Small Victory

For multiple reasons we don't post much on the adoption/guardianship of our eldest son Sam but today was a big day and very exciting day. After a very long 4 months and 4 long days in court the judge at 4:30 this afternoon terminated Sam's natural mothers rights!! Though these proceedings have been going on for 4 months this has been an on going issue for years now and finally we all see the light at the end of the tunnel..we could not be happier for our little boy and the life that lays ahead of him. We Love You Sam!!

Sorry for my tardiness on getting an update up!! But yesterday was a busy day. Not only did my mom have her surgery but we also had a family dinner night to attend at Sam's school (were he was going to be dancing and singing).

We are happy to announce that both events went well. Mom's margin cleaning was fast and recovery has been very easy. She is all ready up and about, she has been sewing all day long today.

Sam's dancing and singing was priceless. It was a Mexican themed evening and the kids Spanish teacher had taught them a Spanish partner dance and then song and dance. He did a great job and it was just to die for watching him twirl around with a little girl and having to be a little gentlemen. (I didn't know it was in him). The worst part was because of the surgery my dad was home with mom so he was not there to take pictures and I have misplaced my camera, so we missed the pictures!! =( I tried taking some with my phone, and will try downloading them later. If they are good I will upload them.

So all is good here. We are just taking it day by day. Wednesday is our next doc appointment, we expect to find out further about treatments then!

Weight lifting or "Wait before lifting"

As most are aware mom and I have been working out with a personal trainer for the last year now. We do everything with her cardio to weight lifting. Mom was even working out up to the days before surgery. Our trainer is very much into boot camp style training, so quite often we use 8-10lb weights and do 3 sets of 15-20reps of a variety of different upper body strength things in any given workout. So this morning, after my mom suggested for the fun of it lets take the kids to Starbucks for oatmeal and steamed milk, and I handed hear the the Starbucks across the table with only one lonely oatmeal in it, I had no idea of the scene that was about to unfold.......

My left handed mother reached for the bag, weighing in at I am guessing under 1lb were talking oz, I was holding above her venti latte.


She grabbed it, I let go after all this women was weighting lifting much heavier things in reps just a week ago.


Oh but then...The bag lost altitude at an alarming rate, but yet it was slow motion.


Nothing could be done, the venti latte was now a helpless victim, thrown down by the descending bag


....it was all over, latte..flew across the table like a waterfall cascading down all sides right into Serafina's lap, Mom's uggs and everything else in its path. Serafina was on her feet in her chair, Matteo did not seem phased, Sam grabbed his stuffed and ran for another table. Mom and I just laughed. Of course there was a line out the door, so the employees couldn't help us at that time but handed us paper towels and rags. We soaked, mopped, rung out what we could and then settled back in to finish our oatmeal and steamed milk. (Sam joined us now that is was clean again). Then....

Yes it happened, Serafina's steam milk somehow slipped straight out of her hands down to the floor and the flood happened all over again. Milk all over the uggs, flowing down grout, (thank goodness we had not given the paper towels back) we soaked it all up. It was then we decide to leave Starbucks, but not before I but a nice size tip in the jar!!

The lesson we learned was that maybe Nana, needs to wait (a little longer) before lifting things with her left arm still, she is definitly not up to her 8-10lb weights right now!

How is your Thursday?

Margins

I remember in school my teacher always stressing about margins. Making sure you didn't write in the margins and they were the right sizes, etc. Well today I learned that when you have a tumor removed it is important that you pay attention to your margins.

We went today for moms follow up with the surgeon and all looks good, minus one margin. What the pathology report said was they removed all the cancer but on one side the margin was only 1mm wide. Well our surgeon doesn't like that he prefers the margins to be wider, that insures that they really got ever last little tiny cancer cell that might have like to jump off like a little flee. What does that mean...well....Friday as in the day after tomorrow mom is going back under and he is going to widen that margin. It actually doesn't sound that bad, he goes back through the same incision and recovery is easier then what we have been doing because no lymph's are involved.

