I can't believe it has been nearly 2 months since I last updated this! Well, there is a lot to say. I'm going to start off with our sad news first. Recently we lost a dear friend, Charlie Ellis. If you go back to the post on 9/18/08, you will see that I spoke about meeting a nice couple at Troy's first chemo treatment. Charlie is the man that I was speaking about. We kept in touch with them and kept up on how his treatment was going. Unfortunately, the cancer went from Charlie's lung to other parts of his body and then made it's way to his brain causing him to die. We had just visited him in Douglasville a few weeks prior to the phone call that his wife made to us saying that he had brain cancer and that hospice was at the house. It was a really nice visit. The kids had a good time visiting and Jerri, Charlie's wife, gave them a couple of collectible cars to take home with them. We can't say enough about how Charlie and Jerri took away so much gloom back on September 17th. They were so warm and friendly and talked about everything other than cancer. When you are in that chemo room, you are surrounded by chairs and people receiving treatment. You sit there and wonder what everyone's fate might be including your own, but Charlie sang and he talked about chili dogs and he temporarily took our fears away. Jerri was so giving. She let me know where I could get coffee and when I dropped my sandwich on the floor, she offered me hers. What can I say except that we will miss Charlie and so will a lot of other people that he touched. He is definitely making people smile up in heaven. And our thoughts and prayers are to Jerri and to all of Charlie's friends and family who are missing him.
Our boys have started school. Derek is in his 3rd week at Kennesaw Elementary and Ryan started at St. Catherine's Preschool yesterday. Derek has full days while Ryan goes from 9-12 just on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It was a very sad day yesterday. I hung around the "crying room" with some of the other moms who were concerned about their babies. Ryan was good right up until they went to take him out of the car from me and then he clung to me and started crying. This broke my heart tremendously. Needless to say, I do believe he enjoyed the day even though it was scary to him at first. A few more times and he should be a pro - and me too!
Anyway, Troy has been doing well. He just had an appointment at Dr. Riley's (the ENT) yesterday and all looked well. He will be going for his PET scan next month and if Dr. Goldsweig sees it come back clean, he said he would be moving him to every 6 months rather than every 3 months like it is now.
We have been busy getting the kids ready for school. We were able to meet Mr. & Mrs. Blackbird, from back home, for lunch at a Cracker Barrel recently. They dropped down from Tennessee after they had been visiting friends there. We were able to have lunch with them and their friends, so it was real nice to visit with a piece of "home". We also recently visited Chatanooga one weekend and then went to the Smokies, near Gatlinburg, the following weekend and stayed in a cabin owned by Steve Pridmore (a friend that we grew up with in Whitehall). It was nice to go to Tennessee and get away with the kids. Well, Ryan is tugging at me right now to get off the computer, so I'm going to hang out with my little guy and write again later.
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