Happy Memorial Day to all.  Honoring our heroes past and present is the agenda today.  Thank you to all our fighting men and women who keep our country safe everyday.  To my dad who served in WWll as a reconnaissance pilot in the US Army and to my hubby Bill who served in the US Air Force during the Viet Nam War, I am so proud of you.   And a special thanks to those who made the ultimate sacrifice.  God did bless the USA!

A quick summary of Bill’s testing that was done on Thursday.  We have not received any results back.  It’s always bad to have any type of testing done right before a holiday.  I think the whole medical industry takes off a day before the holiday weekend starts and slowly filters back in after it’s over.  So we probably won’t hear anything until Tuesday.  The test went well.  Bill was very dizzy and nauseated afterwards.  They did the stress test along with the heart MRI.  Not quite sure how that works but it should spit out the results the doctor is looking for.  So hopefully Bill’s cardiologist, Dr. Odhav, will have good news for us.

As for me…doing nothing except swimming, catching up on my Nora Roberts novels, and watching my hair grow.  Watching my hair grow everywhere!  Brazilian look is out and going with the “hairy beast” look.  It’s so hard during that transitional period.  Everything itches!  It’s not very “lady-like” to go around scratching the crotch.  Shaving the legs, plucking the eyebrows, waxing the lip, getting to put mascara on the eyelashes has all been missed little pleasures of life but are now back.  I’m loving it.  It actually takes me more than 3 minutes to shower now.  Washing my hair is great and it only takes a minute to dry.  See…it doesn’t take much to amuse me.  My son Casey (middle kid) shaved the neckline for me Saturday which felt really good.  First haircut in almost 8 months.

Bill and Magoo have been good boys.  Anytime war movies are on 24/7, I get relief.  Give the two of them (in separate houses, of course so they don’t fight) a remote and snacks and a cooler of drinks to sit next to their recliners and I have the makings of a peaceful, non interrupted, Nora Roberts floating in the pool with a glass of wine,  fest!   I might even get a nice tan out of this.  It has been too hot for Magoo to come out anyway.  I threatened him with his life the other day when he almost fell trying to get out of his porch swing.  Dad it’s too hot…stay inside till this evening when it cools down with a nice breeze.  In one ear and out the other.  At least it goes in with him.  Bill just sits there where my voice tries to go in one ear and meets a barricade.  Oh well!!!!!

I will be adding a few blogs this week.  When we get Bill’s results back and a couple of announcements.  Have a great Memorial Day.  GOD BLESS AMERICA AND OUR WONDERFUL TROOPS!!!!!!

Ride,Baby,Ride!  Hugs!

Leilani

Feeling good is such a plus.  No doctors appointments, no worrying about how the blood work is going to come out, don’t care about your hair… or lack of it,  LIFE IS JUST GOOD.  It’s almost like the calm before the storm, which I don’t want to even think about.  Have been keeping busy and really wake up in the mornings loving the opportunity to be alive and achieve a goal each day.  Sometime my goals require a little mischief but that’s OK.  My guardian angel flies pretty close to me and pulls me by the collar when I get a little too rowdy.  Although my angel must have been well paired with me.  It sometimes seems like we get in trouble together.  Like the time…well never mind, this is a family blog!

Bill, Lani, TJ (Lani’s boyfriend), and I all went to the wonderful Gala given by the Big Brother Big Sister organization on Saturday evening.  Met so many wonderful people and enjoyed seeing old friends.  KPRC (Houston’s Channel 2) had the emcee honors.  Thank you Owen Conflenti (morning anchor) and Mary Benton (news reporter) for sharing your talents for the gala.  And of course to Jerome Martin, general manager and VP of KPRC Local 2 for your continued support.  The “Big-Black Tie-Ball Casablanca Style” was amazing.  We all danced and auctioned and drank and gambled (fake, of course) throughout the evening.  If you ever need a band hire the “Brent Van Sickle Orchestra.  OMG! Played everything from Motown to Jazz.  And our dinner table crew, Mark Boyle ( KPRC news reporter) and Mike (Bank of America), Charles, and my good friend and BBBS of Houston President Ron Hadley.  Great company…thanks for a fun filled time.