Lastly we found out that a few lymph's meant he took 14 of them. Six of the lymph's had cancer and 8 of them didn't. Therefore they are confident that all the cancer that went to the lymph's is out. But due to the fact that they did find cancer in the lymph's chemotherapy and radiation will be part of her follow up treatment, to insure that she stays and is cancer free. Again we will not know exact treatment regiment until we meet with the oncologist and radiologist which wont be until after the next surgery now!!

Until Friday..

Recovery(ing)

Well recovery has gone well around here. We ended up bring in a couple of these outdoor zero gravity type chairs for Nana to sit in. She found them to be the most comfortable to rest and relax. They stood up to their name, zero gravity, and mot of the pressure of her arm area. Here is a photo of her happily e-mailing, school I am sure:



After about the third day she was all about the house trying to sew, and be more of a productive member of the household. However that end in a huge afternoon nap!! A little to much to fast. All in all she is doing great. The hardest part is having a fully functioning brain without a fully functioning body. This morning holds promise though.

On a side note, my blogger friend Brianna reviewed a book that she loved and trusting her opinions I went ahead a purchased a copy. This week sitting around with mom allowed me a little extra time to read so I was able to start and finish, A Sane Woman's Guide to Raising a Large Family. It was a great book. Though I don't consider my "nuclear" family larger. I do consider our family struchter larger as there are currently 9 members that live under the roof. Many of the principle still applied! Also Matt and I are not done expand our "nuclear" family of eventually we might be large. So if anyone is looking for a good read:

Safe and Sound Minus the Mass

After a slow start to morning, the doctor's first surgery took longer then expected, mom was wheeled backed to her surgery which went off with flying colors! Her estimate time for surgery was somewhere between 1hr 15minutes and 1hr 45min, after 50min we were told she was out of surgery and everything went great.

They ended up taking out about 3 or 4 lymph nodes, and we will have the full pathology reports back on Thursday. Oh yes and they also removed the tumor!!!

Now Lynn is resting peacefully in bed with heavy narcotics. At least I think they are narcotics, they are some type of pain management drugs, and she has ice.

A cute story from today: our doctor whom is Dr. Hayashi, (for those of you not from the central coast, the Hayashi family is a well know family both in the medical community and in the agricultural community, particularly for their strawberries) mentioned a while back, jokingly, that strawberries just happen to help cure cancer, however only Hayashi strawberries. So in order to help the healing process today, Trevor and Jen made a special stop at the Hayashi strawberry stand and welcomed mom home with a beautiful fruit pizza... and after so many blogs with no pictures we finally have one of the cancer curing Hayashi strawberry heart fruit pizza:

Here we go!

The blog has turned into Lynn updates currently but that is ok, we will get back to regularly scheduled programing soon!

The new news this morning is we are headed out a little earlier then expect they want us at he surgery center at 7:45am. YEAH, in earlier out earlier as we see. Everything yesterday went well. Mom injections with radioactive ink went well, she was just glowing during American Idol!! HAHA!

A big thank you goes out to everyone who has offered to help out and who has helped out. We have such great family and friends! We have enjoyed great meals from a few, Thank you. We have had family said us awesome information on diet and nutrition, and yummy recipes! And big thank you to Noni, Nanny Zoe and Gramps, and Jennifer, whom are shuffling the kids over the next 24hr so that they will not be in my hair or at the house so Lynn can have a piece and quite on her return home. Oh yes and a thank you to the Kansas City crowd I hear a rumor that Velvet cream popcorn just might be buckled up next to Popop as I type!! OH MY GOSH, words can not express. Also to anyone I have forgot, thank you, you all are amazing and have been amazing.

Most of all thank you for your prayers and the your prayers for today. As you say your prayers today also keep in you prayers our good friend's Andy and Jeannette. At the same time mom goes in for her surgery this morning their son, Henry 23months, will be going in for heart surgery at UCLA, amazingly enough Henry surgery should be patient just kie moms! Technology is amazing!! Thank you we love you all and I will post late afternoon when we return home!