Update 10/22/14

http://hoenigfamily.blogspot.com/

I am way behind on my blog however with minor changes it is the same each month, chemo, feeling lousy and then feeling good for a while then chemo again. I have had five sessions with one more to go, then some tests to determine the status of the cancer and what treatments etc. lie ahead. I have been fortunate to be able to tolerate the drugs, except for the minor side effects I have already related, the only lingering side effect is the neuropathy in my left fingers and it doesn’t seem to be as bad this time as after previous treatments. Enough of this now for what else we have been doing.

We bought a couple of chairs in August, one for the living room and one for the bedroom, well one of them had a small cut in the leather so Nebraska Furniture Mart said they would replace it, but it wouldn’t be until October. So here it is October and we hadn’t heard from NFM so I called them. “Oh we have one in stock, we’ll deliver it Oct 25”. We found that out only after we called them, so I don’t know if they were going to call us or they forgot, anyway we will get the chair this Saturday.

Eli, Daniel’s son, had a 4^th birthday party, Sept 21, I didn’t go but I heard it was a great time.

I did go to the house later in the week so I could see, play, with the toys Eli received.

Oct 25 Rick & Jana Nunemaker, they are full time RVers who stopped in town to say hi. We called Cindi & John Cline to have dinner together at Ragazzies, http://www.ragazzi-pizza.com/, good pizza. We had a great time.

October 1, we went to my uncle and aunt’s house, Ernie & Shirley Ertz, I wanted to go to Offutt AFB to get our military IDs but first we went to Stella’s for lunch, http://www.stellasbarandgrill.com/. Now I believe I have said this before but they have the best burger in town and the biggest, the Stellanator, http://www.stellasbarandgrill.com/stellanator/. Let me know if anyone wants to try to eat this thing, I’ll pay for it just to watch.

Thursday, Oct 2, I got some good news. It seems when the doctors did a CT scan on me they noticed something in the bladder and they didn’t like it so they did a cystoscopy on me. They insert a camera, they say it is smaller than a catheter but you would never know it, anyway bottom line is the urologist said he didn’t see anything in there, I was watching and I concurred with his not seeing anything to be concerned about. Of course there could have been anything in the bladder and I wouldn’t have known if it should be there or not. I am just thankful all is well in there.

Oct 9 Sarah and I went to Des Moines for a few days. We stayed at Cynthia’s, thank you for the hospitality. We left Omaha after Sarah’s dental appointment, she was scheduled to have her six month checkups for her cancer on Oct 13, so we decided to go a few days early and visit as many of our friends as possible. We weren’t able to see Norma & Orren Cairo, they had some nasty colds from the sound of them on the phone, we will try again later. I do try to stay away from anyone who is sick just as a precaution on my part. However, we did get to visit with John & Cathy Evans, Dick & Judi Wichael, fulltime RVers we met at Griff’s RV Park in Altoona, we met them for dinner at Smoky Ds BBQ, then went to John & Cathy’s house in Altoona. They have a very nice place, it is the open concept like ours with an attached garage, Sarah and I liked it a lot.

Friday, Oct 10, we met three young ladies I worked with at Marsh, Laurie Robinette, Marci Mallot and Marie Herring, met them at the Chicken Coop. We had a great visit with them. Marie, I don’t know how we missed having you in the past, it was great seeing you and I hope you can join us next time. In the evening we met Mike & Sheri Cord for dinner at a pizza place and I don’t remember the name of it but the pizza was very good. We always have a great visit with them.

Saturday, we met daughter Tiffany, Matt, Bryan and Alexa at the Olive Garden in Ankeny for lunch. We don’t get to see them as often as we would like but we always enjoy our visits. (Sidebar. Isn’t that the way it is with a lot of parents. The kids grow up, get married, have families and move away or the parents move and you don’t get to see them enough. All three of ours have developed lives outside of our circle and they should, they have to establish their own circle of friends. I am proud of all three kids in being able to establish and thrive in their current situations.) Anyway, Alexa likes to read and I was asking her about the books she reads, she even spent her own money to buy some books at the school book fair, I hope she continues to read a lot. All the grandkids like to read, so maybe they will take after me and become bookworms, I will buy them books whenever they want them.

Saturday night we met Russ & Candi Cerniglia for dinner at Smokey D’s. It was good to see them again, although we had seen Russ when he was passing through from Lincoln. Russ owns Russ and Frank’s BBQ sauce, it is very good sauce, http://www.russandfranks.com/, try it you will like it.

Sunday we hung out with Cynthia. I was able to get Cynthia to buy a new TV, her TV was 15 years old and the picture was so dark you couldn’t see much of the show you were watching. Anyway now she has a smart TV and it is hooked to the internet etc. so she is now enjoying some of the shows she has missed.

Monday, Oct 13, Sarah saw her surgeon and oncologist and received great reports from both of the, the cancer has not returned, she is good for another six months. We will now look for doctors here in Omaha so she doesn’t have to travel to Des Moines for her checkups. It was great news and the thank the Good Lord for that.

Then it was back to Omaha for another round of chemo.

After finishing my chemo on Friday we headed for Wisconsin and Mason’s birthday party the next day. I will tell you right now I know the inside of every rest stop on interstate 80 in Iowa. My chemo consists of 250cc of Saline and 250cc of the chemo drug, now that may not sound like a lot but let me tell you, you best not pass up the rest stops. Anyway we made it to Beloit, WI by six pm and checked into the Hampton Inn. We use to stay at the Holiday Inn Express, I do like their breakfast, but it has not been renovated in the ten years we have been going to Beloit and the Hampton is new and the same price so a no brainer as to where to stay.

We had cake and ice cream for Mason’s birthday at the house and then he had his friends to a bowling alley for a party. I guess they had a great time and from the pictures I would say they did. I didn’t go I guess the drive over was catching up on me and I was pretty sure it would be very noisy.

Sarah Ann’s parents, Dick & Terry Schneider stayed at the Hampton also, we had a great time with everyone. I plan on getting to Wisconsin more next year to see Mason play baseball. We are going to visit in December and I hope to see him play basketball. It is great to see how he is developing into a great young man. He was showing us some of the exercises he does to strengthen his legs for baseball, he is a catcher, and I am telling you there is no way I could do what he does. I don’t believe I could have done them when I was his age.

So here we are back in Omaha and enjoying the wonderful weather we are having. I need some long sleeve shirts and Kohl’s has a senior discount on Wednesdays so we are going there to see what we can find.

On a sad note, we lost a classmate of mine recently, Mark Steingreber. I have known Mark most of my life. Mark was a great guy, friend, husband, dad and all around individual. We had lunch together at the classmate luncheon the last time we were in Burlington and Mark and I sat next to each other. We talked about a lot of things but the one thing I will always remember is talking to him about books. Mark was never a “reader”, he read mostly car magazines but his wife finally got him reading books. So I was telling him some of the books I have read and he wrote one down and I was going a mile a minute giving him more titles and he said, “Wait a minute let me read this one first”, I guess I was giving him too much information, I said call when you get this one read, I won’t be getting that call. God Bless you Mark and may He greet you with a BIG hug from all of us here.

That is all for now, until later.