Everyone in the horse racing world is all excited now.  “I’ll Have Another”  is now one race from winning the triple crown.  So, Belmont is in 3 weeks …… we will soon know.  Bill went to the track to place our bets before getting dressed for the gala.  All favorites came in, so the pay offs were minimal.  OK …ready for a Bill story?  He gets back from the track and changes into his tux.  We are on our way to the Houstonian Hotel and all seems normal.  Well, as normal as it gets with Bill.  Anyway, throughout the night I’m asking him if he is OK because he is on new meds due to his chest pains last week.  All seemed fine till we hit the dance floor.  No not literally, he didn’t fall, but was close.  I noticed he was acting different.  As we are getting ready to leave he couldn’t find the valet ticket for the Jeep.  Then while we were all looking through pockets and purses Bill disappears.  Now…where is Bill?  We look over on the park bench in front of the hotel walkway and there is Bill sitting next to and talking to the satue of some dude with boots on and people are taking pictures of him.  Then Lani joins in by sitting in the satue’s lap, just making it more fun for the passers-by.  HPD officer (Houston Police Dept.)  is sitting on the wall watching everything and what does Lani do…she goes over and sits with the officer and just starts caring on a complete conversation on everything.  This guy is probably saying these people are actually getting on the roads to drive home.  Not to mention, the cop pointed out, that TJ’s inspection sticker was expired. It was a hoot!  Sunday morning…first thing…Bill is looking for his hearing aid.  I told him it was making so much noise (loud beeping sounds) that I threw it out of the Jeep window!  Are you ready for this…he said “where about on the freeway”?  Funeral services are pending!!!!!!

I have a speaking event coming up.  A local book club has invited me to speak about “Ride,Baby,Ride! and I will have more details later.  Please know, if anyone would like to have a group event and would like for me to speak about the ovarian cancer experience and the book…just e-mail or call me..  Getting the word out about ovarian cancer is the goal.  Other than that we are waiting for Bill’s stress test and heart pet-scan which is scheduled for this Thursday.  Prays needed for Bill…in more ways than one!  😉

Hugs and Ride,Baby,Ride!

Leilani

First of all the Monday update is late due to unforeseen circumstances.  Bill was sent to the ER by our doctor Mark Bing yesterday afternoon.  Bill has had chest pains and arm numbing since last Friday.  But he did not say anything not wanting to ruin my mom’s day.  Believe me… he didn’t need a heart attack to kill him after I found that out.  He is fine.  Of course there was a battery of test and still more to go.  A pet scan of the heart is coming up along with a stress test.  The hospital stay was comedy in itself.  Bill kept choking himself with his oxygen tubing, his hearing aids kept showing up in unbelievable places, his nurses had to repeat everything nine hundred times because he kept losing his hearing aids and some poor man was making all kind of unpleasant sounds in the room next door.  One of his nurses, Kathy, said when she was trying to keep Bill from strangling himself with the oxygen hose, she found something hanging from the part that sticks behind his ear.  Guess?????    Anyway his cardio dude, Dr. Odhav, and Dr. Bing discharged him, with ecstatic delight of the entire Memorial Hermann Katy Hospital nursing crew I’m sure, at about noon today.  You have never seen such a quick release.  Bill keeps asking why it didn’t take longer for him to get discharged.  I do not have the heart to tell him.  Of course he wouldn’t hear anyway.  I would like to thank all the (Memorial Hermann) nurses in the ER, and on the 6TH floor, the ER doctors and of course Dr. Mark Bing and Dr. Anil Odhav for all their devotion to Bill.  He was truly blessed to have you all there.

Mom’s Day was wonderful.  All the kids, my brother and nephew Walker, Bill and Magoo all had fully packed day.  BBQ and football, pool volleyball and a few brews were the menu for the day.  Casey and Christina gave me a beautiful hibiscus plant, which the boys planted by the pool for me.  Dusty manned the grill and Magoo actually stayed awake the whole day.  Of course he has been a cocoon ever since.  Must of worn his little 98 year old hinny out.

Speaking of Magoo turning 98….we had a small birthday party for him on Friday at Dozier’s BBQ.  His “ninety something” buddies Dick Baile  and Judge John Singleton, my brother, family friend Dennis, Lani, Bill and me were all present for the event.  The old friends sat together while the rest of us waited on them.  It was great to see dad having such a great time.  We made it through without calling the EMS for anybody.  No CPR was necessary and we sat close to the restrooms …so there were no accidents!!!  Why didn’t I patent Depends!

I have to tell this story because it is just too cute.  A couple of weeks ago when I picked up Lani at the airport, there was a family of ducks in the Park’n Ride parking lot.  They were walking along the fence line.  Dad, mom, and 12 ducklings.  They were so amazing.  When a person would walk by, the dad would run away from the rest of them..playing hurt.  The mom would duck her head down (no pun intended) and walk by the fence like no one could see her.  The babies kept so quiet.  Then the dad would come back and off they’d go together…just a quacking!  I must have watched them for a good 15 minutes.  The love and protection they had for their family was so beautiful.  Their couldn’t have been a more inspiring picture for mom’s day or dad’s day. 

Love and hugs.  Ride,Baby,Ride!

