Spoke with doctor's office...

Last night we got a call from the oncology office and they said they finally got a hold of Dr Moore with Duke University. They decided that Matt still needs to go through radiation just not as much. I am not sure what that means though. I don't know if that means less days, less intensity, or what. Our oncologist Dr. Castillo is going to meet with the radiologist today to discuss the plan for Matt. We will keep you updated as we find out more information.

Update con't with pictures...

Monday-

I worked my normal shift 12 hours that turned into 13 hours with lunch finally at 3pm. You know... busy as usual. I was the lead triage nurse again which means that even though I might have fully taken care of half of the patients that came through the door, I was responsible to meet all of the patients, know their case, review their tracings and their charts, and sign off on them before they were discharged or admitted. Fun stuff. Matt took care of the boys until around 9am then he dropped them off at Claudia's house. He had to go to the DMV to renew his driver's licence. He looks much better in his new photo. He ran more errands, fixed our toilet that the handle broke off on (potty training can be rough), and then picked the boys up at 4pm. They ate a snack and played until it was time for their first swimming lessons. I asked him to take pictures for me because I couldn't get off work, but he couldn't find the camera. Oh well! They did awesome. Matt said that Noah was a little cheerleader to all of the kids saying things like "you can do it; don't be afraid; the water's not cold its perfect;" etc. He has a large vocabulary that's for sure. You never know what is going to come out of his mouth. Logan did wonderful too. Of course there were a few times that he got out of the pool when he wasn't supposed to, but I think that is normal for a 2 year old on his first day. When I got home from work they were so excited to tell me all about "swimming school". Matt was beaming with joy from watching them. He is such a proud dad.

Today-

We had a wonderful day thus far. We went to my grandfather's house and swam in his pool so he could see the kids. He loves to watch them grow up and interact with them. Matt is a big kid in the pool as well which the boys think is awesome! We swam for almost 2 hours and then we came home and ate lunch. The kids are finishing the last 5 minutes of Nemo while I am blogging before nap time. Matt is trying to debate what he wants to do for the rest of the day. He is starting to get kind of restless sitting around the house all of the time. He is looking forward to going back to work. Matt is a project oriented man, or better yet a very task oriented person. Since he hasn't been able to really do much around the house or anywhere for that matter the last 6 weeks, he has kind of been twiddling his thumbs if you know what I mean. At least this season is almost over! We talked to the oncologist office today, they have still been unable to discuss Matt's case with the oncologist at Duke University. So we are just waiting and are really in no rush to make a decision regarding radiation because he essentially has no more cancer in his chest. They said it will be a while before they do another PET scan because they have to wait until all of the internal inflammation goes down from Matt's surgery. Otherwise, it will give false results on the scan. So long story short, we will keep you posted on what ever we find out.

Long time no update...

