Sew sew

So yeah I'm hoping I turned a corner today. I still have lots of pain but I feel like its possible that it might go away.

Thanks for carefully celebrating the beginning of the end to the pain with me. You can use whatever punctuation you'd like now!

I think also that I'm discovering the tired they told me would be coming. I could go to sleep at any given moment. It's a big relief to be able to sleep but I can see that still being tired despite sleeping will get old pretty fast. We'll see.

Here are some more pictures from Saturday's quilting. Again sorry for so much duplication from Facebook but you always get the real directors cut here!

Dana joined us from the hospital!

I want you to notice that when Olivia accessorizes she sticks with it. Most kids would've worn the crown for a few minutes but Olivia COMMITS!

Jim had a power nap to gear up for the action!

Grandpa Henry was the first man at the quilt but Caleb and Jim soon joined in.

Grandma Marcia was happy to help too! It will be interesting to see what names the baby actually assigns Henry and Marcia. That is one lucky baby to have them in his life!

We had a lot of fun with Anne's Halloween wig!

Anne had a bunch of great bibs ready for decoration

Another great family time. I am so very very blessed!

Hey guess what?

Listen. I want to be very cautious about this but it seems like almost over night a lot of the sores have dried up! There's still a lot of painful red areas so I'm not exactly doing jumping jacks yet but I think there is room for a cautious woo hoo.

Can I hear a lower cap woo hoo? I'll let you know when we can go to all caps and exclamation marks but I'm going to choose to believe that's where we're headed!

Same old

More quilting pictures tomorrow, left the blogging too late, good news is that I slept last night, only waking up for pain pills! Pleasant day with football, cuddly cat and a pedicure.

The pain is the same old boring stupid self. Sometimes I think I should cut back on the pain pills so I wait an hour past the four hours then I'm sorry I did. Tomorrow it will be a week since my last treatment. I was SO sure I was going to be the exception to the rule that it keeps getting worse after the treatments stop but I guess not. I guess I should just be thankful it's not infected and I'm not on iv meds or something. She says as she knocks on all wood in vicinity and backs away slowly...

Only two days till baby Koehler arrives!

A quilting we will go!

Today we had a good old, new fashioned quilting at my sister Anne's place. The quilt is for Dana and Chris's little guy that we'll be meeting in the next little while. So very very excited!

Here are Melissa's pictures. I'll sort through mine tomorrow.

So lots more pictures tomorrow but I wanted to show you my prototype pillow maker!

Henry may have looked like the consummate pirate the other day but he's got the biggest heart ever and his engineering feat with foam is helping to keep me sane. It allows me to carry on with activities like today and playing cards - basically to not be laying in bed all the time.

When this is all over I'm going to show it to the folks at the cancer centre cause other than drugs it's what's helped me most.

The sores continue to travel up my groin toward my hip. Not sure what their mission is or what their final destination will be.

Shatupa your face!

Today we celebrated Dora's 84th ?birthday by going to King's buffet.

Bea forges ahead proudly punching automatic door openers with her cane.

And that my friend is how you get dog poop on your hand from a restaurant door!

I don't know if you know this but going to buffets with seniors is a bit complicated. You're watched like a hawk as to what you dare waste. And they can't try anything new unless they have a back up eater for the item on stand by.

Dora the birthday girl!

Alice will only eat Canadian food.

Bea says the Sprite allows her to eat the food but tragically couldn't finish it and because it was Chinese Alice couldn't help her and hey, it's a buffet, leave it on the table for the waitress to take away was my only help!

I like to freak them out by eating shrimp and sushi, though I'd hardly call it sushi here.

Dora doesn't take kindly to children in restaurants running around yelling. Her feeling on this matter were communicated loudly and with great clarity. "Hey kid, shut up and go sit down!" It was a draw. The kid ignored her and kept on having fun but the mother eventually locked her down.

After lunch three of us sat inside while Alice had her smoke and then she stopped at a few stores and finally for her staff of life!

The 2 new extra larges save her from having to buy 3 of the old size extra larges to last the day. I wouldn't dare drink a thimble of non decaf after 2pm these days.

We came home, and I thought I'd be able to sleep, Harry sure tried to help, but no luck.

Best nap/cuddle tutor ever!

I've decided that I may need to get Dora to yell at the radiation that's still working merrily away speeding along, producing new burns and what looks like huge bruises.

I'll give her a bull horn and have her yell: "Hey kid, shut up and go sit down!" That'll put a crimp in its tail!

The party

You can see the slideshow from the pirate party here

I think you can tell by the look on my face that I had a great time! Here are some stills too.

I don't even really remember taking these next pictures. I was already taking pictures of our little party so I guess I just kept doing it but I was shaking!

Like I said. I felt the floor move when my friends and family yelled and clapped and cheered. Karen says that they yelled Arrgh instead of surprise. Most of them had at least an eye patch on.

Dana was there via Skype from the hospital. Every day brings her closer to meeting her baby boy! Her father tortured her by showing her our good non hospital food!

They said I had to wear the antlers in order to get to spin the wheel but I wore the hat too!

I only landed one off from pie in the face so I just moved it. I can't really explain why I wanted it, I used to avoid coming near this place on my birthday but it just felt like the right thing to do and was even more fun with so many people!

Such a great party!! What a card Karen and the kids made and my nieces Deborah and Jen made us all pirate avatars on the spot!

I do need to say that the sores are still getting worse. I had kinda thought they weren't but surely in a day or two they will CUT IT OUT. I'm trying to decide wether to commit to using zinc which I couldn't use during radiation but used to work very well for me in the past.

As my friend Alice always says while play cards: "Sometimes you just have to commit!"

Oh and there's no pictorial evidence of this coming but I have currently switched over to large men's boxers for the duration so you can call me Sponge Bob Square Pants for a while!