Happy November!

You know it's been a long time since you blogged when:

1. You go to sign on to your page and you can't even recall your member name or password!

2. You realize an entire month has passed since your last blog.

3. You can't come up with any titles for today's blog that encompass everything you are getting ready to blabber on about.

4. You pray that there is somebody, friends and/or family who even come to your blog anymore!

So, I shall blog away just in case somebody is still out there!

As most of you know, our family doesn't recognize or celebrate halloween for a variety of reasons. Instead, we have our annual Family Fall Feast Dinner and celebration. YUMMMY! We also make our annual family trip to Brussels, IL, across the ferry and down the road to a small farm to buy the most beautiful pumpkins, squash, indian corn and oooooooh ..,. the jams and preserves! This year the kids chose peach butter, apple butter and apricot preserves. We also found some very yummy apples, 2 butternut squash and a sampling of the most delicious apple cider I've had in ages! Our pumpkins were huge, and CHEAP! We spent $3 dollars per pumpkin ... each pumpkin was so heavy I couldn't even lift it! It rained a bit on the way out to Brussels, but the trip back home along the Great River Road (along the Mississippi River) delivered some of the most breathtaking views of God's gorgeous artistry in the changing colors of the trees!

I have just completed my 3rd round of treatments in my clinical trial study last week. Things are going very well according to the doctors! This is not chemotherapy ... this is a way to trigger my immune system to fight the cancer cells. It's very exciting in the world of cancer therapy and research. I am so glad to be a part of it! I was almost removed from the study last weekend. Some of you may now know since I tried to contact you via email, but others may not be aware that I suffered a brain hemorrhage a week and a half ago which caused me to have a seizure. I was unable to use the entire left side of my body and was unable to communicate. It was terribly scary, not just for me, but for Brandon as well. He was standing next to me when it happened. He's fine now, but very protective of me, in fact he gets up in the middle of the night, crawls into bed with me, wraps his arm over my back and sweetly says "It's going to be OK, Mommy. I'm here and I'll take care of you. Now go back to sleep. I'll wake you up if you have another "sleazure" while you are sleeping." and then he pats my back and kisses me on the cheek. How blessed am I?

Anyway, our local hospital sent me by ambulance down to Barnes where all of my specialists are located. The doctors from the first hospital disagreed with the doctors at Barnes about what my diagnosis was, but in the end it was a blessing that I was where the doctors who know me were. The first hospital came to the erroneous conclusion that my cancer had metastasized to my brain and that I needed to contact my "close friends and family to get your affairs in order." The doctor told me this then swiftly left the room, me all alone, so I could sit there by myself and sob. Once I was at Barnes I already felt better just knowing there were faces I would recognize, nurses who knew me from my hospitalization back in August, and specialists who had access to all of my medical history. The neurosurgeons immediately ordered an MRI and brain PET scan. After two days it was decided that I was not suffering from a metastasized cancer, but from a congenital malformation of the brain called a cavernoma. Although it is a serious condition, it is not, at this time, life-threatening. Praise God! Apparently this malformation bled into my brain which caused the stroke-symptoms and the following seizure. I am being monitored closely to determine if surgery will have to take place soon, but until that point I am on some great epileptic medications that should control any future seizures. I will return to Barnes in 4 weeks for more testing, but that's fine with me!

This past week I've had kids home from school, sick with simple colds. I think the district is being overly-cautious about the H1N1 flu and sending kids home in droves. Fortunately the kids were in fine shape this weekend for our Family Feast. They had so much fun cooking with me! We made ham, sweet potatoes, spinach salad, butternut squash, fresh rolls, and other fun stuff that seems to escape me at the moment ... OH! Pumpkin pies with fresh whipped cream!

This morning we went to St. Louis Mills Mall to buy winter coats for the kids and a pair of comfy walking shoes for me. It's amazing just how much money one can drop in a single trip to the mall, but we all had fun doing it anyway!

A brief side note for those of you who know my sister, brother-in-law and nephew ... this weekend was a wild one for them as well! It all started on Friday morning. I had just completed my week of treatments at the Siteman Cancer Center. My clinical trial takes place on the 11th floor. While standing in the elevator lobby I heard strange noises coming from the group of elevators, but I wrote it off as my imagination. Well, I should have listened to this malformed brain of mine! As I entered the elevator I spied a dime lying on the floor. (This will mean more to those of you who know the significance of the dime and my mother.) I picked up the dime, then pressed the button to go down. I immediately knew something was wrong when the elevator jerked and made a grinding sound. It had stopped working between floors! SCARY! After pressing the emergency call button a very nice, and calm, woman answered my plea for help. She instructed me to press a series of buttons to get the doors to open. I asked, "OK, so they're open now, what do I do?" She giggled and said, "Well, if I were you I'd get off!" Shortly thereafter I made my way safely to the parking garage, in the van and through a rain storm to home; however, the quiet was only to last for just a few moments. That afternoon my bil ran over to my house and rang the doorbell. As soon as I opened the door I knew something was very wrong. Eric looked in a panic and poor little Christopher looked scared and upset. Come to find out, Christopher decided to climb up onto Daddy's computer chair, help himself to Daddy's quarter collection, and swallowed a 2009 Samoa coin! I immediately threw my gang of 5 over the fence to Grandpa's and hopped into the car with Eric to take the little stinker to the emergency room. After a quick x-ray it was determined that the coin was indeed stuck in Christopher's throat. As soon as Kristie was able to get from work to the ER I returned home to wait for the news (and to save Dad from the gaggle of kids I left with him on such short notice. One must be able to prepare mentally before the Jones Crew shows up!) Long story short ... Christopher is doing just fine now. He was transported to St. Louis Children's Hospital where they sedated him and performed a simple surgical procedure (no cutting involved) to remove the coin. I have a feeling he'll never live this one down! I see a future of piggy bank collections for the little twerp! "Insert coin here!"

In the end, everybody is doing well as we make our way towards the exciting holiday season that is approaching all too quickly!

Thank you all for your continued support, good thoughts and prayers. I'm claiming the next few months to be illness free! Again, I will repeat myself and say that I will promise to do my best to keep you updated on the goings-on of The Backyard Gang!

Prayers are going up for all of you, especially to my dear friends and family who are fighting this beast called cancer with me. I love you!

Until Tomorrow,

Kathy ... who is learning that 11 flights of stairs ain't so bad after all! ;-)