The next four seem short so I will put all of them here. It seemed like I wrote more when we were there but I also know what a job it was to stay alert and with the program. I have also caught several spelling errors but I am leaving them as I had posted them  I know this may make no sense but this event completely changed and directed our lives, even up until now.  I feel it is just important to share it with those who may either need the encouragement or would like to know what happened to get us to where we are now.

Just a few things I have been trying to remember to post.  Some people want to know what he can or can’t have here.  No fruit/vegetables, and no fresh flowers.  Most everything else would be ok.  We as the family can pretty well have what we need to in order to be here but we have to really watch what he has now that the chemo has started.  Yesterday was his first official day of chemo.  His treatments started about 1am and didn’t really end until around 2PM.  He has been sooo, soooo sick.  I didn’t expect that this early.  It just now struck me this may be a repeat of some of yesterday–sorry if it is.  Just bear with me, I am not with the program on some things.  He livened up around 4 or so.  He at some food, then had a whole McFlurry and 2 cans of Spaghettio’s before he went to bed, and some candy in the middle of the night.  Unfortunately the candy and Spaghettio’s were not kind when the chemo started again.  He has been up a bit. and has been sick twice but again they gave him the meds that knocks the nausea but puts him out.  As bad as I hate to say it, that is looking like the best way for him to deal with this at this point.  He is whiney at times, but for the most part, he was over there being social like he always is until the chemo kicked in.  As of right now he is snoozing and only waking up to pee or something.  He has another round of chemo around 1 this afternoon and if he feels like it then I am gonna take him out to the waiting room to see family.  Again I want to thank you for all your love and support! 

I missed a day there trying to get some stuff accomplished.  You would all be amazed at the amount of papers to fill out, things to send in, meetings and educational opportunities they have.  They told me yesterday that his leukemia count was going down.  That was excellent news!  But this morning, his bone marrow tests came back and they show that he is in the low risk category for treatment and he will not need a bone marrow transplant!  This increases his chances of survival to 70%!  What a great Christmas present!!!!  His leukemia count is still going down and is still responding to chemo well.  He has been up, playing UNO and playing on the computer and he ate a slice of cheese pizza!  I am sooo happy!  Thank you all for the prayers and love and support!  As soon as I know more I will post it!  Thank you all so much!!!

Hello again!  Jeffrey is continuing to respond well to the chemo treatments.  The percentage of blasts in his blood went from 23% on Tuesday to 4% on Wednesday, with blasts being what should always register as 0.  He is starting to get restless, grumpy and yelling and screaming where everyone can hear him all over the floor.  I know he wants to go home, but I need to research the chemo to see if that happens to either be a side effect, or if it is affecting his Strattera.  He tends to act like this when he is either preparing to be sick or when he is tired as well, so this will take a bit for me to figure out what, if anything than the obvious, is causing it.  Otherwise he was up, played Scrabble yesterday afternoon, ate chips and drank orange pop at 2AM today.  He is hanging in there and doing well from what  I can tell.  I want to thank everyone for all they are doing and sending.  I don’t have time to name everyone here, but in the future there will be a post of thanks for everything everyone has done.  Again I want to thank you for all the love and support! 

Happy New Year!  Woo hoo!  Well it is almost New Year’s Day.  I realized I haven’t updated in a while so here goes. 

Just a short update up until Monday—Jeffrey would start out every morning by being ill.  In the evening, he would eat a little but not much.  He was told if he didn’t pick up he would have to go on the bagged nourishment.  Well over the weekend, when he would get sick, he would go ahead and try to eat as much as he could in the PM.  He did very well and kep everything down.  They thought a blood culture had some sort of oddity in it, but they retested it and it came back clear.  In the process of that, an antibiotic they started him on had irritated him and his skin had broken out in a rash.  As time went on, they discontinued this antibiotic, and the rash cleared but came back, especially under his dressing.  They also say this rash is a side effect of low platelets, but as of today they are going to start him on a regular allergy med to help with the itching. 

Monday was Jeffrey’s last chemo treatment for this round!  Woo hoo!  This means we are getting one step closer to going home for a while.  He was still pukey up until Tuesday, but Wednesday he ate all day long and didn’t puke except when he gulped his drink too fast.  Everything he is eating he has kept down!  His ANC has finally fell to 0, and when that happens they say the kids tend to sleep more and they say it feels as if they have the flu.  So far, not Jeffrey.  He has been up and running the halls the last three days.  We went to the New Year’s countdown until 12noon party in the lobby today.  He got to meet 2009 Olympic gold medalist Bridget Sloan.  I have a picture that I will post later when I get time.  The last three days have been very days!  I expect he will wear himself down before the numbers come up, but as long as we want roam, roam we shall do! 

I went ahead and researched some things, and others I have wanted to research a bit more.  Jeffrey has leukemia, the AML type, and that is also classified into types.  The type he has is M2.  So far, everything I have read on M2 states that it has a better outlook for recovery as opposed to some of the others in the list, the list being M0 to M7.  The Dr. said this was the “good kind” to have.  That is good news as well that he has the treatable type.   The Dr. also this type was also referred to as t 8,21 which means translocation in your chromosomes 8 and 21, if I have understood that correctly. 

The amount of information thrown at you during these times is so immense, and I am usually good at keeping everything straight.  I also learned how to change his dressing earlier in the week, and I will be shown how to change the caps on his central line as well as flush it.  

I will be a long time trying to thank everyone for all they have done for us, and continue to do for us.  So, I shall start here, by saying thank you for all the love, support, and help during this time!  All of us appreciate it very very much!   

This is all for today.  I have church tomorrow and I teach Sunday school to the kids so I better get rested up.  I hope y’all have a great night and a Blessed Sunday!