Leilani

I have been asked questions about many things during my journey with ovarian cancer.  I will share some of the questions I get and answer them.  The most asked question is “What was my reaction when I first found out that I had cancer”?  Answer is: very mixed emotions.  I know the first thing is… I’m going to die! So how long do I have?  Then of course, Why Me?  Let it be known that cancer is not necessarily  a death sentence.  Scary…yes.  But as time goes by you learn that things are what they are.  You have been thrown a curve ball and deal with it.  Don’t feel sorry for yourself.  Get out and find a way to play just like everyone else.  I believe the worst thing anyone can do is give up on life.  That’s not part of the Man upstairs plan.  I have been asked “did I feel bad before I was diagnosed”?  Answer is ..NO.  The symtoms I had were so much like regular menopause stuff that I didn’t pay any attention to them.  The one thing I do know is that I had a feeling of a tiny pin poking at me from the inside down in the pelvic area..  And a pain in my right shoulder and neck.  And this is interesting because Dr. White (our family physician since I was a kid) told me that sometimes when something is wrong with the body the pain appears somewhere else.  And that many times abdominal problems show up in the shoulder and neck area.  At the time I was like …”what”????  Boy, how true it was this time.  Another question …”How do you keep your spirits up”?  This is the hard part.  I figure if you feel down and are always negative you are going to sink yourself so low you will not be able to recover.  I was lucky to have a very supportive team behind me.  Family, friends, doctors, nurses, and my minister and his wife.  I try to make it a point to meet new people everyday.  This is where you find that everyone you speak with either has or knows someone who has battled cancer.  The many journeys people have taken are amazing.  Not just with cancer but with all adversities.  It has been a joy to meet so many new friends.  You are part of God’s plan and you will find out how you are part of it one day.

Bill, Lani and I have been quite busy.  My wonderful ob/gyn Dr. Paul Cook gave us Astro tickets so Bill and I got to go to the game.  Great seats…right behind home plate.  Lani had a dental appointment last Thursday so we went on a lunch/shopping trip to go along with teeth cleaning.  Saturday, Bill and I met good friends Linda and David at the horse track and watched the Kentucky Derby.  And yesterday my handsome Dr. Bevers invited me to be part of a photo shoot with him to open the new MD Anderson Katy Regional Care Center.  I met so many nice, caring people.  So if you see my hippo butt and “the Bev” on a billboard around town..be sure and wave!

The rest of the week should be interesting.  Magoo turns 98 on Friday.  He has been in rare form for the past week or so.  He is really running out of steam.  His friends are planning a little get-together at Dozier’s BBQ on Friday.  I just hope he makes it.  It’s no fun without Magoo antics….but we still have the hearing aide king to pick on!   But every now and then he reps up and moves pretty fast.  Then we are all kinda like when you see the bomb tech go running by, you’d better try to keep up!!!

Tomorrow Lani and I are driving to Cedar Creek, TX (15 min. from Bastrop) to have lunch with my swim team buddies Jenifer and Cindi.  I can’t wait to see them. 

Have a great week and stay out of trouble…I know, what fun is that?  I can tell you all if friends were flowers, I’d pick all of you.  Remember your job is to keep me going.  Hugs!!!!  Ride,Baby,Ride!

Leilani

It’s hard to pick which “man” to start with!  So I’ll just pick my wonderful, hard of hearing husband to talk about first.   Bill was torn between sitting in his recliner, drinking a beer and watching Rambo for the two hundredth time or get on the lawn tractor and tackle the dreaded horse field.  With my wifely persuasion I encouraged him to get off the recliner and put his bottom on the mower instead.  So switching his beer to a bottled water he set out to conquer two and one half acre horse playground.  Poop and all!  He normally wears a ball cap and protective goggles but it was late afternoon so he decided, in all of his wisdom, to face nature free of gear.  When he comes back in…bald spot on head sunburned, he says I think I got something in my eye.  OK, first of all …you THINK you have something in your eye?  So as I play “Nancy Nurse”, and Bill whining, the dogs start going berserk.  Squirrel in the front alert!  And lo and behold Magoo decides to visit.  What else can happen?  You guessed it…the phone rings.  And people wonder why I drink!!!!  So as I get everything settled and get back to Bill’s eye I noticed that it was extremely red in the corner.  So I had him wash it out and of course put some Visine in there just to say I did something.  Two days later at the eye doctor’s office…I am watching as the doc takes Bill’s eyelid, flips it up, takes a q-tip, and goes to work. You’ll never believe what was removed!  Bug body parts!!!! Only a piece of wing and leg…UGH.  Dr. Goffman told me I need to learn the Boy Scout way of getting things out of the eye.  I politely told him that I had never been a Boy Scout but a Girl Scout and our deal was selling cookies.  #1 Girl Scouts don’t get things in their eyes, we are smart enough to wear goggles when mowing.