Sorry about that. It has been a busy weekend. Lets get started...
Friday-
I worked and it was an incredibly wonderful day. I was the triage nurse and I only saw 2 patients all day long. VERY RARE! When I got home it was 8pm and I picked Logan up at my parents house. I ate dinner with them because Matt took Noah to a softball game. We came home around 930pm and put the boys to bed. Matt made doctors appointments in the morning, then he ran errands in the afternoon, and then he walked to my parents house. He ate dinner with them and then took Noah to a softball game with him. It was also Matt's brother Scott's birthday. Happy Birthday Scott!!!
Saturday-
Matt went down to Auburndale to help my uncle pack boxes to move from 830-330. When he came home, he rested in our room for about an hour uninterrupted. That is precious in this house. It can be a little bit chaotic here. As for myself and the other men in my life, well we had a grand old time together. We got up, got ready, watched the favorite movie of all time in this house (Mr. Incredible) while I was getting ready. Then my sister Jennifer kept Logan for me and I took Noah with me and we went to buy a new cell phone. Now for those of you whom have not seen my old phone it was ancient of days. I have had it for 6 years. I think it might have been one of the first models of camera phones. However, Noah manages to break that part of my phone when he was 8 months old. So as you can imagine it was pretty beat up. Ok... here goes the story... so I walk in the store, the guy goes (I believe his name was Christian) "can I help you", I say "well I think I need a lot of help, you see I have not updated my phone in 6 yrs so I don't really know where to begin". His eyes got so big and he got this huge smirk on his face like you've got to be kidding me, where has this chick been, stuck in the ice ages or something? So just when he regains his composure, my phone rings and I pull it out of my purse to silence it. Once I am done he asks to hold it. He takes a good look at it and announces to the store, "He guys, have you ever seen a phone so old before? Come check it out. It still works." They were all amazed by it. It was so embarrassing, which is pretty bad because it is really hard to embarrass me. After all, I am a nurse and have pretty much seen, heard, and smelled it all. So long story short... I have a new phone!! Later that afternoon I babysat my cousin's baby Jacob who is now 6 months old and weighing in at 12 lbs. He was born 10 weeks early. He's so cute!
Sunday-
We went to church... which was awesome! We really enjoy all of the friendships that we have developed there. God is so faithful and he meets our needs and is always there for us even when sometimes we feel alone in our circumstances. After church the fire department put together a benefit in Matt's name at Johnny's Filling Station. We had an excellent time getting to know different firefighters within his department. Our son Noah had a blast as well. I think he must have bummed at least $10 off of people for candy. I don't know for sure how much though. He won't let us touch it. He hid it in his night stand. We were so overwhelmed with emotion at the amount of love and support that everyone there showed. There is really no words to express our gratitude to all of you for everything that you have done for our family. There is no amount of time trades, no amount of money, no amount of food, or cards, or telephone calls that could EVER come close to repaying or expressing how much each and every single one of you have meant to us throughout this journey whether we know you or not... THANK YOU from the very bottom of our hearts! We love you and I can truly say that we do pray for all of you that God will bless you and meet your needs like He has blessed us and has continually met ours when we have needed Him to.

This morning the boys woke up so excited. They knew Reece was coming over and we would be doing something special. I was not feeling so wonderful when they woke us up. I think it was because I ate my lunch from the cafeteria grill at work yesterday. Matt took the kids downstairs and made them a bowl of cereal so I could sleep another 30 minutes to see if that would help, which I appreciated it. Once I woke up, we got ready, Reece came over and we went to Orange Lake Timeshares. It is over by station 32. They let us in to use their facilities because Matt is an Orange County Firefighter. We went on the lazy river, swam in the pool, and went on the beach and played in the sand. We had an awesome day! We were all completely worn out by the end of it. The boys were swimming under the water like fish. Even Logan! I was so proud of them! Noah and Logan are scheduled to start swimming lessons on Monday night. I thing they are going to be ahead of their class in some of the things they will be learning. That will be good for more reinforcement. I have to work again tomorrow and my sister will have the kids. Matt is going to have another day to himself to make more phone calls and get things done. Our home phone has not been working for a week now so that is on the top of his honey do list. We will post more later. Kids are crying.

The Present...

So our dog hates the rain right... I'm not sure if any of you have that problem or not but we do. Riley James Butschek is our 2 year old, 65 pound Golden retriever we adopted at the SPCA about a year ago. He was found in the pouring rain under a fence in the middle of no where with no tags. No one came to claim him, so 1 week later Matt adopted him while I was at work. Surprise!! At least he is a good dog. So back to my story... this dog is deathly afraid of rain, thunder, lightening... you get the picture. He pants, follows you around so you trip over him, whines if you go out of the room and won't let him go with you, and so on and so forth. So Matt gets home tonight after I put the boys to bed right (he went to get a movie) and Riley looks up at him, hears rain and thunder as he opens the door and vomits all over the floor. What a wonderful present!! The End! Isn't that great. I was laughing so hard. I guess you should have been here. It was pitiful to see the dog and Matt. Very sad, yet very funny. Now I'll back up and tell you about our day. I worked all day and we were so busy that we had to put a patient in the hallway until we could get a clean bed. (It was a full moon last night.) Matt on the other hand had a wonderful day making phone calls, he took a 3 mile walk to my parents and went swimming with the kids and hung out there for the rest of the evening until I picked them up after work. The boys stayed with my parents last night and today because Matt still can't lift them and care for them on his own. My parents put the jet ski's in the lake and swam all day. The boys had a blast! Still no word from the oncologist. We will keep you posted!!

