Adding Tubes

Well.... Mayo went well a week and a half ago.  As well as can be expected. The liver abscess seemed to be healing well so they decided to pull the final remaining tube Michael had. (that was short lived..)  CT didn't show any  new tumor, which is a welcome comfort to Michael for the time being.  There is a new spot, very small- 5-6mm, on the lung that they aren't quite sure about.  It is too deep to biopsy so they are just going to watch it.  Last Friday Michael started to have a lot of pain in his liver again so I had a CT done which showed his cavity in the liver that previously had the tube in it, had filled back up with "yucky" stuff.  It was significant enough that the Dr's at Mayo thought it would be best to reinsert the tube.  Luckily for us it could be done locally so we didn't have to travel back to Mayo.  It was a rough weekend for Michael, the tube causes a lot of irritation and pain.  NO hunting for Michael.  Guess the wife has hunting duties to fill the freezer for the family.  And this snowplowing thing should be easy... just drop the blade and go like h----, at least that's what it looked like Michael did last year.  These hallucinations Michael has on pain medicine are getting pretty good....who needs late night TV!!

Sorry about the humor, but sometimes that is all you are left with to deal with the day to day.

We are holding off on any reattempts at Chemo at this point.  His liver is not healthy enough to be tortured by that and neither is Michael.  The kids are doing great.  Swim season has started and it is so exciting watching the boys tackle this new adventure this year.  All four kids are swimming, including their 2 cousins.  Between them, they can almost completely make up their own relay teams.  Soon all four kids will be either skiing or swimming every night and every Sat/Sun.  How fun is that as a parent??

Team Winter is up and running.  Incredible things have happened in the last month which I will post soon (yeah, I know....define soon-----soon in my book is "when I get to it").

I just wanted to briefly take 10 minutes out of my sleep to update you on Michael's status.  He is sleeping as we speak and probably wishes I would get off the computer.  I have had many requests recently to update the blog so here I am.  WE appreciate the huge volume of prayers that are going out, the homemade healthy food people are sharing with us and the love that surrounds us on a daily basis.  We are grateful for every day.

Dawn, Michael & Kids