RENEWAL OF VOWS

I don't know if anyone is keeping up with this or not. It's been A LONG TIME since I wrote last. As most of you who would be reading this know, we had our renewal of vows and reception on Friday. We renewed our vows at St. Mary's in Lancaster and had our reception at the Eden Resort in the courtyard. We had a FABULOUS DAY! The weather was beautiful, and we had an evening surrounded with 166 of our family and friends! We are so thankful that we had the opportunity to do it. We really wanted to share our vows with everyone and celebrate Richard's remission from Lymphoma. It was a fantastic day. Leslie, our photographer, will be putting a "blurb" and a few photos up on her blog in a few days. Her website is www.sullivanstudiosphoto.com. (By the way, if you ever need a photographer, we HIGHLY recommend her to you!) Thanks to everyone who was there on Friday. It wouldn't have been the same without you! We spent the remainder of the weekend relaxing and seeing a few out-of-town guests. We will be going to Cape May in the beginning of August to stay at a bed and breakfast in town for a few days. We are looking forward to it, and this time, Rich won't have to go back to the hospital when we return home! What a rollar coaster the past year and a half has been! We are so thankful for all of the support we had in so many different ways. We feel VERY blessed! Thanks again to all who were there on Friday to help us celebrate. We hope that you all had a great time!

Daphne

New Addition

Here is the latest addition to our family...
MAX! Our adorable 8 mo. old black lab/beagle mix puppy!


He loves to chew his Nylabones! Better those than our furniture! :)


One of his favorite activities - Max in the Middle!


Ready to go for a walk on a cold, cold day!


What a spoiled doggie! He sure has a rough life! (Those are RICHARD'S pillows!)

Holiday Hot Dog!

Lazy Boy!

Whoa! Checking out the camera!

Try to figure out what Max is trying to catch in this cute video!

P.S.

Since everyone was calling Richard "Uncle Fester" when he was bald, we decided to go as Uncle Fester and Morticia Addams to halloween parties this year! Here we are!

SORRY!

I know it's been a really LONG time since this has been updated! I apologize to all of you who are faithful in checking "the blog." Richard did write his own update nearly a month ago now; however, after he spent 1 hour and 15 minutes typing (he still "hunts and pecks"), he hit the wrong button and deleted the whole thing. I think he said he thought "Create" meant that it would go on the blog. He was supposed to click on "Publish Post." Oops. So, needless to say for those of you who know Richard well, he closed the computer lid, grunting and mumbling who-knows-what under his breath about computers, and gave up. We've just been busy since then.

He's been back to work full-time, pretty much since he started. He felt well enough to work everyday, but he didn't do any overtime. He is still not taking the on-call phone, but he does work a little overtime here and there in the form of an extra service call at the end of the day, etc. He's doing really well; some evenings he's pretty tired, but overall, he's getting back to his old self.

He had 2 more head shots of chemo. in the past two weeks to make up for the ones he missed when he had the infection in his head port. Then went well; he just got a little tired for a couple of hours after the injection. Now, he can start the maintenance chemo. pills (a very low dose of chemo. that he takes as a pill each day).

He had his post-treatment PET scan, which came out CLEAR OF CANCER, just like it did halfway through! THANK GOD! The bird fungus thing is still there a little bit, but it is significantly smaller in size. His doctor thinks that as his immune system builds back up, he may not need to take that medication anymore either.

We are enjoying "normal" life! (Although, is life ever "normal" with Richard around?) We get up in the morning and get ready for work. Richard doesn't have a breakfast of pills anymore, so he actually has room for a bowl of cereal now and then. We change our cereal often, as we discovered that both of us get bored and tired of the same cereal everyday. Sometimes we even mix it up with toast or oatmeal. Once in awhile, we have banana bread if I forget to eat the bananas and they start to get a little too ripe for my liking (pretty much-any bit of brown).

We come home from work and exercise together (yep, I'm getting him to exercise and ENJOY IT). We have dinner (I'm still working on teaching him how to cook.) together and relax or do housework. However, with just the two of us, there's really not that much to do around here. We're both very neat and organized, so our house is pretty low maintenance. I have grad. class every Monday night until 8 or 8:30 p.m., so Mondays are pretty well shot, but the rest of the weeknights are not scheduled. We end up filling them up though.

I'm sure that our "normal" life isn't as exciting to read about as Richard's "cancer" life, but we sure are excited to be living in more "normal" circumstances! We really appreciate the small things.

In closing, I have a friend, a retired teacher, who I met when I student-taught in 2005. She was just recently diagnosed with breast cancer and will be having surgery soon. Please keep her in your prayers as she undergoes her treatment. I appreciate it!