So now having to take Bill to the opthamologist we were stuck with leaving Magoo home alone for a couple of hours.  Remember Lani will not be back from South Carolina until tomorrow night.  Dusty and Casey were working and daughter-in-law Michele was without a car for the day.  So instructions for dad are do NOT go outside, you could fall off the porch.  Make sure when you do get up that you have your walker with you.  I set out 2 bottled waters, a Dr. Pepper, and made a sandwich for his lunch.  Butter cookies for dessert.  All set.  All goes well.  We return home and where is Magoo?  He is on our back porch!  Without his walker!  With his sandwich in his hand!  I’m sure you get the picture all except he only had on his pajama bottoms!!!!  No there is not enough wine in Napa Valley!!!!!

I have several great things to report.  My friend Jenny who lost her husband 3 years ago has taken the big step to date again.  I’m so proud of her.  And to top it all off….she is going to be a grandma!  Way to go Jenny…I’m so proud of you.  Life’s too short, get out there and make the best of it!  I also want to remind everyone that there will be a Cancer walk at MD Anderson this Saturday.  The info about the walk are on my blog that I posted a couple of weeks ago.  Check it out.  My pal Lindsay will be my reporter for the “walk happenings”.  

Still working on increasing my swimming laps.  Now up to 50 each day.  The water has been perfect and there is no place I’d rather be than in the pool.  And working on decreasing the steroid weight.  I feel like I have a “popcorn butt”, and it exploded.  Bill and I will be at the Astro game on Wednesday.  My handsome Dr. Cook sent me tickets and I am so excited to get away and relax.  So everyone have a blessed week and enjoy the wonderful weather we are having.  Ride,Baby,Ride!

Leilani

Magoo is on the loose!  And boy, did he have a special week.  To begin with he started complaining about his “neanderthal” teeth again.  But little did he know the gang was well ahead of him.  Anticipating mouth trouble the wonderful staff at Dr.Kaestner’s office pre-scheduled an appointment….just in case!  So the “teeth saints” went to work.  By the way, the teeth saints include Dr.Kaestner, his nurse Carolina and the incredible Gail who never lets me down when a “Magoo moment” arrives.  God bless all of you.  So Magoo’s appointment is at 10:30 AM…dad is on his front porch ready to go at 7.  I s_ _t you not!!!  The man was rocking in his rocker fully dressed and had his alarm clock in his hand.  Even the mockingbirds were saying “do you know what time it is”?  Anyway we got his 97 year old ass in the truck, threw his walker in the truck bed, (probably should have switched those positions…what was I thinking?)  Bill was in the back seat and removes his hearing aids for the ride into town.  Dad keeps talking to Bill and I keep telling him …Bill can’t hear you.  Bill’s butt was left at the corner of Chimney Rock and Richmond.  Don’t pick him up if you see him!

Friday night I’m putting Magoo to bed and he has taken everything off his nightstand and deposited the items on a chair on the other side of the bed.  I’m totally confused as to what he is trying to tell me.  Turns out he said there was a lump in his bed and he needs a new mattress so he can get comfortable.  OK, my first thought is what is the lump in the bed?  Did Lilly bring in another dead rabbit and hide it, or was it Lilly herself, or did Magoo leave something in the bed.  Could not find anything.  Then he says he can’t find his flashlight…it’s not on the night stand where it always is.  Hello, nothing is on the nightstand…you moved everything…your flashlight is on the chair with all your other crap!  It took a whole bottle of Merlot to get me through that night. 

But besides driving everyone nuts he was honored at a Big Brother Big Sister dinner where 8 wonderful young people will get to go to college because of the Essary Scholarship Fund.  My brother, Bill, Lani and I got to meet the nicest families.  Dad, unfortunately could not attend because of his teeth pain.  And thank you Ron Hadley, president of BBBS for all you have done to coordinate this wonderful event.  The entire family is so proud.

My side-kick, Lani, flew off to South Carolina yesterday.  Will be gone for about 10 days.  Stocking the shelves with plenty of “spirits”.  OMG…just Bill, Magoo and moi!  Lord help me …I’m just waiting for one of them to “make my day”.  And you know what I mean!!!!!  Other than that, I had a dermatologist appointment with Dr. Adam.  You remember from the book he is the doctor that used a magnifying glass on my “who-who”.  Probably gave Dr. Bevers all kind of ideas, as though he needed encouragement!  This time after a complete exam I came away with only two small places to freeze.  One on my right arm and one one my right cheek.  Not that cheek…face cheek!  Where are your minds?  And my hair is slowly growing back.  Head looks like a baby bird.  All fuzz.  And major annoucement…ta-da…I had to shave my legs yesterday.  Always a thrill….that’s the one thing I liked about not having hair!  Still Brazilian every where else.  I knew all the men were waiting for that one to be answered.

Have a great week.  Love you all!  Ride,Baby,Ride!

Leilani