Today was a lazy day at home hanging out with the boys. Usually we try to go swimming or to the park or do something to expend some energy in the morning. However, the thought of being out in the sun was definitely not appealing to me. My belly and forehead hurt the most, but mainly my belly. Clothes rubbing on it just stings, much less a seat belt and kids jumping all over me. Oh well. So with that being said, we hung out and played with our inside toys and watched Nemo. After our nap it started pouring down rain so we rented Bambi and ate chicken nuggets for dinner. We had a lot of fun having a family night watching Bambi. Wow! What a difference between today's movies and yesterday's movies. It was cute though. I definitely had to find things to point out to them to keep their attention during the movie. We usually don't let our kids watch TV/movies all day. I promise. This was just a really weird day. Both Matt and I were very lazy today. I don't know what our problem was. Matt just left to go out with some guys tonight. I think they went to go eat wings at Gators and play darts. It is good for him to get out and enjoy guy time every now and then. It's kind of like sex. If he doesn't get it every now and then, he gets grumpy. (But don't we all!) Anyways, tomorrow will be a much busier day. I am going to have my nephew Reece (who is 4 years old) all day. The plan is to go to the park and ware all of the boys out so they will take a great nap. We still have not heard anything from the oncologist so hopefully we will know something this week as far as if Matt will have to undergo radiation or not. Please pray for wisdom for the doctors and for us to know what we should do. Thanks!

Happy Father's Day!

Our weekend was jammed packed with lots of activity. On Friday I worked and Matt packed to go down to Clearwater Beach. His parents are out of town and allowed us to stay at their place for the weekend (kid free). We had a chance to visit with all of Matt's old friends from high school this weekend. It was great! Saturday we went out on Chris and Heidi Robinson's boat with Del Sable and his girlfriend Amanda. We went to an island and hung out all day. Even though I reapplied my lotion three times I got fried. Not good!! Definitely hurting today!! I am so upset with myself though. I am horrible at remembering to take pictures. I brought the camera with us so I could get some pictures and of course I still didn't get any. That night we went over to Chris and Heidi's house and hung out for about 40 minutes before we went to dinner. They just had a little baby boy they named Logan. He is 2 months old and just adorable. Then we went to the restaurant on the water at the sponge docks. We met up with Jeff and Heidi Lacy, Brad Toddle, Tim Sheridan along with Chris and Heidi. We had a great time getting together with everyone and hanging out. We can't wait until we can come back and bring the kids next time. Today Matt and I slept in and went out to breakfast together for his father's day. Then we went to Toy's R Us and Walmart. We had a lot of fun together. Like two kids in a candy store. When we got back to Matt's parents house we cleaned up, packed up, pottied the dog, and came home. The kids were so happy to see us. They are so adorable! I think they have grown since we have been gone. Matt thinks I am crazy. Noah was just talking up a storm just having a meaningful conversation with us about every little detail of his weekend and ours and Logan was trying to follow along. Logan and Noah both are 2 little brown bunnies. They are so tan I can hardly believe it. I think Logan's hair has gotten blonder and longer, which it needs a hair cut anyways, but still. I know, call me crazy... I guess that's why it is good to get a way every now and then so you have a chance to miss them and appreciate them and all of the chaos that comes with them. They are very worth every minute of it though!!! Happy Father's Day to all of you father's out there. I hope you have a very blessed day!