Thanks for your continuous support or Richard, me, and everyone involved in helping Richard get where he is today. Without the support of family and friends, I don't know how we would have made it through. Life is so precious, and I'm so happy that my husband is alive and well and no longer sick. It's so great to see him building back his strength, getting his skin tone back, no more dark circles under his eyes, and hair growing back! He's doing really well, and we have God, his doctors, his friends, family, and countless people who prayed or supported him in other ways to thank!

Daphne

Follow-Up Appt.

Richard had his follow-up appt. with the doctor on Wednesday. The doctor basically said, "He's looking good..." I'll let him give you the details. :) Richard also got the doctor's "okay" to go back to work. He started yesterday and is SO EXCITED. He is probably the most excited plumber his customers have ever had!

Daphne

Counts still Climbing

Hey everybody! Thanks to those of you who have been leaving comments! It's nice to know you are still thinking about us! As far as Rich's nurses, we miss all of you, I can't say that we miss being at the hospital!

Rich's counts are still climbing higher and higher everyday! He's feeling much better each day as well. He doesn't get so tired in the evening, and he keeps busy for much of the day. He's doing a lot of things around the house, and he's also going over to work and getting his van ready since it really hasn't been used much in 8 months.

He has a follow-up visit with Dr. Andreadis on Wednesday where we will get more info. about his post-treatment bloodwork/scans/meds. We'll let you know what he finds out! He's hoping to go back to work part-time the end of this month, but we'll see what the doctor's opinion is of it.

School is going great! We're getting into a "flow." I'm on my lunch break right now, which is too short! I try to eat and cram as much work in as I can from 10:50-11:35! Plus, I'm getting some kids caught up who were absent a day or two this week (there's some sort of head cold/sinus cold going around).

We're finally starting to get back to a "regular" lifestyle, which is great! We love married life - going to the same "home" everynight is so much better than living 50 minutes apart. We love our house, regardless of the fact that we still have no light switch covers or certain light fixtures, or wallpaper border in the kitchen or patio furniture and a grill or pictures on the walls...... (Yes, I know that's a run-on sentence.) All of that will come in time, but right now we just appreciate living life together in our own little space we now call "home!" Thanks for your prayers and thoughts. We couldn't get through this without all of you who have supported Richard in some way since February! Have a great day!
Daphne

Still Glad to BE HOME!

Richard is so glad to be at home. He had his bloodwork done yesterday, and his counts are still going up! His white blood cells are still a bit low, but his red blood cells are higher than they ever have been since he started chemo! They're at 12.something, and normal for males is above 14. When he was on chemo., doctors were just glad to see them stay above 8. His white blood cells should continue to climb. He has been resting at home, taking care of odds and ends. He made dinner last night (with a little help from me), which was delicious! We didn't notice that the recipe said, "Serves 12" so now we have extra for tonight too! (and many nights after that...)

School is going well. I'm enjoying being back to teaching again. Days are sure busy, though!

For those of you who asked if Richard's up to visitors - he is; just call first to make sure we're going to be home! We would both love visitors!

Thanks for your continued prayers and support. Richard is resting up so he can gain strength to get back to work when the doctor approves!
Daphne

WE'RE GOING HOME! :) :) :)

Hi everybody,
We're heading home this evening. Richard's fevers have been down long enough, and his white blood cells are still climbing. The doctor ordered 2 units of blood before he goes because his red blood cells dropped a little. He is finishing up his last bag now. We are so excited to go home! It will be nice not to live out of a hospital room. The people here were great, though, and they really took care of Richard. Thanks for your prayers!
Daphne

P.S. Hi Kara! We missed you here! I hope you like your new job! :)

STILL at LGH

We are still here at LGH, enjoying the beautiful view today from INSIDE LGH (unfortunately). Thankfully, Rich's cough is not as bad as it was, and his white blood cells are still on their way up. He's at 0.9 now (he was at 0.1 when he came in), but the safe range is 4.0-8.0. He went almost 24 hours without a fever, but spiked a temp. of 101.2 last night around midnight. So, Rich is continuing to get IV antibiotics every 8 hours or so. A discharge doesn't seem likely in the next day or two, but I guess anything could happen.

Still at LGH

Richard has been at LGH since Saturday night. They took blood cultures right away. So far, nothing showed up (infections) in the cultures. His counts were still low, so they gave him more red blood cells on Monday. His platelets were okay. His white blood cell count is still really low.

His cough has been worse, and he still has fevers. He is on medicines to help control the cough and open up his lungs for breathing better. They also are giving him meds for the fevers, which he still continues to have throughout the day and night. Besides the coughing and general fatigue, he doesn't really feel too bad. He wants to come home and wishes a diagnosis of a specific infection could be made. He is on general antibiotics, but if they can diagnose an specific infection, they can put him on specific antibiotics to get him better sooner! The doctors drew more blood for new cultures yesterday. They want him to stay in the hospital until his fevers are consistently gone, and his blood counts are higher. The doctors and nurses are working hard to help him get better. It just takes time!

Daphne